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The recent excavation of Spitzkloof Rockshelter in Namaqualand, South Africa is part of a larger project called AMEMSA: Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age. This project is aimed at answering the questions: How, when and under what environmental conditions were so marginal environments permanently colonized during the Middle Stone Age? With over 1500 Later Stone Age, 90 Middle Stone Age and 50 Early Stone Age sites in Namaqualand, evidence of occupation from this southern extension of the Namib Desert has potential to inform on how people used economic, technological and social strategies to adapt to the stress of this environment. In order to address these questions, the shelter was recently excavated in order to establish a chronological, palaeoenvironmental, and archaeological record for the region. Following a biogeographic model to interpret the faunal remains from the bottommost layers Brian and Genevieve, the results reflect evidence for an arid to semi-arid and therefore hard environment: the subsistence strategy is broad for the region and consists of arid adapted species found on the landscape today. Non-local yellow silcrete suggests the potential for higher levels of mobility than found in later layers. The presence of gypsum and Trigonephrus sp. land snails suggests an arid environment that may have been slightly more humid than today. Future research will include increasing the sample size through continued excavation, while a rigorous radiometric dating program and geomorphology study will hopefully more precisely identify the time frame of this occupation. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.