Gaborone: a dam, Kgale Hill and a buried Stone Age site

A 2018 account says Gaborone had about 4,000 residents when its dam entered service in 1964; the original plan allowed for 20,000, a limit exceeded by the mid-1970s. The authors describe the 2014–15 shortage through several pressures: drought, growing demand, water losses and limited natural inflows. They argue that small upstream farm dams are one part of the picture, not a complete explanation. The wall was raised in 1985 after severe southern droughts, and the 360 km Letsibogo–Gaborone pipeline was completed in 2000. Botswana Daily News reported a sharp swing: only 1.3% of capacity remained in February 2015, while heavy rain had filled the reservoir and caused it to spill by late February 2017.[1][2]

Kgale Hill is a granite landmark on Gaborone’s southern edge, rising 1,287 m above sea level. Building Game City in 2001–02 cut into buried archaeological deposits at Kgale View; salvage work collected 77 artefacts in situ from an exposed profile, with finds lying 1–3 m beneath the former surface; more came from trenches and spoil heaps. The authors think more deeply buried material is likely to remain under the complex. Three sediment samples gave results of 143,537 ± 24,487, 34,289 ± 4,130 and 32,434 ± 3,376 years BP. The artefacts’ pre-burial history cannot be established: the authors note that the duration of surface exposure, and any later re-exposure, is unknown. They therefore treat the dated results as minimum ages for the artefacts. They suggest that sediment accumulation may extend back nearly 150,000 years. They note that most handaxes are fragments and argue that most were deliberately broken, while saying more research is needed on how the tools were used and re-used.[3]

Alec Campbell proposed a museum in 1966; Kgosi Bathoen II chaired the museum’s founding board, and Campbell, Bathoen and Doreen Nteta shaped its focus on archaeology and natural history under the theme “Man and His Environment.” It opened in 1968. A 2018 anniversary account identifies the three as central to its establishment. Sandy Grant’s chapter, commissioned in 2006, records the collections at that time: 20,000 herbarium specimens, 20,000 archaeological artefacts and more than 8,000 ethnographic objects, alongside art and a library. Walker and Downey note that the museum holds handaxes from the Gaborone Dam site.[4][5][3]