Ritual Practice in a Domestic Space: Evidence from Melora Hilltop, a Late Iron Age Stone-Walled Settlement in the Waterberg, Limpopo Province, South Africa

2003 ◽  
Vol 58 (178) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlize Lombard ◽  
Isabelle Parsons
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Limpopo Province ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Late Iron Age

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.

Bone hoes from the Middle Iron Age, Limpopo Province, South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 472 ◽  
pp. 126-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Bradfield ◽  
Annie R. Antonites
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Limpopo Province ◽  
Middle Iron Age

The size of indigenous Venda cattle during the Late Iron Age in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 231-235
Author(s):  
Shaw Badenhorst ◽  
Munyadziwa Magoma
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Iron Age

Exploitation and Management of Animal Resources During the Middle Iron Age: Northern Limpopo Province, South Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Abatino
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Limpopo Province ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Middle Iron Age ◽  
Animal Resources

This book offers a zooarchaeological study of Mapungubwe and Mutamba, two Middle Iron Age sites in northern South Africa. The author provides an interpretation of the economic and social role of animal resources within agro-pastoral societies by combining analysis of faunal remains with ethnozooarchaeological research conducted in a Venda village and comparison with other zooarchaeological studies of sites located in this region.

Late Iron Age Sites on Mmatshetshele Mountain in the Central Bankeveld of the North West Province, South Africa

2001 ◽  
Vol 56 (173/174) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius C. C. Pistorius ◽  
Shaw Badenhorst ◽  
Ina Plug
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
North West Province

scholarly journals A preliminary report on settlement layout and gold melting at Thula Mela, a Late Iron Age site in the Kruger National Park

Koedoe ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M.M. Kusel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Preliminary Report ◽  
National Park ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Kruger National Park ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Late Iron Age

Archaeological investigations at a Late Iron Age stone-walled hill site, Thula Mela, near the Luvuvhu River in the Pafuri area of the Kruger National Park, have produced evidence of gold melting. The recovery of two fragments of pottery crucibles with the remains of slag and gold globules and three gold beads from a test trench in a midden at Thula Mela represents the first direct evidence of indigenous gold melting in South Africa. From radiocarbon dates it was established that this site was occupied between the fifteenth and early seventeenth century AD.

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