Excavations at the Iron Age Village Site of Fibobe II, Central Zambia

The period from c. AD 900 to AD 1300 in southern Africa is characterized by transitions from small-scale Iron Age mixed economy communities to the beginnings of more intensive food production and eventually the emergence of complex polities. In Zambia, this coincides with the appearance of larger and more permanent agro-pastoralist villages that began participating in Indian Ocean trade networks. Unlike other parts of southern Africa where stone architecture became common, the predominance of wattle-and-daub type construction methods across Zambia have often impeded preservation of Iron Age activity areas. It has therefore been difficult to reconstruct how economic and land-use changes between the Early and Later Iron Ages impacted family and community relationships reflected in intra-site and intra-household spatial organization. Fibobe II, in the Mulungushi River Basin of Central Zambia, is a rare example of an Early-to-Mid Iron Age village site where these spatial patterns may be discernable due to preservation of activity spaces and vitrified remains of wattle-and-daub structures. This paper reports on new investigations following original testing of the site in 1979, confirming preservation of an Iron Age hut with distinct patterning of features, artifacts, and charcoal. These results reaffirm the unique nature of Fibobe II and indicate the potential for programs of household archaeology aimed at studying this important and understudied period in Zambian prehistory.

Human Resilience in the Face of Mid-Holocene Climate Change on the Central West Coast of South Africa

After the Last Glacial Maximum, important yet milder climatic trends continued to characterise the Holocene. None of them was more challenging to forager groups in the central west coast of South Africa than the mid-Holocene Altithermal (8200–4200 cal BP). Hot and dry weather and 1–3 m higher sea levels were thought once to have barred local foragers from this region because of a lack of sites dating to this period. Instead, this initial scenario reflected largely a sampling problem. Steenbokfontein Cave is one of a few sites with some of the largest mid-Holocene deposits, allowing insights into forager adaptations during this period. Results show high mobility over large distances and a terrestrial diet mostly dependant on small bovids, complemented with fewer coastal resources. Stone tool kits and lithic raw materials among various sites suggest that much evidence for mid-Holocene occupation is actually found near the local riparian systems.

New Data on Plant Use in the Eastern Sahara: The Macro-Remain Assemblage from Sheikh el-Obeiyid Villages and Bir el-Obeiyid Playa, Farafra Oasis, Egyptian Western Desert

This article discusses archaeobotanical evidence from two Sheikh el-Obeiyid villages and the Bir el-Obeiyid playa, which are located along the course of the Wadi el-Obeiyid and on the top and escarpment of the Northern Plateau, at the northern edge of the Farafra Oasis, Egypt. The villages and playa are both part of a settlement system which developed from the top of the plateau, through its various erosion surfaces, down to the bottom of the wadi. The villages in particular can be considered as seasonal base camps, populated by semi-sedentary groups who engaged in intensive exploitation of the resources available in the surrounding environment during the early and mid-Holocene. These sites can be compared to the better-known Hidden Valley village site located only 20 km to the east, the remains from which were analysed during the early 2000s by Ahmed G. Fahmy. At all the sites investigated to date in Farafra there is clear evidence for gathering and use of sorghum and other species of small-seeded wild grasses, fitting the emerging patterns of intense wild grass exploitation in attractive ecological zones for the eastern Sahara during the 9th–6th millennia BP.

New Dates for Megalithic Stele Monuments of Gedeo, South Ethiopia

This paper reports the results of an archaeological survey and test excavation conducted in one of the ancient megalithic stele sites in south Ethiopia, Sakaro Sodo. The Sakaro Sodo stele site is situated in Gedeo zone, which is known to have the largest number and highest concentration of megalithic stele monuments in Africa, with an estimate of more than 10,000 stelae in sixty or more sites. Prior to our work, only one absolute date was available (850 ± 40 BP) (Joussaume 2012) from a stele site in the Gedeo zone, suggesting stele sites began to be constructed in the region approximately a millennium ago. We report here new AMS dates suggesting that stelae were being emplaced about 2000 BP, pushing the creation of these monuments back at least a millennium. Additionally, we report preliminary findings from characterizing the geochemical properties of obsidian artifacts recovered from stele sites, and stone used to make stelae. While compositional analysis of obsidian suggests long-distance movement of material from sources located in northern Kenya, petrographic microscopy and electron microprobe analyses show a strong connection of stelae to local geological tuff exposures/sources.

Horses and Habitations: Iron Age Rock Art from Fortified Hilltop Settlements in the Wadi Draa, Morocco

The article presents important results from the Middle Draa Project (MDP) in southern Morocco related to two mid-1st millennium CE hilltop settlements (hillforts) that were associated with significant rock art assemblages. The combination of detailed survey and radiocarbon dating of these remarkable sites provides a unique window on the Saharan world in which the pecked engravings, predominantly of horses, were produced. As the horse imagery featured on the walls of buildings within the settlement, the radiocarbon dating around the mid-1st millennium CE can also be applied in this instance to the rock art. The rarity of rock art of this period within habitation sites is also discussed and it is argued that its occurrence at both these locations indicates that they had some special social or sacred significance for their occupants. While it is commonplace for rock art of this era, featuring horses and camels, to be attributed by modern scholars to mobile pastoralists, a further argument of the paper is that the desert societies were in a period of transformation at this time, with the development of oases. The association of the rock art imagery with sedentary settlements, where grain was certainly being processed and stored, is thus an additional new element of contextual information for the widespread Saharan images of horses and horse and riders.

Pictorial Graffiti from the Ghazali Northern Church, Sudan: An Overview

The aim of this paper is to present pictorial graffiti executed on the walls of the Northern Church of the Ghazali Monastery located in what is today the Northern Province of Sudan. The graffiti were recorded during research by the Polish-Sudanese mission at the monastic complex. This paper explores the symbolic meanings of the graffiti as well as possible rationales behind their locations. Some of the depictions have overt religious meanings and may be interpreted as “graphic” prayers. This category of graffiti includes representations of Christ, angels, saints, female figures and horse riders. Other depictions seem to refer to daily life in Nubia – the graffiti abound in motifs such as camels, horses, boats and human beings.

A New Approach to Quantifying Raw Material Selectivity in the African Acheulean: Perspectives from Angola and South Africa

In southern Africa, the use of gravel outcrops has been recorded at a range of Earlier Stone Age sites, and this raises questions about the diversity of raw material sourcing practices adopted by hominins. To assess the existence of sourcing strategies, this study details a new morphometric analysis method that investigates the influence of pebble and cobble shape at two Acheulean case-study sites: Dungo IV (Benguela Province, Angola) and Penhill Farm (Eastern Cape Province, South Africa). Since these assemblages present frequent pebble and cobble artefacts, we investigate these to identify raw material blank properties to then establish whether these properties were intentionally selected for. To do so, we analyse each archaeological sample separately via a technological and morphometrical approach and then compare them with geological samples obtained during fieldwork survey. Overall, these two case studies provide some illustration of variable selection strategies within the southern African coastal plain.

An Archaeological Investigation of Laloi East Molluscs Site at Kpone, Ghana

This article is a report of an archaeological investigation of the Laloi East Molluscs Site at Kpone, Greater Accra Region, Ghana. Although radiometric dates for this shell midden are currently unavailable, we believe that Laloi East dates to the Later Stone Age. If so, this site would be one of only two LSA sites in Ghana found and excavated along the coast rather than in the forested interior. This article examines shellfish exploitation and other major subsistence strategies of the population that settled the site in the past. The principal cultural materials recovered from the excavations comprised large quantities of molluscs’ remains belonging to a variety of species, other faunal remains, pottery, palm kernel nuts, charcoal, stone slabs, and lithic tools. The combined evidence indicates that molluscs’ exploitation was the principal subsistence strategy of the settlers, undertaken alongside hunting, trapping, herding and the gathering of edible botanical resources such as palm fruits.