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.

Notes on Phalangiidae (Arachnida: Opiliones) of southern Africa with description of new species and comments on within-species variation

Zootaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4272 (2) ◽  
pp. 236
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER K. TAYLOR
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Species ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Limpopo Province ◽  
Species Variation ◽  
Male Dimorphism ◽  
California Academy ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
A New Species

Notes are provided on a collection of Afrotropical harvestmen (Opiliones: Palpatores: Phalangiidae) from the California Academy of Sciences. A new species of Rhampsinitus, R. conjunctidens n. sp., is described from Limpopo province of South Africa. Rhampsinitus flavobrunneus Staręga 2009 and R. silvaticus Lawrence 1931 are recognised as junior synonyms of R. nubicolus Lawrence 1963 and R. vittatus Lawrence 1931, respectively. Both R. conjunctidens and R. nubicolus are recognised as exhibiting strong male dimorphism with major males exhibiting larger body size and greatly enlarged chelicerae relative to minor males; minor males cannot be readily identified to species without examination of genitalia. A discussion is also provided on generic boundaries within Afrotropical Phalangiidae, and a generic key to males of the region is presented.

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

scholarly journals “A Persistent Truth”—Reflections on Drought Risk Management in Southern Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coleen Vogel ◽  
Ingrid Koch ◽  
Koos Van Zyl
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Limpopo Province ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Bail Out

Abstract Severe droughts in southern Africa are associated with livelihood impacts, a strain on local economies, and other hardships. Extensive effort has been spent in the past trying to improve responses to periods of extensive drought. There have also been renewed calls for improvements to climate change adaptation by adopting more proactive governance and disaster risk reduction approaches. Few efforts, however, have been made to assess how to learn more from past drought efforts so as to enhance overall resilience to future drought risks. Few have examined the role and contributions of institutions and drought governance, either across spatial scales [from regional (i.e., Southern African Development Community) to national scales (e.g., South Africa) to the very local scale (e.g., Limpopo Province, South Africa)] or across temporal scales (over at least 100 yr). Despite calls for better risk management approaches at all levels, this paper illustrates two points. First, a failure to fully understand, integrate, and learn from past efforts may undermine current and future drought response. Second, state-led drought risk reduction, which remains focused on a financial “bail-out” mentality, with little follow-through on proactive rather than reactive drought responses, is also seriously contributing to the vulnerability of the region to future drought impacts.

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.

The Archaeology of Metal Production in Southern Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail Moffett
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Metal Production ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Specialized Production ◽  
Gendered Division Of Labor ◽  
First Millennium

Metal production in southern Africa dates to the early first millennium ce when the technology of working iron and copper was brought into the region by incoming “Iron Age” farming communities. The mining and production of copper, iron, and later, tin and gold were important activities in the lives of communities in southern Africa throughout the past two millennia. Not only were metals central to livelihoods, like the iron hoe in farming, but metal objects were also enmeshed in the social and political fabric of society, with the transaction and display of them creating social identities and cementing relationships. The production of different metals varied in space and time, from household production of iron for domestic consumption to more specialized production of iron, copper, and tin or seasonal production of gold. Metals produced in southern Africa were traded over long distances and fed into regional trade networks that expanded to the wider Indian Ocean rim. Copper ingots and iron gongs from central Africa and brass from Europe have also been recovered in southern Africa, indicating the complex directionality with which metals, and the ideas and technological innovations associated with them, flowed. Analyzing patterns in the production and exchange of metals can reveal both micro-shifts in political economy, such as changes in the gendered division of labor, to macro-shifts, such as changing regional political powers. As a result, the archaeology of metal production exposes many aspects of the lives of Iron Age farming communities in southern Africa through time.

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