Hofmeyr is a small Karoo town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, 20 km west of the Bamboesberg mountain range. It lies 64 km north-east of Cradock at an altitude of 1252 metres with a population of fewer than 2000. In former times it lay at the centre of a flourishing sheep-farming district and managed some salt pans 10 km to its west.
Founded in 1873, the town was initially named Maraisburg. To avoid confusion with the Gauteng area of Maraisburg it was renamed Hofmeyr in 1911 [1] in honour of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan), a campaigner for the equal treatment of Afrikaans and English and a prominent figure in the Eerste Taalbeweging.
The Hofmeyr Skull, belonging to a 36,000-year-old hominid, was found in 1952 in the dry wash of the Vlekpoort River just outside Hofmeyr.