Later Stone and Iron Age Cohabitation at the Nsongezi Open-Air Site, Western Uganda

Abstract

This research at the Nsongezi open-air site examines the intergenerational artefacts at a site where the first Stone Age artefacts were identified in Uganda. The purpose was to examine the nature and cause of the mixed Later Stone Age (LSA) and Iron Age (IA) artefacts in the same stratigraphic context at Nsongezi. The specific objectives included examining the ceramic assemblage, discussing the nature of interactions between the Later Stone Age and Iron Age people and accounting for why and how the mixture of artefacts occurs at Nsongezi. Using a documentary review, archaeological survey, and excavation, the research re-examines the theories of displacement and coexistence concerning the LSA and IA material mixture, which has always been dismissed as a disturbance of stratigraphic contexts. Guided by the Law of superimposition, the association of archaeological material from different cultural periods such as the Later Stone Age and Iron Age artefacts at Nsongezi is attributed to four phenomena. First is the cultural interaction of distinct LSA and IA populations. Secondly, the LSA populations may have adopted Iron Age technology and pottery while continuing with some of the LSA technology and pottery. Thirdly, the Iron Age populations occupied the LSA sites previously abandoned, and some of the LSA peoples occupied the old Iron Age sites as the two groups crisscrossed the region in shifting agricultural and hunter-gatherer economies. Finally, the mixed LSA and Iron Age deposits might have resulted from post-abandonment taphonomic processes. Therefore, the social interactions between the LSA and IA at Nsongezi challenge the dominant narrative that the IA populations used their metal technology’s superiority to displace and absorb the LSA people.