Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.1997020
J. Orton
{"title":"Namib: the archaeology of an African desert","authors":"J. Orton","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.1997020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.1997020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"9 1","pages":"151 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90664783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047526
J. Cooper, A. Ghidoni
ABSTRACT A number of graffiti of ships are to be found engraved into the plaster of the Gereza (Old Fort) of Stone Town on Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania. Most of those reported here appear on the ramparts of the southwestern tower, while some are on the western face of the main partition wall separating the western and eastern wards. Although sometimes sketchy, the images suggest a number of vessel types, including a frigate or frigate-built vessel and a number of settee-rigged ocean-going vessels referred to exonymically as ‘dhows’. Some appear to have transom sterns, hinting at particular vessel types, such as the baghla, ghanja, sanbūq or kotia. Two graffiti might also depict the stem heads of the East African mtepe. The graffiti are documented and interpreted in the context of the fort, Oman’s East African empire, and the Indian Ocean dhow trade. The construction history of the building and the vessel types depicted date the graffiti to the mid-late nineteenth century.
{"title":"Ship graffiti at the Zanzibar Gereza (Old Fort), Stone Town, Unguja, Tanzania","authors":"J. Cooper, A. Ghidoni","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047526","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A number of graffiti of ships are to be found engraved into the plaster of the Gereza (Old Fort) of Stone Town on Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania. Most of those reported here appear on the ramparts of the southwestern tower, while some are on the western face of the main partition wall separating the western and eastern wards. Although sometimes sketchy, the images suggest a number of vessel types, including a frigate or frigate-built vessel and a number of settee-rigged ocean-going vessels referred to exonymically as ‘dhows’. Some appear to have transom sterns, hinting at particular vessel types, such as the baghla, ghanja, sanbūq or kotia. Two graffiti might also depict the stem heads of the East African mtepe. The graffiti are documented and interpreted in the context of the fort, Oman’s East African empire, and the Indian Ocean dhow trade. The construction history of the building and the vessel types depicted date the graffiti to the mid-late nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"197 1","pages":"90 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83098248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047532
A. Skinner
ABSTRACT The Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of southern Africa have a well-established history of contact and hybridity, one that greatly changed the appearances and cultural constitutions of its inhabitant communities. Southern San hunter-gatherers were among those incorporated into a range of new hybridised cultural formats. However, as much as change shows in the art adorning the region’s rock shelters, San identity is not routinely expressed among contemporary communities, leaving a question as to how far their ontologies persist into the present. This paper presents results of an interview survey undertaken in southern Lesotho and the adjoining Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The survey investigated modes of classification employed by traditional medicinal specialists, with particular reference to snakes and rivers, both important motifs across a range of regional idioms. The results are characterised by strongly relational themes and ontological mutabilities that contest conventional presentations of agriculturalist belief systems, despite more apparent community alignment with such identities, while comparing favourably with ‘animist’ themes in the testimonies of nineteenth-century San informants, including those of Qing in Lesotho and of multiple /Xam individuals from South Africa. These contrasts and similarities are highly suggestive of a syncretic history manifest in the present. They also have potential for representing a continuity of ideology with image-making practice, something that would encourage the inclusion of contextual, contemporary communities in the interpretive process in terms that are decoupled from anthropological expectations regarding those communities’ expressed identities.
{"title":"‘Things of the outside teach me’: identity transfer and contextual transformation as expressions of persistent, syncretic cosmology in traditional spiritual and medicinal practice in the south-central Maloti-Drakensberg, southern Africa","authors":"A. Skinner","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047532","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of southern Africa have a well-established history of contact and hybridity, one that greatly changed the appearances and cultural constitutions of its inhabitant communities. Southern San hunter-gatherers were among those incorporated into a range of new hybridised cultural formats. However, as much as change shows in the art adorning the region’s rock shelters, San identity is not routinely expressed among contemporary communities, leaving a question as to how far their ontologies persist into the present. This paper presents results of an interview survey undertaken in southern Lesotho and the adjoining Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The survey investigated modes of classification employed by traditional medicinal specialists, with particular reference to snakes and rivers, both important motifs across a range of regional idioms. The results are characterised by strongly relational themes and ontological mutabilities that contest conventional presentations of agriculturalist belief systems, despite more apparent community alignment with such identities, while comparing favourably with ‘animist’ themes in the testimonies of nineteenth-century San informants, including those of Qing in Lesotho and of multiple /Xam individuals from South Africa. These contrasts and similarities are highly suggestive of a syncretic history manifest in the present. They also have potential for representing a continuity of ideology with image-making practice, something that would encourage the inclusion of contextual, contemporary communities in the interpretive process in terms that are decoupled from anthropological expectations regarding those communities’ expressed identities.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"21 1","pages":"121 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85069821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047535
E. T. Kessy
ABSTRACT Pottery from archaeological sites on the Swahili coast of East Africa has enabled scholars to establish the social, political and economic dynamics of their inhabitants and helped them to determine forms of interaction between coastal communities and other societies within and outside Africa. This paper examines Plain Ware pottery (Plain Ware Phase) from the site of Nunge in Bagamoyo (Tanzania) to discover the reasons behind its production. Findings indicate that the elements associated with Plain Ware pottery were markers of the socio-economic (i.e. salt-making) and political contexts that the Swahili experienced during the Plain Ware Phase (tenth to thirteenth centuries AD). It is suggested that the use of pottery to make salt for exchange with people in the East African interior created wealth and socio-economic stratification and may have been one of the key elements that contributed to the development of the Swahili coastal states. Comparative data from other regions suggest that salt-making was an important component in socioeconomic interactions among communities and provided an opportunity for surplus production and the establishment of ties among polities.
{"title":"Salt production during the Plain Ware Phase along the Swahili coast of Tanzania","authors":"E. T. Kessy","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2022.2047535","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Pottery from archaeological sites on the Swahili coast of East Africa has enabled scholars to establish the social, political and economic dynamics of their inhabitants and helped them to determine forms of interaction between coastal communities and other societies within and outside Africa. This paper examines Plain Ware pottery (Plain Ware Phase) from the site of Nunge in Bagamoyo (Tanzania) to discover the reasons behind its production. Findings indicate that the elements associated with Plain Ware pottery were markers of the socio-economic (i.e. salt-making) and political contexts that the Swahili experienced during the Plain Ware Phase (tenth to thirteenth centuries AD). It is suggested that the use of pottery to make salt for exchange with people in the East African interior created wealth and socio-economic stratification and may have been one of the key elements that contributed to the development of the Swahili coastal states. Comparative data from other regions suggest that salt-making was an important component in socioeconomic interactions among communities and provided an opportunity for surplus production and the establishment of ties among polities.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"292 1","pages":"59 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77548693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.2005978
M. Drzewiecki, A. Cedro
ABSTRACT A group of nine fortified sites, similar to Roman fortlets, occur along approximately 550 km of the Middle Nile Valley of Sudan between the Fourth Cataract and the confluence of the White and Blue Niles. Previous research indicates that these forts were built in Late Antiquity, i.e. between the second and seventh centuries AD. This was a time of profound changes in the region that included the disintegration of the Meroitic kingdom and the development of several medieval Nubian realms. Drawing on previous research and the results of two seasons of fieldwork at three of the forts in 2018, this paper provides an answer to the questions of who and why these forts were built. Small finds and radiocarbon samples from various contexts provide insights into their history and indicate that all three of the forts investigated were erected in a short period during the second part of the sixth century, a time of conflict between the Nubian kingdoms that is described by the contemporary historian John of Ephesus.
{"title":"New insights into the history of early Alwa: recent archaeological research in Umm Marrahi, Hosh el-Kab and Abu Nafisa forts (Khartoum Province, Sudan)","authors":"M. Drzewiecki, A. Cedro","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.2005978","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.2005978","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A group of nine fortified sites, similar to Roman fortlets, occur along approximately 550 km of the Middle Nile Valley of Sudan between the Fourth Cataract and the confluence of the White and Blue Niles. Previous research indicates that these forts were built in Late Antiquity, i.e. between the second and seventh centuries AD. This was a time of profound changes in the region that included the disintegration of the Meroitic kingdom and the development of several medieval Nubian realms. Drawing on previous research and the results of two seasons of fieldwork at three of the forts in 2018, this paper provides an answer to the questions of who and why these forts were built. Small finds and radiocarbon samples from various contexts provide insights into their history and indicate that all three of the forts investigated were erected in a short period during the second part of the sixth century, a time of conflict between the Nubian kingdoms that is described by the contemporary historian John of Ephesus.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"379 1","pages":"482 - 507"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83465077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.2012746
Amanuel Beyin
ABSTRACT The Kalokol Basin on the west side of Lake Turkana, northern Kenya, has yielded three sites dating to the African Humid Period (AHP), a wet phase with intermittent dry spells that characterised the African climate c. 15.0–5.5 kya. Drawing on the chronological and lithic datasets from the three sites, this paper examines human settlement successions and the associated lithic technology in the region during the AHP. The radiocarbon dates signify at least six episodes of human settlement, occurring approximately 13.6–13.3, 11.24–10.77, 10.24–10.20, 7.27–7.02, 6.26–6.00 and 3.61–3.47 kya. The notion of ‘settlement’ as applied here implies either long-term or short-term human activities at the sites. During these successive settlements, people employed similar survival strategies: they exploited local stone raw materials, consumed aquatic resources from the lake using specialised bone points and settled near riparian settings. Their lithic technology is best characterised by preferential knapping of locally available chert and chalcedony and the production of geometric microliths and a range of flakes from expedient and formal cores. The finds from the Kalokol Basin contribute to improving our understanding of human adaptive strategies in the wider Lake Turkana Basin during the AHP.
{"title":"Human settlement successions and lithic technology in the Kalokol area (west Lake Turkana, Kenya) during the African Humid Period","authors":"Amanuel Beyin","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.2012746","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.2012746","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Kalokol Basin on the west side of Lake Turkana, northern Kenya, has yielded three sites dating to the African Humid Period (AHP), a wet phase with intermittent dry spells that characterised the African climate c. 15.0–5.5 kya. Drawing on the chronological and lithic datasets from the three sites, this paper examines human settlement successions and the associated lithic technology in the region during the AHP. The radiocarbon dates signify at least six episodes of human settlement, occurring approximately 13.6–13.3, 11.24–10.77, 10.24–10.20, 7.27–7.02, 6.26–6.00 and 3.61–3.47 kya. The notion of ‘settlement’ as applied here implies either long-term or short-term human activities at the sites. During these successive settlements, people employed similar survival strategies: they exploited local stone raw materials, consumed aquatic resources from the lake using specialised bone points and settled near riparian settings. Their lithic technology is best characterised by preferential knapping of locally available chert and chalcedony and the production of geometric microliths and a range of flakes from expedient and formal cores. The finds from the Kalokol Basin contribute to improving our understanding of human adaptive strategies in the wider Lake Turkana Basin during the AHP.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"147 1","pages":"425 - 462"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80595327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.1983301
A. Mayor
highlights its main contributions. Much effort went into the writing of this volume because of the number of authors involved and its multidisciplinary approach (archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, botany, zoology, etc.). The book offers a complex vision of different organisational forms of economic life and different evolutionary patterns of Sino-African exchanges. A broad array of commodities (ceramics, textile, coins, etc.) traded between China and East Africa that have been recovered from archaeological excavations are described and discussed. However, the book is not without its flaws. Firstly, the same artefacts appear to have been discussed several times in different articles, creating some redundancy that weakens the general structure of the book. This may be due to the difficulty of co-ordinating the contributions, to which we can add the differences in scientific paradigms and methodologies of the 19 authors, who come from various scientific backgrounds. Readers may expect the book to offer a two-way Sino-African connected history both spatially and chronologically, but, in fact, it is the East African side that is privileged. Furthermore, in the preface, Chapurukha Kusimba, the lead editor and contributor, states that the aim of the book is to theorise China-East Africa relationships in their own terms. However, despite the best intentions of the contributors, this very theoretical ambition is not realised. Instead, the authors have presented syntheses of the current state of knowledge of their own particular topics. None has undertaken specific historiographical reflections, from either the perspectives of politics or science. However, such historiographical reflections are indispensable for comprehending the book’s role in what is a new phase of Chinese-influenced historiography in East Africa. Moreover, dealing with Sino-African relations implies thinking about its articulation in a complex geography of space and time, not just dealing with its two endpoints. Unfortunately, intermediate spaces such as Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Persian Gulf are not considered in the book. Similarly, the plurality within both China and East Africa is also not sufficiently considered. Finally, the investigation of such a long chronology of Sino-African relations is a perilous adventure if one does not pay enough attention to the cyclical evolution of the Indian Ocean world-system that has already been highlighted by other researchers.
{"title":"Mobile technologies in the ancient Sahara and beyond","authors":"A. Mayor","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.1983301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.1983301","url":null,"abstract":"highlights its main contributions. Much effort went into the writing of this volume because of the number of authors involved and its multidisciplinary approach (archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, botany, zoology, etc.). The book offers a complex vision of different organisational forms of economic life and different evolutionary patterns of Sino-African exchanges. A broad array of commodities (ceramics, textile, coins, etc.) traded between China and East Africa that have been recovered from archaeological excavations are described and discussed. However, the book is not without its flaws. Firstly, the same artefacts appear to have been discussed several times in different articles, creating some redundancy that weakens the general structure of the book. This may be due to the difficulty of co-ordinating the contributions, to which we can add the differences in scientific paradigms and methodologies of the 19 authors, who come from various scientific backgrounds. Readers may expect the book to offer a two-way Sino-African connected history both spatially and chronologically, but, in fact, it is the East African side that is privileged. Furthermore, in the preface, Chapurukha Kusimba, the lead editor and contributor, states that the aim of the book is to theorise China-East Africa relationships in their own terms. However, despite the best intentions of the contributors, this very theoretical ambition is not realised. Instead, the authors have presented syntheses of the current state of knowledge of their own particular topics. None has undertaken specific historiographical reflections, from either the perspectives of politics or science. However, such historiographical reflections are indispensable for comprehending the book’s role in what is a new phase of Chinese-influenced historiography in East Africa. Moreover, dealing with Sino-African relations implies thinking about its articulation in a complex geography of space and time, not just dealing with its two endpoints. Unfortunately, intermediate spaces such as Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Persian Gulf are not considered in the book. Similarly, the plurality within both China and East Africa is also not sufficiently considered. Finally, the investigation of such a long chronology of Sino-African relations is a perilous adventure if one does not pay enough attention to the cyclical evolution of the Indian Ocean world-system that has already been highlighted by other researchers.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"9 1","pages":"540 - 542"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86653365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.1973766
B. Zhao
{"title":"China and East Africa; ancient ties, contemporary flows","authors":"B. Zhao","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.1973766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.1973766","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"56 1","pages":"539 - 540"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86555779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.2030947
A. Meyer, R. Peyroteo-Stjerna, Cecile Jolly, Carina M. Schlebusch, M. Steyn
ABSTRACT Various skeletons from the uThukela region of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa were excavated from rock shelters there during the early part of the twentieth century, with limited accompanying data or analysis. This paper analyses and reports on nine such graves (eight of which contained human remains), excavated during 1931 near Cathkin Peak. The remains are currently housed in the Raymond A. Dart Archaeological Human Remains Collection, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Most of the skeletons were radiocarbon-dated to between the fourteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, but one is older and dates to between the seventh and ninth centuries AD. Remains recovered from the various shelters included those of both adults and children, males and females, indicating that these rock shelters were used for the burials of, and were possibly occupied by, a wide variety of individuals over a long period of time. Skeletal analyses revealed several signs of disease and trauma, attesting to some hardships living in this region of South Africa. Stable isotope analyses of carbon and nitrogen indicate a predominantly plant-based diet. Originally it was thought that these individuals’ remains represented those of the historic amaZizi people, however, radiocarbon dates indicate that they are contemporaneous with the Moor Park phase of the Blackburn branch, which predates the amaZizi by several decades. Of interest is the fact that one individual predates the Moor Park phase. This is significant and sheds some light on the movement of people from KwaZulu-Natal into the interior. Future ancient DNA analysis will provide more information on the origin and genetic relationship of these individuals.
{"title":"A reassessment of archaeological human remains recovered from rock shelters in Cathkin Peak, South Africa","authors":"A. Meyer, R. Peyroteo-Stjerna, Cecile Jolly, Carina M. Schlebusch, M. Steyn","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.2030947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.2030947","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Various skeletons from the uThukela region of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa were excavated from rock shelters there during the early part of the twentieth century, with limited accompanying data or analysis. This paper analyses and reports on nine such graves (eight of which contained human remains), excavated during 1931 near Cathkin Peak. The remains are currently housed in the Raymond A. Dart Archaeological Human Remains Collection, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Most of the skeletons were radiocarbon-dated to between the fourteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, but one is older and dates to between the seventh and ninth centuries AD. Remains recovered from the various shelters included those of both adults and children, males and females, indicating that these rock shelters were used for the burials of, and were possibly occupied by, a wide variety of individuals over a long period of time. Skeletal analyses revealed several signs of disease and trauma, attesting to some hardships living in this region of South Africa. Stable isotope analyses of carbon and nitrogen indicate a predominantly plant-based diet. Originally it was thought that these individuals’ remains represented those of the historic amaZizi people, however, radiocarbon dates indicate that they are contemporaneous with the Moor Park phase of the Blackburn branch, which predates the amaZizi by several decades. Of interest is the fact that one individual predates the Moor Park phase. This is significant and sheds some light on the movement of people from KwaZulu-Natal into the interior. Future ancient DNA analysis will provide more information on the origin and genetic relationship of these individuals.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"89 1","pages":"508 - 538"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84415233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2021.2030932
J. Parkington, Andrew Paterson
ABSTRACT Ethnographers and anthropologists have noted that no examples of group male initiation rituals have been recorded among the southern San, although they are known to have taken place further north in Angola, Botswana and Namibia. A detailed rock painting in the southwestern Cape Cederberg, South Africa, is composed in such a way that we argue that it is evidence that ‘initiation camps’ for young men did also take place in the Cape and were recorded in painted form. Of critical importance to the understanding of the imagery is the relationship between male hunter, the eland as quintessential prey animal and the transformation of the skin of the eland torso into a worn cloak. We suggest that conventional depictions of cloaks, highlighting that transformation, were used to identify initiated figures whereas naked figures were to be understood as initiates or uninitiated. All human figures in this composition are, we submit, men by sex, by gender or by both. Under discussion is the recognition of imagery and the role of ethnographic evidence in such recognitions.
{"title":"Cloaks and torsos: image recognition, ethnography and male initiation events in the rock art of the Western Cape","authors":"J. Parkington, Andrew Paterson","doi":"10.1080/0067270X.2021.2030932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2021.2030932","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ethnographers and anthropologists have noted that no examples of group male initiation rituals have been recorded among the southern San, although they are known to have taken place further north in Angola, Botswana and Namibia. A detailed rock painting in the southwestern Cape Cederberg, South Africa, is composed in such a way that we argue that it is evidence that ‘initiation camps’ for young men did also take place in the Cape and were recorded in painted form. Of critical importance to the understanding of the imagery is the relationship between male hunter, the eland as quintessential prey animal and the transformation of the skin of the eland torso into a worn cloak. We suggest that conventional depictions of cloaks, highlighting that transformation, were used to identify initiated figures whereas naked figures were to be understood as initiates or uninitiated. All human figures in this composition are, we submit, men by sex, by gender or by both. Under discussion is the recognition of imagery and the role of ethnographic evidence in such recognitions.","PeriodicalId":45689,"journal":{"name":"Azania-Archaeological Research in Africa","volume":"25 1","pages":"463 - 481"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89816717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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