Kweneng: A Newly Discovered Pre-Colonial Capital Near Johannesburg

Abstract

Kweneng is an extensive aggregation of stone-walled ruins that represent a pre-colonial Tswana capital. It is located 30 km south of today’s Johannesburg. The Molokwane architectural style predominates at this site. This style dates from around the mid- eighteenth to the mid- nineteenth centuries AD. The northern sector of Kweneng contains some structures in an architectural style from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries AD. Scattered here and there on the fringes of Kweneng are Type N compounds, which represent the oldest architectural style in this region and date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD. With a long sequence from formation to collapse, Kweneng will shed light not only on the birth of complex urban society in this region, but also in more distant times and places where the evidence might be considerably less intact. This preliminary report introduces the site and the principal features of its built environment.