The archaeology of southern most Africa from c. 2000 BP to the early 1800s: A review of recent research

Journal of African History

Volumn 46, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 209-241

  Mitchell, Peter ^a   Whitelaw, Gavin ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU NATAL   (South Africa)

Author keywords

Archaeology; Lesotho; South Africa; Swaziland

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE; PASTORALISM; SOCIAL CHANGE;

AFRICA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; SOUTHERN AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WORLD;

EID: 22944446074     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853705000770     Document Type: Review

References (246)

1. T. Maggs and G. Whitelaw, 'A review of recent archaeological research on food-producing communities in southern Africa', Journal of African History, 23 (1991), 3-24.
2. We cite radiocarbon dates only where absolutely necessary, and draw attention to the database of radiocarbon dates from the Pretoria dating facility compiled by the Quaternary Dating Research Unit (QUADRU) of South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, http:// www.quadru.co.za
3. See, for example, M. Hall, 'The archaeology of colonial settlement in southern Africa', Annual Review of Anthropology, 22 (1993), 177-200;
4. M. Hall and A. B. Markell (eds.), 'Historical archaeology in the Western Cape', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 7 (1993), 1-103;
5. chapter 13 in P. J. Mitchell, The Archaeology of Southern Africa (Cambridge and Cape Town, 2002);
6. southern African papers in A. M. Reid and P. J. Lane (eds.), African Historical Archaeologies (New York, 2004).
7. J. C. Vogel and A. Fuls, 'Spatial distribution of radiocarbon dates for the Iron Age in southern Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 54 (1999), 97-101;
8. see also J. C. Vogel, 'Radiocarbon dating of the Iron Age sequence in the Limpopo Valley', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 51-7.
9. 14C dates', Radiocarbon, 35 (1993), 317-22;
10. J. C. Vogel, A. Fuls, E. Visser and B. Becker, 'Pretoria calibration curve for short-lived samples, 1930-3350 BC', Radiocarbon, 35 (1993), 73-85.
11. T. N. Huffman, A Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Precolonial Farmer Societies in Southern Africa (forthcoming).
12. For an excellent discussion of the same issues in a West African context see S. K. McIntosh and R. J. McIntosh, 'Recent archaeological research and dates from West Africa', Journal of African History, 27 (1986), 413-42.
13. For example, J. C. Sealy and R. Yates, 'The chronology of the introduction of pastoralism to the Cape, South Africa', Antiquity, 68 (1994), 58-67;
14. C. A. Bollong and C. G. Sampson, 'Later Stone Age ceramic stratigraphy and direct dates on pottery: a comparison', Southern African Field Archaeology, 5 (1996), 3-16.
15. Vogel, 'Radiocarbon'.
16. C. G. Sampson, I. Bailiff and S. Barnett, 'Thermoluminescence dates from Later Stone Age pottery on surface sites in the Upper Karoo', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 52 (1997), 38-42;
17. F. Ohinata, 'Archaeology of iron-using farming communities in Swaziland: pots, people and life during the first and second millennia AD' (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2001);
18. J. H. Hobart, 'Forager-farmer relations in southeastern southern Africa: a critical reassessment' (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2003).
19. A. B. Smith, K. Sadr, J. Gribble and R. Yates, 'Excavations in the south-western Cape, South Africa, and the archaeological identity of prehistoric hunter-gatherers within the last 2000 years', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 46 (1991), 71-90.
20. P. B. Beaumont, A. B. Smith and J. C. Vogel, 'Before the Einiqua: the archaeology of the Frontier Zone', in A. B. Smith (ed.), Einiqualand: Studies of the Orange River Frontier (Cape Town, 1995), 236-64.
21. See especially C. Schrire, 'The archaeological identity of hunters and herders at the Cape over the last 2000 years: a critique', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47 (1992), 62-64;
22. and idem, 'Assessing Oudepost 1: a reply to Yates and Smith', Southern African Field Archaeology, 2 (1993), 105-6.
23. The principal rejoinders to these critiques are R. Yates and A. B. Smith, 'Ideology and hunter/herder archaeology in the south-western Cape', Southern African Field Archaeology, 2 (1993), 96-104;
24. and idem, 'A reevaluation of the chronology of Oudepost: a reply in part to Schrire', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 48 (1993), 52-53.
25. M. L. Wilson, 'The late Holocene occupants of Die Kelders: hunter-gatherers or herders?', Southern African Field Archaeology, 5 (1996), 79-83;
26. L. Webley, 'Jakkalsberg A and B: the cultural material from two pastoralist sites in the Richtersveld, Northern Cape', Southern African Field Archaeology, 6 (1997), 3-19.
27. Evidence supportive of Smith's model is presented by I. Parsons, 'Lithic expressions of Later Stone Age lifeways in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 58 (2003), 27-32.
28. The relevant archaeology is reported by H. J. Deacon, J. Deacon, M. Brooker and M. L. Wilson, 'The evidence for herding at Boomplaas Cave in the southern Cape, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 33 (1978), 39-65.
29. K. Sadr, A. B. Smith, I. Plug, J. Orton and B. Mütti, 'Herders and foragers on Kasteelberg: interim report of excavations 1999-2002', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 58 (2003), 27-32;
30. K. Sadr, 'Foragers and herders on Kasteelberg during the first millennium AD', The Digging Stick, 1 (2004), 1-4.
31. C. Henshilwood, 'A revised chronology for pastoralism in southernmost Africa: new evidence for sheep at c. 2000 b.p. from Blombos Cave, South Africa', Antiquity, 70 (1996), 945-9;
32. K. Sadr, 'The first herders at the Cape of Good Hope', African Archaeological Review, 15 (1998), 101-32.
33. Research in the Richtersveld just south of the Gariep River is also revealing a complexity of archaeological signatures difficult to slot into a simple hunter-gatherer/herder dichotomy; see L. Webley, 'Excavations at/hei-/khomas (Vaalhoek) in the Richtersveld, Northern Cape', Southern African Field Archaeology, 10 (2001), 46-74.
34. Sealy and Yates, 'Chronology';
35. J. C. Sealy and R. Yates, 'Direct radiocarbon dating of early sheep bones: two further results', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 51 (1996), 109-10.
36. The Blombos dates, reported in Henshilwood, 'Revised chronology', are 1960 ± 50BP (OxA-4543) and 1880 ± 55 BP (OxA-4544), calibrating to the first to second centuries AD. That from Spoegrivier, reported in Sealy and Yates, 'Chronology', is 2105 ± 65 BP (OxA-3862), which has a calibrated range at one standard deviation of 165 CAL BC - CAL AD 13. More recent work at Spoegrivier has confirmed a slightly younger AMS-dated presence for sheep in the second/third centuries AD, for which see L. Webley, 'The re-excavation of Spoegrivier Cave on the west coast of South Africa', Annals of the Eastern Cape Museums, 2 (2001), 19-49.
37. These new dates refute an earlier suggestion that sheep preceded pottery by several hundred years in the Spoegrivier sequence based on initial conventional radiocarbon dates reported by J. C. Vogel, I. Plug and L. Webley, 'New dates for the introduction of sheep into South Africa: the evidence from Spoegrivier Cave in Namaqualand', South African Journal of Science, 93 (1997), 246-8.
38. B. W. Smith and S. Ouzman, 'Taking stock: identifying Khoekhoen herder rock art in southern Africa', Current Anthropology, 45 (2004), 499-526.
39. E. Eastwood and W. Fish, 'Sheep in the rock paintings of the Soutpansberg and Limpopo River valley', Southern African Field Archaeology, 5 (1996), 56-69;
40. S. L. Hall and B. W. Smith, 'Empowering places: rock shelters and ritual control in farmer-forager interactions in the Northern Province', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 30-46.
41. The Magaliesberg sherds were reported by L. Wadley, Later Stone Age Hunters and Gatherers of the Southern Transvaal: Social and Ecological Interpretations (Oxford, 1987).
42. For the Waterberg finds from the site of Goergap, see M. van der Ryst, The Waterberg Plateau in the Northern Province, Republic of South Africa, in the Later Stone Age (Oxford, 1998).
43. A. M. Reid, K. Sadr and N. Hanson-James, 'Herding traditions', in P. J. Lane, A. M. Reid and A. Segobye (eds.), Ditswa Mmung: The Archaeology of Botswana (Gaborone, 1998), 81-100.
44. A date of 2260±60 BP (N-2314) from Situmpa is reported by N. Katanekwa, 'Some Early Iron Age sites from the Machili Valley of South Western Zambia', Azania, 13 (1978), 135-66.
45. A second determination (2330±65 BP; N-3426) from the site of Salumano A, in the same region of Zambia, is reported by D. W. Phillipson, 'The earliest South African pastoralists and the early Iron Age', Nsi, 6 (1989), 127-34. Both determinations were run on charcoal and neither site produced faunal remains of domestic livestock.
46. C. Ehret, An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400 (Oxford, 1998).
47. F. Chami and R. Chami, 'Narosura pottery from the southern coast of Tanzania: first incontrovertible coastal Later Stone Age pottery', Nyame Akuma, 56 (2001), 29-35.
48. A. B. Smith, Pastoralism in Africa: Origins and Development Ecology (London, 1992).
49. D. Gifford-Gonzalez, 'Animal disease challenges to the emergence of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa', African Archaeological Review, 17 (2000), 95-139.
50. Following here E. O. J. Westphal, 'The linguistic prehistory of southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot and Bantu linguistic relationships', Africa, 33 (1963), 237-65;
51. and R. Elphick, Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa (Johannesburg, 1985).
52. Sadr, 'First herders';
53. K. Sadr, 'The Neolithic of southern Africa', Journal of African History, 44 (2003), 195-209. Two sites at Toteng have been attributed by Huffman to early farming communities, consistent with his placement of Bambata ware within the Kalundu Tradition (see, below). The lack of structures and evidence for metalworking, the plentiful stone tools and the obvious stratigraphic disturbance at these sites makes this claim uncertain;
54. see Reid, Sadr and Hanson-James, 'Herding traditions'.
55. The role of climatic change in this adoption, and in the initial spread of sheep from the northernmost Kalahari, needs further investigation. Cooler, wetter conditions along the Namaqualand coast and Namibia may have facilitated the dispersal of sheep down the western flanks of southern Africa at the end of the first millennium BC; see D. M. Avery, 'Micromammals and the environment of early pastoralists at Spoeg River, Western Cape Province, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47 (1992), 116-21;
56. and L. Scott, 'Palynology of hyrax middens: 2000 years of palaeoenvironmental history in Namibia', Quaternary International, 33 (1996), 73-9. The impact of colder conditions, in particular, on the plant foods, small game (and, on the coast, shellfish) on which foragers depended for many of their subsistence needs also warrants further enquiry.
57. A. Jerardino, 'Changing social landscapes of the western Cape coast of South Africa over the last 4500 years' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town, 1996).
58. 13C measurements of Holocene human skeletal remains from the south-western Cape, South Africa', World Archaeology, 20 (1988), 87-102;
59. for a critical discussion, with references to earlier exchanges, see J. E. Parkington, 'Mobility, seasonality and southern African hunter-gatherers', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 56 (2001), 1-7.
60. J. C. Sealy and S. Pfeiffer, 'Diet, body size and landscape use among Holocene people in the southern Cape, South Africa', Current Anthropology, 71 (2000), 642-55. A related study examining how material culture was used to signal social differences among spatially tightly packed groups in the Plettenberg Bay area is underway;
61. Ben Ludwig, pers.comm.
62. J. E. Parkington, 'Changing views of the Later Stone Age of South Africa', Advances in World Archaeology, 3 (1984), 89-142;
63. S. L. Hall, 'Hunter-gatherer-fishers of the Fish River Basin: a contribution to the Holocene prehistory of the eastern Cape' (D.Phil. thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 1990).
64. T. W. W. Tonner, 'A spatial database for the Later Stone Age site "Dunefield Midden" (Western Cape, South Africa)' (M.A. thesis, University of Cape Town, 2002);
65. Brian Stewart, pers. comm. One of the most recently published papers pertaining to the site examines the stone tool industries recovered from it;
66. see J. Orton, 'Patterns in stone: the lithic assemblage from Dunefield Midden, Western Cape, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 57 (2002), 31-7.
67. The site is also discussed by the late Susan Kent, 'Invisible gender - invisible foragers: southern African hunter-gatherer spatial patterning and the archaeological record', in S. Kent (ed.), Gender in African Prehistory (Walnut Creek, 1998), 39-68.
68. The importance of detailed investigations of such open-air sites is emphasized by J. E. Parkington's paper in the same volume, 'Resolving the past: gender in the Stone Age archaeological record of the Western Cape', 25-38.
69. A. Kandel and N. Conard, 'Scavenging and processing of whale meat and blubber by Later Stone Age people of the Geelbek Dunes, Western Cape Province, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 58 (2003), 91-3.
70. Genevieve Dewar, pers. comm.
71. I. Plug, P. J. Mitchell and G. N. Bailey, 'Animal remains from Likoaeng: a post-classic Wilton open-air fishing campsite on the Senqu River, Lesotho', South African Journal of Science, 99 (2003), 143-52.
72. L. Webley, 'Jakkalsberg A' and 'Wives and sisters; changing gender relations among Khoe pastoralists in Namaqualand', in L. Wadley (ed.), Our Gendered Past: Archaeological Studies of Gender in Southern Africa (Johannesburg, 1997), 167-208;
73. A. B. Smith, D. Halkett, T. Hart and B. Mütti, 'Spatial patterning, cultural identity and site integrity on open sites: evidence from Bloeddrift 23, a pre-colonial herder camp in the Richtersveld, Northern Cape Province, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 56 (2001), 23-33.
74. The key papers are: K. Sadr and C. G. Sampson, 'Khoekhoe ceramics of the upper Seacow River valley', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 54 (1999), 3-15;
75. C. G. Sampson and J. C. Vogel, 'Radiocarbon chronology of Later Stone Age pottery decorations in the upper Seacow valley', Southern African Field Archaeology, 4 (1995), 84-94;
76. and C. A. Bollong, J. C. Vogel, L. Jacobson, W. van der Westhuizen and C. G. Sampson, 'Direct dating and identity of fibre temper in pre-contact Bushman (Basarwa) pottery', Journal of Archaeological Science, 20 (1993), 41-55.
77. C. G. Sampson, 'Spatial organization of Later Stone Age herders in the upper Karoo', in G. Pwiti and R. Soper (eds.), Aspects of African Archaeology (Harare, 1996), 317-26.
78. C. G. Sampson, 'Ostrich eggs and Bushman survival on the north-east frontier of the Cape Colony, South Africa', Journal of Arid Environments, 26 (1994), 383-99.
79. Relevant papers include S. Saitowitz and C. G. Sampson, 'Glass trade beads from rock shelters in the Upper Karoo', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47 (1992), 94-103;
80. R. Moir and C. G. Sampson, 'European and Oriental ceramics from rock shelters in the Seacow valley', Southern African Field Archaeology, 2 (1993), 35-43;
81. W. Westbury and C. G. Sampson, 'To strike the necessary fire: acquisition of guns by Seacow valley Bushmen', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 48 (1993), 26-31;
82. C. G. Sampson, 'Acquisition of European livestock by the Seacow River Bushmen between AD 1770-1890', Southern African Field Archaeology, 4 (1995), 30-6;
83. I. Plug and C. G. Sampson, 'European and Bushman impacts on Karoo faunas in the nineteenth century: an archaeological perspective', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 51 (1996), 26-31.
84. T. M. Evers, 'The recognition of groups in the Iron Age of southern Africa' (Ph.D. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1988);
85. J. H. N. Loubser, 'The ethnoarchaeology of Venda-speakers in South Africa', Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum (Bloemfontein), 7 (1991), 146-464.
86. T. N. Huffman, Iron Age Migrations: The Ceramic Sequence in Southern Zambia - Excavations at Gundu and Ndonde (Johannesburg, 1989);
87. T. N. Huffman, 'Regionality in the Iron Age: the case of the Sotho-Tswana', Southern African Humanities, 14 (2002), 1-22;
88. Huffman, pers. comm.
89. Ndondonwane, name site of the Ndondonwane phase, is an exception here in having occupation material just of that period; see T. Maggs, 'Ndondonwane: a preliminary report on an early Iron Age site on the lower Tugela River', Annals of the Natal Museum, 26 (1984), 71-94;
90. J. H. N. Loubser, 'Ndondonwane: the significance of features and finds from a ninth-century site on the lower Thukela River, Natal', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 5 (1993), 109-51;
91. L. O. van Schalkwyk, H. J. Greenfield and T. Jongsma. 'The Early Iron Age site of Ndondonwane, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: preliminary report on the 1995 excavations', Southern African Field Archaeology, 6 (1997), 61-77;
92. and H. J. Greenfield and L. O. van Schalkwyk, 'Intra-settlement social and economic organization of Early Iron Age farming communities in southern Africa: a view from Ndondonwane', Azania 38 (2003), 121-38.
93. T. N. Huffman, 'Broederstroom and the Central Cattle Pattern', South African Journal of Science, 89 (1993), 220-6;
94. G. Whitelaw, 'Lydenburg revisited: another look at the Mpumalanga Early Iron Age sequence', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 51 (1996), 75-83.
95. See Mitchell, The Archaeology (chapter 10), for more detail on this sequence, though note that, as emerges later in our discussion, assessments have also moved on in some respects since this was written.
96. M. Klapwijk and T. N. Huffman, 'Excavations at Silver Leaves: a final report', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 51 (1996), 84-93;
97. G. Whitelaw and M. Moon, 'The distribution and ceramics of pioneer agriculturists in KwaZulu-Natal', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 8 (1996), 53-79.
98. T. N. Huffman treats Bambata as the first phase of the Kalundu Tradition and relates it to pottery from Benfica, Angola; see T. N. Huffman, 'Ceramics, settlements and Late Iron Age migrations', African Archaeological Review, 7 (1989), 155-82.
99. A contrary reading of the ceramic evidence would undo this link, connecting Benfica instead to the central African Naviundu Tradition; see J. R. Denbow, 'Congo to Kalahari: data and hypotheses about the political economy of the western stream of the Early Iron Age', African Archaeological Review, 8 (1990), 139-75. As discussed above, Bambata's place within the Kalundu Tradition has also been questioned.
100. A possibly even later survival may be indicated by the Eiland-derived pottery found elsewhere in southern Botswana as late as the seventeenth century; see A. Campbell, G. Holmberg and C. van Waarden, 'A note on recent archaeological research around Gaborone', Botswana Notes and Records, 23 (1991), 288-90.
101. Ohinata, 'Archaeology';
102. A. Meyer, ''n Kultuurhistoriese interpretasie van die Ystertydperk in die Nasionale Krugerwildtuin' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pretoria, 1988);
103. T. Huffman, 'The archaeology of the Nguni past', Southern African Humanities, 16 (2004), 79-111.
104. T. Nogwaza, 'Early Iron Age pottery from Canasta Place, East London district', Southern African Field Archaeology, 3 (1994), 103-6.
105. For the first two of these sites see G. Whitelaw, 'Customs and settlement patterns in the first millennium AD: evidence from Nanda, an Early Iron Age site in the Mngeni Valley, Natal', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 5 (1993), 47-81;
106. and idem, 'KwaGandaganda: settlement patterns in the Natal Early Iron Age', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 6 (1994), 1-64.
107. For Ndondonwane see Loubser, ' Ndondonwane', and van Schalkwyk, Greenfield and Jongsma, 'Early Iron Age'.
108. For the other sites in the Thukela Valley see L. O. van Schalkwyk, 'Mamba confluence: a preliminary report on an Early Iron Age industrial centre in the lower Thukela Basin, Natal', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 6 (1994), 119-52;
109. idem, 'Wosi: an Early Iron Age village in the lower Thukela Basin, Natal', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 6 (1994), 65-117;
110. and idem, 'Settlement shifts and socio-economic transformations in early agriculturist communities in the lower Thukela Basin', Azania, 29/30 (1994/5), 187-98.
111. Further evidence of this comes from coastal shell middens, as reported by L. Horwitz, T. Maggs and V. Ward, 'Two shell middens as indicators of shellfish exploitation patterns during the first millennium AD on the Natal North Coast', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 3 (1991), 1-28.
112. A Kuper, 'Symbolic dimensions of the southern Bantu homestead', Africa, 1 (1980), 8-23;
113. Huffman, 'Broederstroom'.
114. Huffman, 'Broederstroom';
115. idem, 'The antiquity of lobola', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 53 (1998), 57-62;
116. and idem, 'The Central Cattle Pattern and interpreting the past', Southern African Humanities, 13 (2001), 19-35.
117. As raised, for example, by M. Hall, 'Archaeology and modes of production in precolonial southern Africa', Journal of Southern African Studies, 14 (1987), 1-17;
118. and see also discussion in Maggs and Whitelaw, 'Review'.
119. Huffman, 'Central'.
120. This recognition helps refute objections raised by, for example, N. Pearson, 'Survey and excavation work at the late Iron Age site of Modipe Hill, Kgatleng District, Botswana, in Pwiti and Soper (eds.), Aspects of African Archaeology, 565-71,
121. and, on a less site-specific level, by P. J. Lane, 'The use and abuse of ethnography in Iron Age studies of southern Africa', Azania, 29/30 (1994/5), 51-64;
122. and idem, 'Engendered spaces, bodily practices in the Iron Age of southern Africa', in Kent (ed.), Gender in African Prehistory, 179-204.
123. Loubser, 'Ndondonwane';
124. T. Maggs and V. Ward, 'Early Iron Age sites in the Muden area of Natal', Annals of the Natal Museum, 26 (1984), 105-40;
125. D. Miller and G. Whitelaw, 'Early Iron Age metalworking from the site of KwaGandaganda, Natal, South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 49 (1994), 79-89.
126. J. A. Calabrese, 'Metals, ideology and power: the manufacture and control of materialised ideology in the area of the Limpopo-Shashe confluence, c. AD 900 to 1300', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 100-11;
127. J. van Schalkwyk, 'Archaeological investigations of the Beauley Early Iron Age site in the Blouberg, Northern Province', Southern African Field Archaeology, 7 (1998), 35-41.
128. Whitelaw, 'Lydenburg';
129. Loubser, 'Ndondonwane'.
130. A. Morris, 'Human remains from the Early Iron Age sites of Nanda and kwaGandaganda, Mngeni Valley, Natal, South Africa', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 5 (1993), 83-98;
131. Whitelaw, 'Customs'.
132. G. Whitelaw, 'A brief archaeology of agriculturists in KwaZulu-Natal', in B. Carton and J. Sithole (eds.), Being Zulu: Contesting Identities Past and Present (Pietermaritzburg, forthcoming);
133. for a slightly different interpretation of the rites of passage involved in structured pot depositions see G. Whitelaw, 'Towards an Early Iron Age worldview: some ideas from KwaZulu-Natal', Azania, 29/30 (1994/ 5), 37-50.
134. T. Maggs, 'Iron Age settlement and subsistence strategies in the Tugela River Basin, Natal', in M. Hall, G. Avery, D. M. Avery, M. L. Wilson and A. J. B. Humphreys (eds.), Frontiers: Southern African Archaeology Today (Oxford, 1984), 194-206.
135. Huffman, 'Ceramics'.
136. C. Ownby, 'Early Nguni history: the linguistic evidence and its correlation with archaeology and oral tradition' (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1985).
137. Huffman, 'Ceramics';
138. T. Huffman and R. Herbert, 'New perspectives on Eastern Bantu', Azania, 29/30 (1994/5), 27-36;
139. W. D. Hammond-Tooke, 'Southern Bantu origins: light from kinship terminology', Southern African Humanities, 16 (2004), 71-8.
140. F. Ohinata, 'The beginning of "Tsonga" archaeology: excavations at Simunye, north-eastern Swaziland', Southern African Humanities, 14 (2002), 23-50.
141. O. Davies, 'Excavations at the walled Early Iron-Age site in Moor Park near Estcourt, Natal', Annals of the Natal Museum, 22 (1974), 289-323.
142. T. Maggs, Iron Age Communities of the Southern Highveld (Pietermaritzburg, 1976).
143. Initial evidence came from a study by M. Hall, 'Dendrochronology, rainfall and human adaptation in the Late Iron Age of Natal and Zululand', Annals of the Natal Museum, 22 (1976), 693-703.
144. It is supported by a slightly younger sequence published by J. F. Thackeray, 'Ring width variation in a specimen of South African Podocarpus, circa 1350-1937', Palaeoecology of Africa, 24 (1996), 233-40.
145. Huffman, 'Regionality';
146. Maggs, Iron Age Communities.
147. Vogel and Fuls, 'Spatial'.
148. T. N. Huffman, 'Archaeological evidence for climatic change during the last 2000 years in southern Africa', Quarternary International, 33 (1996), 55-60;
149. J. Lee Thorp, J. C. Sealy and A. Morris, 'Isotopic evidence for diets of prehistoric farmers in South Africa', in J. Lambert and G. Grupe (eds.), Prehistoric Human Bone: Archaeology at the Molecular Level (Berlin, 1993), 99-120.
150. J. J. B. Dreyer, 'The Iron Age archaeology of Doornpoort, Winburg, Orange Free State', Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum (Bloemfontein), 8 (1992), 261-390;
151. idem, 'A report on the archaeology of the QwaQwa Museum site', Southern African Field Archaeology, 1 (1992), 78-87;
152. and idem, 'Tlokwa history: report on an archaeological survey of stone-walled sites in the north-eastern Free State', Southern African Field Archaeology, 8 (1999), 46-55.
153. Maggs, 'Iron Age';
154. and idem, 'Mabhija: pre-colonial developments in the Tugela Basin', Annals of the Natal Museum, 25 (1982), 123-41.
155. Comparable relations of mutual dependency are discussed for KwaZulu-Natal's Babanango Plateau by M. Hall and K. Mack, 'The outline of an eighteenth century economic system in south-east Africa', Annals of the South African Museum, 91 (1983), 163-94,
156. and for the Mpumalanga lowveld by I. Plug and J. C. C. Pistorius, 'Animal remains from industrial Iron Age communities in Phalaborwa, South Africa', African Archaeological Review, 16 (1999), 155-84.
157. Huffman, 'Regionality'.
158. J. C. C. Pistorius, 'Molokwane: a seventeenth century Tswana village', South African Journal of Ethnology, 20 (1994), 38-54;
159. see also J. C. C. Pistorius, 'Rathateng and Mabyanamatshwaana: cradles of the Kwena and Kgatla', South African Journal of Ethnology, 18 (1995), 49-64.
160. J. C. A. Boeyens, 'In search of Kaditshwene', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 55 (2000), 3-17.
161. S. L. Hall, 'Archaeological indicators for stress in the Western Transvaal Region between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries', in C. A. Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath (Johannesburg, 1995), 307-21;
162. and idem, 'A consideration of gender relations in the Late Iron Age "Sotho" sequence of the western highveld, South Africa', in Kent (ed.), Gender in African Prehistory, 235-58.
163. J. C. C. Pistorius and M. Steyn, 'Iron working and burial practices amongst the Kgatla-Kwena of the Mabyanamatshwaana complex', Southern African Field Archaeology, 4 (1995), 68-77.
164. J. C. A. Boeyens, 'The Late Iron Age sequence in the Marico and early Tswana history', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 58 (2003), 63-78.
165. Hall, 'Archaeological indicators'.
166. Boeyens, 'The Late Iron Age';
167. P. J. Lane, 'Re-constructing Tswana townscapes: toward a critical historical archaeology', in Reid and Lane (eds.), African Historical Archaeologies, 269-99.
168. T. N. Huffman, 'The Waterberg research of Jan Aukema', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 45 (1990), 117-19.
169. J. H. N. Loubser, 'Ndebele archaeology of the Pietersburg area', Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum (Bloemfontein), 10 (1994), 61-147.
170. M. H. Schoeman, 'Excavating Ndundza Ndebele identity at KwaMaza', Southern African Field Archaeology, 7 (1998), 42-52;
171. and idem, 'Material culture "under the animal skin": excavations at Esikhunjini, a Mfecane period Ndzundza Ndebele site', Southern African Field Archaeology, 7 (1998) 72-81.
172. Dreyer, 'The Iron Age'.
173. Hall, 'Archaeological indicators';
174. J. J. B. Dreyer, 'Thaba Bosiu, mountain fortress of Lesotho', in J. J. B. Dreyer, J. S. Brink, Z. L. Henderson and S. Ouzman (eds.), Guide to Archaeological Sites in the Free State and Lesotho (Bloemfontein, 1996), 37-46;
175. W. R. Perry, Landscape Transformations and the Archaeology of Impact: Social Disruption and State Formation in Southern Africa (New York, 1999);
176. J. C. C. Pistorius, 'The Matabele village which eluded history (Part 1)', South African Journal of Ethnology, 20 (1997), 26-38,
177. and '(Part 2)', South African Journal of Ethnology, 20 (1997), 43-55.
178. I. Plug and F. Roodt, 'The faunal remains from recent excavations at uMgungundlovu', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 45 (1990), 47-52;
179. F. Roodt, 'Evidence for girls' initiation rites in the Bheje umuzi at Mgungundlovu', South African Journal of Ethnology, 15 (1992), 9-140;
180. idem, 'Koning Dingane se woonhut by Mgungundlovu', South African Journal of Ethnology, 15 (1992), 95-101;
181. and idem, ''n Rekonstruksie van geelkoperbewerking by Mgungundlovu' (M.A. thesis, University of Pretoria, 1993);
182. E. J. Watson and V. Watson, 'Of commoners and kings: faunal remains from Ondini', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 45 (1990), 33-46.
183. G. Whitelaw, 'Preliminary results of a survey of Bulawayo, Shaka kaSenzangankhona's capital from about 1820 to 1827', Southern African Field Archaeology, 3 (1994), 107-9.
184. Huffman, 'Archaeological evidence'.
185. Boeyens, 'The Late Iron Age'.
186. J. H. N. Loubser and G. Laurens, 'Depictions of domestic ungulates and shields: hunter/gatherers and agropastoralists in the Caledon River Valley area', in T. A. Dowson and J. D. Lewis-Williams (eds.), Contested Images: Diversity in Southern African Rock Art Research (Johannesburg, 1994), 83-118.
187. L. Wadley and G. McLaren, 'Tandjiesberg Shelter, eastern Free State, South Africa', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 10 (1998), 19-32.
188. I. Plug and R. Engela, 'The macrofaunal remains from recent excavations at Rose Cottage Cave, Orange Free State', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47 (1992), 16-25.
189. Wadley and McLaren, 'Tandjiesberg';
190. Hobart, 'Forager-farmer relations'.
191. The Likoaeng date in question is GrA-23237 (1285 ± 40 BP, calibrating to cal AD 701 [773] 800). It matches almost exactly a second, charcoal determination for the same layer (Pta-7877, 1310 ± 80 BP, calibrating to cal AD 670 [769] 874), as well as the likely age of the decorated sherd; AMS dating of iron from the same layer is underway (Stephan Woodborne, pers. comm.).
192. Sadr, 'First herders'.
193. A. D. Mazel, 'Early pottery from the eastern part of southern Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47 (1992), 3-7;
194. and idem, 'Collingham Shelter: the excavation of late Holocene deposits, Natal, South Africa', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 4 (1992), 1-51.
195. The more conservative position implied by the Collingham Shelter dates has been reinforced by more recent excavations at another KwaZulu-Natal rock-shelter, for which see A. D. Mazel, 'iNkolimahashi Shelter: the excavation of Later Stone Age rock-shelter deposits in the central Thukela Basin, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 11 (1999), 1-21.
196. Van der Ryst, The Waterberg Plateau;
197. A. D. Mazel, 'People making history: the last ten thousand years of hunter-gatherer communities in the Thukela Basin', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 1 (1989), 1-168.
198. L. Wadley, 'Changes in the social relations of precolonial hunter-gatherers after agropastoral contact: an example from the Magaliesberg, South Africa', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 15 (1996), 205-17.
199. S. L. Hall, 'Forager lithics and early Moloko homesteads at Madikwe', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 12 (2000), 33-50.
200. W. D. Hammond-Tooke, 'Selective borrowing? The possibility of San shamanistic influence on Southern Bantu divination and healing practices', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 53 (1998), 9-15;
201. S. Ouzman, 'Thaba Sione: place of rhinoceroses and rock art', African Studies, 55 (1996), 31-59.
202. T. Maggs, 'Neglected rock art: the rock engravings of agriculturist communities in South Africa', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 50 (1995), 132-42;
203. T. Maggs and V. Ward, 'Rock engravings by agriculturist communities from savanna areas of the Thukela Basin', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 7 (1995), 17-40.
204. Examples include F. E. Prins and S. Hall, 'Expressions of fertility in the rock art of Bantu-speaking agriculturists', African Archaeological Review, 12 (1994), 177-203;
205. and Smith and Ouzman, 'Taking stock'.
206. Classic texts in this regard are P. Vinnicombe, People of the Eland (Pietermaritzburg, 1976);
207. and J. D. Lewis-Williams, Believing and Seeing: Symbolic Meanings in Southern San Rock Paintings (New York, 1981).
208. See, for example, F. E. Prins, 'Southern Bushman descendants in the Transkei - rock art and rainmaking', South African Journal of Ethnology, 13 (1990), 110-16;
209. and P. Jolly and F. E. Prins, 'M - a further assessment', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 49 (1994), 16-23.
210. Impressively detailed correlations between historical records, many of them newly located, and specific rock art sites in the Maclear region of South Africa's Eastern Cape Province have been examined by Geoff Blundell, Nqabayo's Nomansland: San Rock Art and the Somatic Past (Uppsala, 2004).
211. Landscape approaches are discussed by Ouzman, 'Thaba Sione', and P. Taçon and S. Ouzman, 'Worlds within stone: the inner and outer rock-art landscapes of northern Australia and southern Africa', in C. Chippindale and G. Nash (eds.), The Figured Landscapes of Rock Art (Cambridge, 2004), 39-68.
212. Pointing to the scarcity of relevant ethnographic observations for southern Africa, the paper by B. W. Smith and G. Blundell in the same volume, 'Dangerous ground: a critique of landscape in rock-art studies', 239-62, takes a more cautious approach to the possibilities of understanding the cultural landscape which rock art helped create.
213. See, for example, P. Jolly, 'Melikane and Upper Mangolong revisited: the possible effects on San art of symbiotic contact between south-eastern San and southern Sotho and Nguni communities', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 50 (1995), 68-80;
214. A. C. Solomon, 'The myth of ritual origins? Ethnography, mythology and interpretation of San rock art', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 52 (1997), 3-13;
215. J. E. Parkington, 'Eland and therianthropes in southern African rock art: when is a person an animal?', African Archaeological Review, 20 (2003), 135-48;
216. and E. Eastwood and C. Cnoops, 'Capturing the spoor: towards explaining kudu in San rock art of the Limpopo-Shashi confluence area', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 54 (1999), 107-19.
217. S. Ouzman and L. Wadley, 'A history in paint and stone from Rose Cottage Cave, South Africa', Antiquity, 71 (1997), 386-404.
218. T. Russell, 'The application of the Harris Matrix to San rock art at Main Caves North, KwaZulu-Natal', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 55 (2000), 60-70;
219. J. Hughes and A. C. Solomon, 'A preliminary study of ochres and pigmentaceous materials from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: towards an understanding of San pigment and paint use', Natal Museum Journal of Humanities, 12 (2000), 15-31;
220. A. D. Mazel and A. L. Watchman, 'Dating rock paintings in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg and the Biggarsberg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa', Southern African Humanities, 15 (2003), 59-73.
221. T. Maggs (ed.), 'African naissance: the Limpopo Valley 1000 years ago', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 1-126.
222. T. N. Huffman, Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe (Johannesburg, 1996);
223. A. Meyer, The Archaeological Sites of Greefswald (Pretoria, 1998).
224. Critiques of Huffman's interpretations of the spatial patterning of Zimbabwe Culture sites, with his reply to them, can most readily be found in the South African Archaeological Bulletin, 52 (1997), 125-43.
225. Graphic evidence supporting status differences at K2/Mapungubwe comes from the gold-equipped burials on Mapungubwe Hill (see Meyer, Archaeological) and from a recently discovered infant grave at K2 reported by M. Steyn, W. C. Nienaber, M. Loots, J. Meiring and A. Meyer, 'An infant grave from K2 (Greefswald)', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 54 (1999), 102-6.
226. T. N. Huffman, 'Mapungubwe and the origins of the Zimbabwe culture', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 14-29.
227. M. Wood, 'Making connections: relationships between international trade and glass beads from the Shashe-Limpopo area', South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 78-90.
228. J. van Schalkwyk and E. Hanisch (eds.), Sculptured in Clay: Iron Age Figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa (Pretoria, 2002).
229. J. A. Calabrese, 'Interregional interaction in southern Africa: Zhizo and Leopard's Kopje relations in northern South Africa, southwestern Zimbabwe and eastern Botswana, AD 1000 to 1200', African Archaeological Review, 17 (2000), 183-210.
230. Recent surveys of work in Botswana are given by A. Segobye, ' Early farming communities', and C. van Waarden, 'The Late Iron Age', in Lane, Reid and Segobye (eds.), Ditswa Mmung, 101-14 and 115-16.
231. Calabrese, 'Metals'.
232. D. Miller, 'Metal assemblages from Greefswald areas K2, Mapungubwe Hill and Mapungubwe Southern Terrace', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 56 (2001), 83-103.
233. I b i d.
234. M. R. Grant, 'The sourcing of southern African tin artefacts', Journal of Archaeological Science, 26 (1999), 111-17.
235. D. Miller, 'The fabrication technology of southern African archaeological gold', Annals of the South African Museum, 111 (2004), 79-102;
236. idem, 'Smelter and smith: Iron Age metal fabrication technology in southern Africa', Journal of Archaeological Science, 29 (2002), 1083-131;
237. D. Miller, N. Desai, B. Grigorova and W. Smith, 'Trace-element analysis of gold from southern African archaeological sites', South African Journal of Science, 97 (2001), 297-300.
238. Rare examples of Sung Dynasty Chinese pottery have also now been published from the Mapungubwe excavations, see A. Meyer and V. Esterhuizen, 'Skerwe uit die verlede: handel tussen Mapungubwe en China', South African Journal of Ethnology, 17 (1994), 103-8.
239. Wood, 'Making connections'.
240. Janette Smith, pers. comm.
241. Huffman, 'Mapungubwe'. This revision of the local palaeoclimatic record fits more comfortably with the archaeological evidence for the continued presence of a Mapungubwe-derived population elsewhere in the region until the late fourteenth-century, as discussed by Meyer, Archaeological.
242. This revision of the local palaeoclimatic record fits more comfortably with the archaeological evidence for the continued presence of a Mapungubwe-derived population elsewhere in the region until the late fourteenth-century, as discussed by Meyer, Archaeological.
243. Hall and Smith, 'Empowering places'.
244. A. Küsel, 'A preliminary report on settlement layout and gold smelting at Thulamela, a Late Iron Age site in the Kruger National Park', Koedoe, 35 (1992), 53-64;
245. M. Steyn, W. C. Nienaber and M. Loots, 'Late Iron Age gold burials from Thulamela (Pafuri region, Kruger National Park)', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 53 (1998), 73-85.
246. Tom Huffman, pers. comm.