Lebenya a stone walled site in the North West, South Africa

2019

Die Broschüre "Archäologische Forschungen des DAI in Afrika 2018" informiert auf Deutsch und Englisch über alle aktuellen Projekte von Marokko und Tunesien über Ägypten, Sudan und Äthiopien bis nach Südafrika im Rahmen des TransArea Network Africa.

published in European Journal of Archaeology 18 (1) 2015, 147–184.

Current Anthropology, 2004

2007

During the 19 th century the present Makapan Valley World Heritage site was a place of repeated refuge from the conflicts arising from shifting authority, acquisition and loss of power, and competition over the control of resources in the northern regions of Republic of South Africa. During 1854 growing resistance amongst the northern AmaNdebele against the frontier of colonial expansion erupted in the murder of a number of trekboers who were encroaching on their territory. Historic Cave, one of the caves in the Valley, became written into the Afrikaner Nationalist narratives of the 20 th century as the place where the Boers avenged the treacherous murder of their fellow trekkers, by suppressing the savage forces of chief Mugombane and his Kekana chiefdom. The events surrounding the siege and the scale of the massacre became blurred in the playing out of these political agendas, while the Kekana oral histories remained silent on the matter. The excavation of Historic Cave, prompted by the contradictions in the historical narrative and the silence in the oral record, provided a means to detect the boundary between what happened and what was said to have happened. This thesis presents the results of a survey of the Valley, the excavation of Historic Cave and the analysis of the remains of the siege of 1854. The archaeological survey and excavation indicates that a number of scurmishes took place in the valley, but that Historic Cave was occupied only on one occasion for any length of time, during the siege of 1854. The lime enriched deposits and dry conditions within the cave have allowed for the exceptional preservation of plant, animal and human remains. This enduring evidence chronicled the activities and steps taken by the Kekana to survive. The spatial layout of the cave together with cultural remains echo the structure and hierarchy of the society trapped within it, which like many African societies of this time comprised a heterogeneous 'royal' core and other 'foreign'

Journal of African Archaeology, 2018

The rock shelter Mafusing 1 was excavated in 2011 as part of the Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA research programme initiated in the same year. This programme endeavours to redress the much-neglected history of this region of South Africa, which until 1994 formed part of the wider ‘Transkei’ apartheid homeland. Derricourt’s 1977 Prehistoric Man in the Ciskei and Transkei constituted the last archaeological survey in this area. However, the coverage for the Matatiele region was limited, and relied largely on van Riet Lowe’s site list of the 1930s. Thus far, the MARA programme has documented more than 200 rock art sites in systematic survey and has excavated two shelters – Mafusing 1 (MAF 1) and Gladstone 1 (forthcoming). Here we present analyses of the excavated material from the MAF 1 site, which illustrates the archaeological component of the wider historical and heritage-related programme focus. Our main findings at MAF 1 to date include a continuous, well stratified cultural sequence dating from the middle Holocene up to 2400 cal. BP. Ages obtained from these deposits are suggestive of hunter-gatherer occupation pulses at MAF 1, with possible abandonment of the site over the course of two millennia in the middle Holocene. After a major roof collapse altered the morphology of the shelter, there was a significant change in the character of occupation at MAF 1, reflected in both the artefact assemblage composition and the construction of a rectilinear structure within the shelter sometime after 2400 cal. BP. The presence of a lithic artefact assemblage from this latter phase of occupation at MAF 1 confirms the continued use of the site by hunter-gatherers, while the presence of pottery and in particular the construction of a putative rectilinear dwelling and associated animal enclosure points to occupation of the shelter by agropastoralists. Rock art evidence shows distinct phases, the latter of which may point to religious practices involving rain-serpents and rainmaking possibly performed, in part, for an African farmer audience. This brings into focus a central aim of the MARA programme: to research the archaeology of contact between hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist groups.

ABSTRACf Excavations at Mbabane Shelter and eSinhlonhlweni Shelter in the central Thukela Basin are reported. Both these sites postdate 2000 BP. The results of a lithic surface collection at Isifuthu Shelter are presented. These data are then brought together along with the existing information on farming communities of the area in a discussion on the recent hunter-gatherer history of the central Thukela Basin. MAZEL: MBABANE AND ESINHLONHLWENI SHELTERS 391

The rock shelter MAF 1 was excavated in 2011 as part of a research programme initiated in the same year, namely, Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA. This programme endeavours to redress the much-neglected history of this region of South Africa, which until 1994 formed part of the wider 'Transkei' apartheid homeland. Derricourt's 1977 Prehistoric man in the Ciskei & Transkei perhaps constituted the last archaeological survey in this expanse. However the coverage for the Matatiele region was limited, and relied largely on van Riet Lowe's site list of the 1930s. Thus far this programme has documented more than 200 rock art sites in systematic survey and has excavated two shelters — MAF 1 and GLAD 1 (forthcoming). A range of other sites have been prioritized for ongoing excavation. Here we present analyses of the excavated material from the MAF 1 site, which comprises the archaeological component of the wider historical and heritage-related programme focus. Our main findings at MAF 1 to date include a continuous, well stratified cultural sequence dating from the early Holocene up to 2400 cal. BP. Ages obtained from these deposits are suggestive of hunter-gatherer occupation pulses at MAF 1, with possible abandonment of the site over the course of two millennia in the middle Holocene. After a major roof collapse altered the morphology of the shelter, there was a significant change in the character of occupation at MAF 1, reflected in both the artefact assemblage composition and the construction of a rectilinear structure within the shelter sometime after 2400 cal. BP. The presence of a lithic artefact assemblage from this latter phase of occupation at MAF 1 indicates the continued use of the site by hunter-gatherers, with the presence of pottery and in particular the construction of a putative rectilinear dwelling and associated animal enclosure pointing to occupation of the shelter by agropastoralists. Rock art evidence shows distinct phases, the latter of which may point to beliefs in serpents and rainmaking possibly performed, in part, for an African farmer audience. This brings into focus a central aim of the MARA programme: to research the archaeology of contact between hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist groups. Use of the shelter continues to the present day as a traditional initiation school for boys held annually at the site, which has led to disturbance of, and burning in, the upper layers owing to modern initiation practices. Regrettably this has resulted in the mixing of the upper layers representing this later occupation phase at MAF 1, spanning in date from at least 1800 cal. BP, though potentially earlier, up to the present day.

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 1994

Antiquity, 2011