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CHANGING HUNTER-GATHERER LIFEWAYS ON THE GREATER MAPUNGUBWE LANDSCAPE

CHANGING HUNTER-GATHERER LIFEWAYS ON THE GREATER MAPUNGUBWE LANDSCAPE. A LANDSCAPE APPROACH TO AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL QUANDARY. Tim Forssman University of Oxford. Background: Stone tools and glass beads from the Northern Tuli Game Reserve . CONTENTS. The last 12 000 years

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CHANGING HUNTER-GATHERER LIFEWAYS ON THE GREATER MAPUNGUBWE LANDSCAPE

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  1. CHANGING HUNTER-GATHERER LIFEWAYS ON THE GREATER MAPUNGUBWE LANDSCAPE A LANDSCAPE APPROACH TO AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL QUANDARY Tim Forssman University of Oxford Background: Stone tools and glass beads from the Northern Tuli Game Reserve

  2. CONTENTS • The last 12 000 years • Current research problems • Landscape archaeology • Settlement patterns • Ethnographic bias • Renewed focus • Centrefold: Venetia • Ageless foragers Background: Kaoxa’s Shelter on the farm Machete north of Venetia

  3. Balerno Shelter 2 Little Muck Shelter Balerno Main Shelter (courtesy Bronwen van Doornum) Tshisiku Shelter Balerno Shelter 3 (courtesy Bronwen van Doornum) (courtesy Bronwen van Doornum)

  4. CULTURAL PHASES

  5. IRON AGETHE ARRIVAL OF FARMING PEOPLE • Farmer settlements appear at the turn of the first millennium AD: Happy Rest – AD 350 • Zhizo – AD 900-1000 • K2 – AD 1000-1200 • Transitional K2 – AD 1200-1250 • Mapungubwe – AD 1220-1300 • Icon – around AD 1300-1500 • Khami – AD 1400-1820 • Venda – AD 1600 onwards Background: Grinding stone from Mmamagwa

  6. CURRENT RESEARCH PROBLEMS • Misrepresentation of the LSA record • Single site-context focus • Ethnographic bias • Deterministic approach • No trans-national focus Kaoxa’s Shelter Background: Mankala board at Mmamagwa

  7. SHIFTING APPROACHLANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY • Not all sites are the same • Relationship between site-types • Study of the landscape and the distribution of sites across it Background: View from Mapungubwe

  8. SETTLEMENT PATTERNSCONSTRUCTING THE LANDSCAPE • Arriving agriculturalists impacted hunter-gatherer mobility and settlement • Traditional ‘contact’ sites • Local extinction or shift in settlement? Background: Sunset over Rhodes’ baobab

  9. ETHNOGRAPHIC BIAS • ‘Original primitive culture’ • Ahistorical view • Archaeological analytical technique or bias? Background: Conflict scene in Bushman rock art

  10. RENEWED FOCUSTHE WAY FORWARD

  11. Dzombo Shelter Shawu Camp Kambaku Camp João Shelter Ndlulamithi Kraal Mafunyane Shelter

  12. DZOMBO SHELTER

  13. VENETIA LIMPOPO NATURE RESERVE • Sandstone koppie belt versus Kolope drainage basin • Little Muck Shelter and Leokwe Hill • Hunter-gatherer open air camps Leokwe Hill Two giraffes – Little Muck Shelter Background: Edmundsberg rock art; Fat-tailed sheep

  14. AGELESS FORAGERS • Context specific interpretation • Patterning across the landscape • Negotiating contact: foragers in a farmer perspective? • Landscape approach and trans-national ramifications Background: Mmamagwa hilltop and Rhodes’s baobab

  15. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to the Palaeontological Scientific Trust for their generous financial support and the Mashatu Game Reserve for providing accommodation and subsistence. My supervisor Peter Mitchell has helped develop many of these ideas.

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