Pre-Columbian Presence of Treponemal Disease: A Possible Case from Iron Age Southern Africa

1995 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 869-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryna Steyn ◽  
Maciej Henneberg
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Treponemal Disease

Ores Sources, Smelters and Archaeometallurgy: Exploring Iron Age Metal Production in the Southern Waterberg, South Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Foreman Bandama ◽  
Shadreck Chirikure ◽  
Simon Hall
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Limpopo Province ◽  
Metal Working ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Metal Production ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
Sem Analyses

The Southern Waterberg in Limpopo Province is archaeologically rich, especially when it comes to evidence of pre-colonial mining and metal working. Geologically, the area hosts important mineral resources such as copper, tin and iron which were smelted by agriculturalists in the precolonial period. In this region however, tin seems to be the major attraction given that Rooiberg is still the only source of cassiterite in southern Africa to have provided evidence of mining before European colonization. This paper reports the results of archaeological and archaeometallurgical work which was carried out in order to reconstruct the technology of metalworking as well as the cultural interaction in the study area and beyond. The ceramic evidence shows that from the Eiland Phase (1000–1300 AD) onwards there was cross borrowing of characteristic decorative traits amongst extant groups that later on culminated in the creation of a new ceramic group known as Rooiberg. In terms of mining and metal working, XRF and SEM analyses, when coupled with optical microscopy, indicate the use of indigenous bloomery techniques that are widespread in pre-colonial southern Africa. Tin and bronze production was also represented and their production remains also pin down this metallurgy to particular sites and excludes the possibility of importing of finished tin and bronze objects into this area.

Micromammals and the Late Quaternary of southern Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.M. Avery
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Rattus Rattus ◽  
Analytical Techniques ◽  
Small Samples ◽  
Pinnacle Point ◽  
Human Movements ◽  
Geographical Scale ◽  
Land Mammal

Abstract Improvements in excavation methods, dating, analytical techniques and statistical applications have all led to a substantial increase in recoverable environmental evidence from micromammals. Because these animals are so small the information they provide is on a smaller geographical scale than that afforded by most other lines of evidence. However, with increasing amounts of data and greater interpretational precision in all spheres, the chances are improving of being able to mesh information from different scales. Blombos, Pinnacle Point and Klasies River on the southern coast of South Africa have clearly demonstrated that micromammalian data can contribute to multidisciplinary interpretations of past conditions, in this case during MIS 5 and 6. Little attention has been paid to the generally small samples from Iron Age sites but the presence of the House rat Rattus rattus may provide important information about human movements and may also contribute to our understanding of the Anthropocene once this has been formally defined. Micromammals have not yet been used as chronostratigraphic indicators in southern Africa but it may be possible to develop biochronologies using them and to incorporate this material into African Land Mammal Ages.

New radiocarbon dates for Eastern and Southern Africa

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. G. Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Congo Basin ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa

This article is a follow-up to that of Mr D. W. Phillipson published in this Journal in 1970, and to the six earlier lists compiled for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa by Dr B. M. Fagan. I have endeavoured to include here all radiocarbon dates for archaeological sites of the Iron Age and most of those of the end of the Stone Age in the eastern and southern part of Africa—that is from Ethiopia, the Upper Nile and the Congo Basin southward—which have been published or made available since the preparation of the former articles. Some of these dates are already included in recent numbers of the Journal Radiocarbon, or have been mentioned in publications elsewhere, as indicated in the footnotes. A large proportion of these new dates, however, have not yet been published, and are included here through the agreement of the various individual archaeologists and research bodies, all of whom I wish to thank for their cooperation. In particular, I am indebted to Mr David Phillipson for his willing assistance in providing a number of contacts and relaying information from southern Africa.

Some Recent Radiocarbon Dates from Eastern and Southern Africa

1977 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Maggs
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Age Sequence ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa

This Article follows in the series started by Fagan and continued for eastern and southern Africa by Phillipson, Sutton and Soper. The scope remains much the same, covering in time the later part of the Stone Age sequence as well as the Iron Age. Geographically, however, there are some changes: the Sudan has been excluded as it was covered by the recent review of North and West African dates, while a detailed chronological review of francophone Central Africa is in progress and therefore this region has been excluded.

The Prehistoric Origins of African Culture

1964 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Desmond Clark
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
History Of

The paper traces the beginnings of human culture in Africa, its evolution and spread, and shows the feedback relationship that exists between biological evolution and culture. It is demonstrated how environment is the most important factor in producing variability at the food-gathering level, and the present-day regional differences in culture are shown to have been in existence for some 40,000 years. The history of the introduction and spread of domestication is summarized, and evidence is adduced to indicate that the diffusion of Iron Age economy in southern Africa was due as much to adaptation as to immigration, thus demonstrating a real and traceable continuity up to the present day.

MYTHS, GENDER, BIRDS, BEADS: A READING OF IRON AGE HILL SITES IN INTERIOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

Africa ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin N. Wilmsen
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Lake Tanganyika ◽  
Glass Beads ◽  
Social Legitimacy ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Great Zimbabwe ◽  
Origin Myths ◽  
North Western

ABSTRACTHomologous origin myths concerning the Tsodilo Hills in north-western Botswana, Polombwe hill at the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika in Zambia and Kaphiri-Ntiwa hill in northern Malawi are examined. Parallels are drawn between the myths, where, in the process of creation, a primal pair in undifferentiated space and time passes through a series of liminal states, thereby bringing structure to the landscape and legitimacy to society in Iron Age Central and Southern Africa. These myths narrate the instituting of social legitimacy in their respective societies based on a resolution of the inherent contradiction between the concepts of authority and power, lineage and land. The structure of rights to possession of land is examined, and the text considers the role of sumptuary goods such as glass beads and metonymic signifiers such as birds within this structure. This study examines the prominence of hilltops as the residence of paranormal power and its association with human authority, and relates this to the archaeological interpretation of the Iron Age site Nqoma (Tsodilo Hills); this is compared with Bosutswe (eastern Botswana), Mapungubwe (Shashe-Limpopo basin), and the Shona Mwari myth recorded by Frobenius as used by Huffman in his analysis of Great Zimbabwe.

scholarly journals New AMS dates for the Middle Iron Age in the Mapungubwe landscape

2021 ◽  
Vol 117 (3/4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Huffman ◽  
Stephen Woodborne
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Ethnic Stratification ◽  
Culture History ◽  
Middle Iron Age ◽  
Ams Dates

Research in the Limpopo Valley has documented over 500 Middle Iron Age sites (AD 900–1320) relevant to the origins of Mapungubwe – the capital of the first indigenous state in southern Africa. Fifteen new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates from 11 of these archaeological sites establish the boundaries of the ceramic facies that form the culture-history framework for such diverse topics as land use, ethnic stratification, population dynamics and rainfall fluctuations. Mapungubwe was abandoned at about AD 1320.

Geomagnetic Field Strength Recorded in Iron Age Ceramics from Southern Africa

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Watkeys ◽  
John A. Tarduno ◽  
Thomas Huffman ◽  
Rory D. Cottrell ◽  
Julia Voronov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Field Strength ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Geomagnetic Field ◽  
Geomagnetic Field Strength

A Southern African Perspective on the Contribution of Charcoal Analyses to Archaeology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Chikumbirike ◽  
Marion K. Bamford
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Woody Species ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Climate Reconstructions ◽  
Medicinal Use ◽  
African Perspective

Southern Africa has a long and rich archaeological record, ranging from the Oldowan lithics in the Sterkfontein valley and Wonderwerk Cave (about 2 Ma) to Iron Age smelting (less than one thousand years ago) in Zimbabwe. A brief overview of charcoal analyses indicates applications in such areas as dating, vegetation and climate reconstructions, fuel use, medicinal use, and the interpretation of human behavior. Some of the research done in the 20th century mainly focused on charcoal for the purpose of dating, but this has diversified in the 21st century to include other applications. The focus is on South African sites, but research from Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe is included. Southern Africa has a very diverse woody component with more than fifteen hundred species from a flora of more than twenty-five thousand species so the establishment of regional modern reference collections of charcoalified woods has been instrumental in improving identifications of the archaeological taxa. Early Middle Stone Age charcoal records show that a diversity of woody species was burned. By Middle Stone Age times, records show the selection of woods for fuel, tinder, and medicinal use as well as cooking of starchy rhizomes. Late Stone Age and Iron Age records, in addition, show the use of woods for smelting and intense fires.

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