Witsand means “White Sand” and the name is derived from the colour of the sand, which contrasts against the surrounding red Kalahari sands. The Proclamation of Witsand as a Nature Reserve: The larger portion of the reserve was purchased in 1993 and the area gained nature reserve status on proclamation in April 1994. The nature reserve is approximately 3500ha in size, most of which comprises the unique dune system. Although, by comparison, Witsand is a relatively small reserve, it nevertheless has already gained popularity through its extraordinary splendour. Archaeological/Historical Significance: Witsand has, since it’s earliest times, been the hub of human activity because it was one of the few reliable sources of permanent water in the region. Archaeologists have found several Stone Age sites reflecting the changing lifestyles throughout many thousands of years. Pottery shards and stone tools reliably dated within the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries AD, reveal that Stone Age herders such as the Korana used the area. Tswana farmers also settled west of the Langberg but were forced back eastwards by droughts and conflicts before the nineteenth century AD. George Stow, a geologist, paid the "Wittesandt" a visit in 1872 and reported that "the only inhabitants at present living there are a small tribe of Bushmen" who retained "many of their old habits and customs." White traders and farmers began to settle along the Langberg in the late nineteenth century. To this day the stone walls erected by the Boer rebels, en route to the then German-occupied South West Africa (Namibia), on the high dunes to the east of the quartzite basin are visible. One can only imagine what thoughts have flowed through the minds and hearts of many people throughout the ages who have gazed across the vast Northern Cape landscape from that very vantage-point.