Studies of African material culture during the 20 th century were complicit in the creation and n... more Studies of African material culture during the 20 th century were complicit in the creation and normalisation of the concept 'tribes' as phenomena in South African archaeology. Marateng pottery, which was common in at least three precolonial polities in central northeastern South Africa, did not escape this tribalisation. Recognition of the process in which 'tribe' or 'cultural affinity' was prioritised over other identities can play a significant role in the disruption of problematic 20 th-century narratives about South African pottery. This in turn makes new, more situated insights possible. In this paper, I trace the academic making of Marateng pottery, before examining the context in which pottery in this style was made in the Leolo Mountains in the Sekhukhune district and Boomplaats near Lydenburg (now Mashishing). I suggest that these vessels were made in a milieu where there was an established trade in pottery by the second half of the 19 th century, and that the 20 th-century meanings of the peolane and mahlaka designs should be reconsidered in a context where invoking the traditional had become a form of resistance against apartheid.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2020
Farming Communities have lived in northeastern South Africa since the 4th century ad. Archaeologi... more Farming Communities have lived in northeastern South Africa since the 4th century ad. Archaeologists use pottery style and radiocarbon dates in their reconstructions of the temporal and spatial distribution of these farming community settlements in the Lowveld, on the Great Escarpment and on the Central Plateau. Early Farming Community sites tend to be restricted to the Lowveld and river valleys, while Middle and Late Farming Community sites are distributed more widely. Early Farming Communities lived in scattered homesteads until the development of chiefdoms toward the end of the first millennium. Chiefly settlements comprised larger, aggregated sites. After the 16th century, larger-scale aggregation started, resulting in extensive, dense settlements such as the stonewalled Bokoni towns. Food production and procurement ranged from small household-scale practices to specialized hunting and intensive farming. Salt and metal extraction and production also were important components in ...
Rural African farming has often been viewed as ephemeral shifting cultivation with low output and... more Rural African farming has often been viewed as ephemeral shifting cultivation with low output and high unreliability. At the same time it is often understood as static and relatively unchanged for centuries. More recent historical and archaeological studies of African ‘intensive’ farming systems have challenged this narrative, yet detailed analyses of such systems and the potential to draw ‘lessons’ from them for the future remain under-developed and restricted to relatively few locations. This paper presents an overview of a new research network designed to share and generate novel in insights into African farming systems across the continent. The network links projects in Kenya (Marakwet), Nigeria (Tiv) and South Africa (Bokoni) in an attempt to develop comparative and panAfrican approaches, as well as building unique research capacity, experience, approaches and knowledge in Africa and for Africa. In the paper we introduce each of the partner projects and the specific interdiscip...
Terrace farming flourished in Bokoni from the sixteenth century CE onwards. Bokoni farmers’ resil... more Terrace farming flourished in Bokoni from the sixteenth century CE onwards. Bokoni farmers’ resilience strategies, however, were severely tested during the third occupation phase (approx. 1780 to 1840 CE), when the mfecane destabilised the region. In order to reflect on the environmental conditions Bokoni farmers faced in this period the stable carbon isotope proxy rainfall records from Prunus africana and Pittosporum viridiflorum specimens that grew on the Buffelskloof site were studied. Because the Buffelskloof records postdate the occupation, the records are compared with a 1000-year Adansonia digitata rainfall proxy record from the Pafuri region. Deviations between the two are attributed to the juvenile effect, and when these are discounted there is a significant correlation between local and regional rainfall records. This suggests common large-scale synoptic forcing underlies regional rainfall variability, and the decadal-scale variability in the Adansonia digitata records ind...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2017
Complexity flourished in several regions north and south of the Zambezi during the second millenn... more Complexity flourished in several regions north and south of the Zambezi during the second millennium ce. Four of these localities are explored here: the Greater Shashe-Limpopo region, the Zimbabwean plateau, the Upemba depression–Katanga area, and the Maravi state. Politics in all four regions were fluid, and processes of fusion and fission sporadically reconfigured these socio-political landscapes. Fluidity also manifested in the relocation of political centers as political loyalties were realigned, economic networks shifted, and, in the more recent period, colonial expansion affected southern Africa. Political fluidity, however, does not mean population discontinuities. Settlement and material culture distribution patterns in the Greater Shashe-Limpopo region suggest that networking between communities was vital to the development of complexity in the region. This included interaction between first peoples and newcomers, which has also been noted in the Mutapa, Khami, and Venda po...
Excavations of Southern African farming community sites have yielded two figurine types. The firs... more Excavations of Southern African farming community sites have yielded two figurine types. The first comprises coarse clay figurines found in clusters in central areas in homesteads. These clusters contained anthropomorphic and animal figurines that resemble material culture used in twentieth-century southernmost African initiation schools. The second figurine type, associated with domestic areas, is finer and included toys and stylized human figurines. The stylized human figurines resemble historical figures that embodied ideas about male ownership over the female body, procreative powers, and spirit. The decorations on the stylized female figurines resemble body scarification that might have been used to express personhood. This chapter suggests that the production and use of these clay figurines were enmeshed in ideas about sex and gender, and that figurines materialized ideas, in both ceremonial and domestic contexts, about the adult body as sexed and gendered.
Studies of African material culture during the 20 th century were complicit in the creation and n... more Studies of African material culture during the 20 th century were complicit in the creation and normalisation of the concept 'tribes' as phenomena in South African archaeology. Marateng pottery, which was common in at least three precolonial polities in central northeastern South Africa, did not escape this tribalisation. Recognition of the process in which 'tribe' or 'cultural affinity' was prioritised over other identities can play a significant role in the disruption of problematic 20 th-century narratives about South African pottery. This in turn makes new, more situated insights possible. In this paper, I trace the academic making of Marateng pottery, before examining the context in which pottery in this style was made in the Leolo Mountains in the Sekhukhune district and Boomplaats near Lydenburg (now Mashishing). I suggest that these vessels were made in a milieu where there was an established trade in pottery by the second half of the 19 th century, and that the 20 th-century meanings of the peolane and mahlaka designs should be reconsidered in a context where invoking the traditional had become a form of resistance against apartheid.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2020
Farming Communities have lived in northeastern South Africa since the 4th century ad. Archaeologi... more Farming Communities have lived in northeastern South Africa since the 4th century ad. Archaeologists use pottery style and radiocarbon dates in their reconstructions of the temporal and spatial distribution of these farming community settlements in the Lowveld, on the Great Escarpment and on the Central Plateau. Early Farming Community sites tend to be restricted to the Lowveld and river valleys, while Middle and Late Farming Community sites are distributed more widely. Early Farming Communities lived in scattered homesteads until the development of chiefdoms toward the end of the first millennium. Chiefly settlements comprised larger, aggregated sites. After the 16th century, larger-scale aggregation started, resulting in extensive, dense settlements such as the stonewalled Bokoni towns. Food production and procurement ranged from small household-scale practices to specialized hunting and intensive farming. Salt and metal extraction and production also were important components in ...
Rural African farming has often been viewed as ephemeral shifting cultivation with low output and... more Rural African farming has often been viewed as ephemeral shifting cultivation with low output and high unreliability. At the same time it is often understood as static and relatively unchanged for centuries. More recent historical and archaeological studies of African ‘intensive’ farming systems have challenged this narrative, yet detailed analyses of such systems and the potential to draw ‘lessons’ from them for the future remain under-developed and restricted to relatively few locations. This paper presents an overview of a new research network designed to share and generate novel in insights into African farming systems across the continent. The network links projects in Kenya (Marakwet), Nigeria (Tiv) and South Africa (Bokoni) in an attempt to develop comparative and panAfrican approaches, as well as building unique research capacity, experience, approaches and knowledge in Africa and for Africa. In the paper we introduce each of the partner projects and the specific interdiscip...
Terrace farming flourished in Bokoni from the sixteenth century CE onwards. Bokoni farmers’ resil... more Terrace farming flourished in Bokoni from the sixteenth century CE onwards. Bokoni farmers’ resilience strategies, however, were severely tested during the third occupation phase (approx. 1780 to 1840 CE), when the mfecane destabilised the region. In order to reflect on the environmental conditions Bokoni farmers faced in this period the stable carbon isotope proxy rainfall records from Prunus africana and Pittosporum viridiflorum specimens that grew on the Buffelskloof site were studied. Because the Buffelskloof records postdate the occupation, the records are compared with a 1000-year Adansonia digitata rainfall proxy record from the Pafuri region. Deviations between the two are attributed to the juvenile effect, and when these are discounted there is a significant correlation between local and regional rainfall records. This suggests common large-scale synoptic forcing underlies regional rainfall variability, and the decadal-scale variability in the Adansonia digitata records ind...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2017
Complexity flourished in several regions north and south of the Zambezi during the second millenn... more Complexity flourished in several regions north and south of the Zambezi during the second millennium ce. Four of these localities are explored here: the Greater Shashe-Limpopo region, the Zimbabwean plateau, the Upemba depression–Katanga area, and the Maravi state. Politics in all four regions were fluid, and processes of fusion and fission sporadically reconfigured these socio-political landscapes. Fluidity also manifested in the relocation of political centers as political loyalties were realigned, economic networks shifted, and, in the more recent period, colonial expansion affected southern Africa. Political fluidity, however, does not mean population discontinuities. Settlement and material culture distribution patterns in the Greater Shashe-Limpopo region suggest that networking between communities was vital to the development of complexity in the region. This included interaction between first peoples and newcomers, which has also been noted in the Mutapa, Khami, and Venda po...
Excavations of Southern African farming community sites have yielded two figurine types. The firs... more Excavations of Southern African farming community sites have yielded two figurine types. The first comprises coarse clay figurines found in clusters in central areas in homesteads. These clusters contained anthropomorphic and animal figurines that resemble material culture used in twentieth-century southernmost African initiation schools. The second figurine type, associated with domestic areas, is finer and included toys and stylized human figurines. The stylized human figurines resemble historical figures that embodied ideas about male ownership over the female body, procreative powers, and spirit. The decorations on the stylized female figurines resemble body scarification that might have been used to express personhood. This chapter suggests that the production and use of these clay figurines were enmeshed in ideas about sex and gender, and that figurines materialized ideas, in both ceremonial and domestic contexts, about the adult body as sexed and gendered.
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