Namibian Archaeology

Namibia has one of the most outstanding, diverse and extensive rock art records in Southern Africa. The country's Rock art database currently holds detailed records of both paintings and engravings found in various settings. However , some of these sites have been recorded and published, while others remained unrecorded and unpublished. This paper attempts to highlight the history of rock art research in Namibia over the last 50 years to date, the period where increased research activities has been observed in the region; by examining where rock art research has been focused and the aspects of management and conservation of the rock art sites in Namibia. Furthermore, we will briefly discuss some of the challenges of studying rock art in Namibia, current research trends and future research perspectives.

This paper analyses the chances of survival among shipwreck survivors who endured the initial wrecking of the Bom Jesus shipwreck in 1533 within Southern Africa. The paper takes a comparative historic analysis cantered on the pre-colonial historic relationship between the European sea farers and the indigenous people of South Western Africa in terms
of  trade,  social  interactions  etc,  and  shipwrecked  survivors narratives  in  Southern  Africa helped to reconstruct the factors at play in ensuring survival or death of the sailors in such situations.

On 1 April 2008, parts of an historic shipwreck were unearthed during diamond-mining operations near Oranjemund, Namibia. Initial investigations undertaken during that same month indicated that it was, most probably, the remnants of an outward-bound Portuguese ship that foundered during the second quarter of the sixteenth century. The Oranjemund shipwreck is the oldest wreck ever found in sub-Saharan Africa and received worldwide attention in the media. After an initial survey was undertaken and a representative sample of artifacts and ecofacts recovered, the site was reburied. Following this, the Namibian Government stepped in and took control of the project. A Second Phase investigation was undertaken under supervision of the author during September and October 2008, resulting in full-scale excavation of the site. This article describes aspects of archaeological fieldwork.

For almost four decades, the University of Cologne has been intensively involved with rock art research in southwestern Africa. Thousands of engravings and paintings have been documented, particularly from
Namibia. Excavations were carried out which yielded a chronological framework for Namibia's rock art. In Central Namibia, most of the prehistoric rock paintings are between 2,000 and 4,000 years old.
The practice of painting stopped during the first millennium AD when domestic sheep were introduced.

Bones of domestic sheep dated to the early first millennium AD are described from the Dâures massif in the Namib Desert. The remains confirm earlier investigations which inferred the acquisition of livestock from indirect evidence in the rock art, suggesting a fundamental shift in ritual practice at this time. Dating of the sheep remains is in broad agreement with the dating of other finds in the same area and in southern Africa as a whole. The presence of suspected sheep bone artefacts, possibly used for ritual purposes, draws attention to the importance of livestock as more than a component of diet in the changing economy of hunter-gatherer society. Résumé Des os de mouton domestique datés du début du premier millénaire AD, découverts dans le Massif des Dâures (Désert du Namib), sont ici décrits. Ces vestiges confir-ment les premières observations effectuées sur l'art pariétal qui indiquaient de façon indirecte l'acquisition du bétail et suggéraient une transformation fondamentale des pratiques rituelles à cette époque. La datation de ces vestiges de mouton s'inscrit dans le cadre chronologique des découvertes locales et d'Afrique australe dans son ensemble. D'éventuels artefacts sur os de mouton, poten-tiellement attribués à des fins rituelles, sont aussi discutés. Ce fait attire notre attention sur l'importance du bétail au-delà de son utilisation comme ressource alimentaire, au sein du système économique en mutation de la société des chasseurs-cueilleurs. (To cite this pre-press online article, please include the standard reference information, the digital object identifier and online publication date)

Bows in hunter-gatherer societies are not mono-functional items. Besides hunting and fighting, they may also have been used for musical purposes. Rock art in southern Africa provides a record of this use, giving way to investigating past music cultures. This paper brings together the published depictions of musical bows from across southern Africa with some new discoveries. Although depictions of bows being played as musical instruments have been recorded for decades, these scenes still lack archaeological or musicological investigation. When analysing these depictions, it turns out that there is a comparatively wide variety of technical aspects of sound production, of ways of playing and of contexts of the musical performance, indicating rich cultural diversity among the early peoples of the subcontinent. Moreover, the paintings show details in these aspects that are not corroborated by ethnographic studies. Nevertheless, they open up a tableau of the potential context variability in the musical practice of preHistory and also indicate that rock art studies should be open to finding contexts of meaning beyond the dichotomy of the purely ritual and the profane.

The size distributions of ostrich eggshell beads from a
number of central Namibian assemblages fall into three
types characterized by the presence or absence of beads
larger than 7,5 mm in maximum diameter and by the
shape of the distribution. Type I is associated with preherding
LSA assemblages; Type II is associated with
LSA assemblages post-dating the arrival of herding; and
Type III is characteristic of herder assemblages since
800 BP. In addition, the relevance of beads as indicators
of site function and seasonality is also commented upon.

Arianna Dagnino was born in Genova, Italy. After Moscow, London, and Boston, she worked in South Africa as a foreign correspondent. In Australia, she earned a PhD in sociology and comparative literature. She currently teaches at the University of British Columbia. Like many of her characters, she shares the nomadic experience.

The Afrikaner (Guernica Editions, 2019) is a powerful novel set in extraordinary locations in Africa, where we encounter some mysterious people. Zoe du Plessis and her Italian colleague, Dario Oldani, are palaeontologists searching for the remains of the earliest humans in Africa. When Dario is suddenly killed in Johannesburg, Zoe must carry on their dig in the middle of the hostile Kalahari Desert. The sensual and rich descriptions of the desert landscape take us there on every page. “The territory has spectacular red sand dunes, with solitary black-maned lions roaming the open pans. Occasionally, mighty baobabs rise amid the arid plains. Some of those giants are more than a thousand years old.” This is a visual work with cinematic qualities in many scenes.

The Afrikaner is a work of self-translation from the Italian version titled Fossili (1996). Dagnino explains that she had to substantially rewrite much of the novel while converting it into English. As an author who used self-translation as part of the creative process, she joins a group of international writers who move between languages. These include Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Canadian Nancy Huston, as well as African writers Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, André Brink and Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen).

Since the publication of the Geduld report (Smith &
Jacobson 1995) there has been a strong and somewhat
polemical response to it by Kinahan (1995, 1996; but see
Smith et al. 1996). I would like to respond to a few
matters of fact, and also to examine briefly the theoretical
basis for Kinahan's responses.

European contact with the pastoral Khoi. The Namibian evidence contradicts the general view that the eighteenth-century Khoi were little more than a colonial underclass. Details of layout and construction from //Khauxa/nas point to the rise of a hierarchical organization uniting autonomous households within a pastoral alliance. This development reflects the evolutionary potential of Khoi society at a crucial moment in its history, immediately prior to the rise of armed resistance against colonial rule. Les vestiges d'un campement complexe ceinturd d'un tour de pierre //Khauxa/nas en Namibie donnent des nouveaux aperfus des consdquences sociales du contact europden avec les Khoi pastoraux. L'dvidence namibienne ddment les rues gdndrales que les Khoi du 18dme sidcle n'dtaient plus qu'une sous-classe coloniale. Les ddtails du plan et de la construction du campement de//Khauxa/nas mettent en dvidence l'essor d'une organisation hidrarchique unifiant des mdnages autonomes darts l'alliance pastorale. Ce ddveloppement refldte le potentiel dvolutionniste social de la socidtd Khoi d'un instant crucial de son histoire, immddiatement avant le soul~vement de la rdsistance armde contre l'autoritd coloniale.

"Etemba 14 was excavated in two seasons (1968 and 1984) and yielded a stratigraphic sequence with Later Stone Age (LSA) and Middle Stone Age (MSA) material. Human remains discovered among material of the first excavation had been assigned to the MSA complex. The diachronic analysis of material from the second excavation showed that 1) the transition correlates with the sedimentological change from Unit IV to V, contrary to previous interpretations; 2) the interface most probably reflects a considerable time span; 3) the human cranial fragments belong to the LSA complex; 4) an undisturbed MSA layer was identified at the base of the second excavation.
A technological analysis of the MSA assemblage showed that discoidal reduction was the prevailing concept, independent of the raw material used. Cores made out of quartz show additionally a simple, unipolar reduction. Pointed flakes (pseudo-Levallois points) are frequent; blades are irregular and very scarce. The reconstruction of the chaîne opératoire allows some suggestions about the activities that took place on site.Early MSA assemblages from the south-western part of Namibia show similar technological features. Whether the discoid technology used at Etemba 14 is a chronological marker or a local expression of functional or economic needs requires further research."

An archaeological survey of the area to be affected by a proposed hydropower scheme at Epupa on the lower Cunene River is described. The archaeological evidence from a total of 155 sites spans the mid-Pleistocene to Recent sequence and includes the remains of pastoral Himba serdements. No clear evidence as to the antiquity of Himba settlement was found, although the indications are that it would date to within the 19'h century AD.

A series of multiple measurements have been made by PIXE on several ostrich eggshell fragments from different sites in Namibia and the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Sourcing ostrich eggshell to different geological substrates will make it possible to source ostrich eggshell beads and reconstruct those trade and exchange networks.

ABSTRACT A unique assemblage of ritual objects is described from Falls Rock Shelter in the Dâures massif of Namibia, a major concentration of rock art sites linked to hunter-gatherer shamanic traditions. Occupation of the sites commenced about five thousand years ago and, although there is no direct dating for the rock art itself, it is thought to have been executed during the same period. The assemblage reported here, and dated to approximately 2750 cal. BC, is associated with the earliest evidence of Holocene occupation. Similarities between objects in the assemblage, their archaeological context and ritual paraphernalia depicted in the rock art provide new insights into the nature of shamanic performance in the Namib Desert.

Archaeological evidence from the Awasib-Gorrasis basin complex confirms the late
Holocene occupation hiatus observed elsewhere in the southern Namib Desert. The second
millennium AD re-occupation of the study area is related to the development of specialized
hunting and gathering strategies which maximized the opportunities of a highly
episodic environment.

The Meob Bay shipwreck project was initiated in January 1993, when some copper coins that had been washed ashore were identified by the author. All coins are VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, United Dutch East India Company or DEIC) doits, minted in the town of Middelburg in the Netherlands in 1746. Research revealed that they most probably originate from a VOC ship that foundered during the outward-bound voyage. All leads point to the Vlissingen, a vessel that was lost with all hands in 1747. This article describes the identification process, the results of archival research into the historical background of the Vlissingen, as well as some aspects of archaeological fieldwork undertaken on site to date.

Indigenous pastoralists at Walvis Bay (formerly Walwich Bay) on the Namib Desert coast were drawn into global commerce at the end of the eighteenth century (Fig. 21.1). Rich documentary and material evidence allows insights into the indigenous response, giving voice to a fine-grained and nuanced perception of the local people, contrary to the standard view of them as hapless victims of processes outside their control. Through a narrative approach, I attempt to present the data in an accessible way.

Suites of potsherds from herder coastal and inland sites were analysed by PIXE with 3 MeV protons. Correspondence analysis was carried out using the 12 elements that were common to most samples. The coastal suite was more heterogeneous than the inland one and reflected a greater mobility of their material culture. Thick target methodology was used to evaluate the concentrations of trace elements.

A paper by Foley (1982) had reconsidered the role of hunting large mammals by tropical hunter-gatherers. He argued that regions that receive less than 500mm mean annual rainfall support economies that are more dependent on gathering than on large-mammal hunting. This paper evaluates the relevance of Foley's model for understanding hunter-gatherer adaptations in the Namib Desert and demonstrates that hunting rather than gathering was more important on a seasonal basis.

A Dama-made clay vessel is described and compared with descriptions of Dama vessels from the literature as well as archaeological examples from the area in which it was found. It is recommended that ethnic labels be eschewed until a better understanding of material culture and its formation in the archaeological record is achieved.

Climatic amelioration during the mid-Holocene Optimum is associated with hunter-gatherer occupation of remote sites in the Namib Desert. Subsequent changes in late Holocene site distribution suggest there were alternative responses to increasing aridity during this period. Abandonment or episodic occupation is evident in some areas, while others show an emphasis on mountain refugia and resource anomalies. Specialized coping strategies developed during this time allowed a broad re-occupation of the desert when conditions improved briefly during the Medieval Warm Epoch. Successive patterns of settlement and subsistence in the Namib Desert Holocene sequence exemplify the four moments of Holling's adaptive cycle.

This paper presents a preliminary report of an excavation in Oruwanje 95/1 rock shelter that provided some significant results concerning the rise of herding societies in Namibia. The stratigraphy mainly covers the last 3000 years and several LSA-phases could be distinguished. Of special interest are the finds of pottery and remains of domesticated sheep and goats. Despite dating problems, the findings together reveal the appearance of pottery and domesticated animals in the former Kaokoland at least by 2000 B.P. The sedimentological analysis points to slight climatic variations. This is not, however, confirmed by the archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data.

Usually referred to as 'ochre' or 'pigment' in archaeological contexts, ferruginous rocks were commonly exploited during the Later Stone Age in southern Africa. While ochre could lead to crucial inferences about socio-cultural behaviours of past populations, the provenance and the procurement strategies of this material in LSA contexts, as well as its association to rock art remain largely understudied. In the present study, seventeen ochre sources from five geological zones in north-central Namibia and 41 archaeological ochre pieces discovered in the stratigraphic sequence of the Later Stone Age site of Leopard Cave, Erongo Mountains-Namibia, were analysed by ICP-OES and ICP-MS/MS. Geochemical data coupled to data pre-treatment considerations and multivariate statistical analyses demonstrate that archaeological ochres were both collected locally and regionally from more distant sources. Beyond shedding new light on ochre provenance for rock art in north-central Namibia during the Later Stone Age, our data provide new insight into the mobility of past populations and the interactions existing between distinct rock art areas in north-central Namibia.

During the last few decades, maritime archaeology has developed into an internationally accepted field of specialisation within the discipline of archaeology. It has, however, only gained academic recognition in Southern Africa since the late 1980s, when a lecturing post for maritime archaeology was established at the University of Cape Town. This resulted in initial efforts being focused on South Africa. Now, however, the time has come to expand the development of maritime archaeology to neighbouring countries. Due to various positive factors – including the presence of an important research potential as well as growing interest and positive contributions by some organisations and private individuals – Namibia provides a fertile ground to extend the field of operations. This article first summarises the objectives and methodology of maritime archaeological research in general; then it offers suggestions as to how to establish this research specialisation in Namibia, bearing in mind local circumstances.

This essay examines a well-written and cautionary tale about the ways that archaeological observations were once hijacked and commercialized in the service of racism and colonialism, and the drive that has led some great researchers to jump to unwarranted conclusions.

Eight copper beads from three central Namibian sites and one possible ore specimen were subjected to metallographic and chemical
analysis. The cylindrical beads were found to consist of indigenously produced copper with characteristic cuprite inclusions. The
method of fabrication was reconstructed from description of the microstructure, with initial hot working and annealing followed
by final cold work to hammer the joins closed without solder. There was significant variation in the inclusion chemistry, probably
indicating regional trade, although detailed sourcing studies would be necessary to confirm this

During the 1960s most of Africa’s countries had gained independence except for Namibia. Attainment of freedom for them was a momentous occasion particularly for those who had suffered firstly under the Germans and then under the South Africans who had extended apartheid to the Namibians. Namibia attained independence long after most African countries had, it is a subject of debate as to whether the results was control from the South African Country or there were other specific factors which are to be blamed. As the essay unfolds factors that precluded Namibia from attaining independence after World War II shall be discussed.

The remains of a complex stone-walled encampment at//Khauxa/nas in Namibia provide new insights into the social consequences of European contact with the pastoral Khoi. The Namibian evidence contradicts the general view that the eighteenth-century Khoi were little more than a colonial underclass. Details of layout and construction from //Khauxa/nas point to the rise of a hierarchical organization uniting autonomous households within a pastoral alliance. This development reflects the evolutionary potential of Khoi society at a crucial moment in its history, immediately prior to the rise of armed resistance against colonial rule. Les vestiges d'un campement complexe ceinturd d'un tour de pierre //Khauxa/nas en Namibie donnent des nouveaux aperfus des consdquences sociales du contact europden avec les Khoi pastoraux. L'dvidence namibienne ddment les rues gdndrales que les Khoi du 18dme sidcle n'dtaient plus qu'une sous-classe coloniale. Les ddtails du plan et de la construction du campement de//Khauxa/nas mettent en dvidence l'essor d'une organisation hidrarchique unifiant des mdnages autonomes darts l'alliance pastorale. Ce ddveloppement refldte le potentiel dvolutionniste social de la socidtd Khoi d'un instant crucial de son histoire, immddiatement avant le soul~vement de la rdsistance armde contre l'autoritd coloniale.

In southern Africa, Middle Stone Age sites with long sequences have been the focus of intense international and interdisciplinary research over the past decade (cf. Wadley 2015). Two techno-complexes of the Middle Stone Age—the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort—have been associated with many technological and behavioural innovations of Homo sapiens. The classic model argues that these two techno-complexes are temporally separated ‘horizons’ with homogenous material culture (Jacobs et al.2008), reflecting demographic pulses and supporting large subcontinental networks. This model was developed on the basis of evidence from southern African sites regarded as centres of subcontinental developments.