Republic of South Africa (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
351-375 (502 Records)
Early human colonists of Madagascar encountered a diverse endemic fauna during the late Holocene that included elephant birds, pygmy hippos, and giant lemurs. All fauna >10 kg went extinct in the past 1,000-2,000 years. Direct human predation and anthropogenic landscape change help explain aspects of the extinction pattern. Increasing aridity may have also played a role in some regions, but its contribution remains controversial. We track changes in aridity during the past 4,000 years in...
Patterns in Robberg Tool Manufacture and Discard at the Open-Air Locality of Uitspankraal 9 Western Cape, South Africa (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Robberg technology is found across southern Africa, but currently is known primarily from cave and rock shelter contexts. This study characterizes the nature of the assemblage from a discrete cluster of Robberg artifacts at the open-air locality of Uitspankraal 9 (UPK9) in the Doring River catchment of the Cederberg Mountains. UPK9 is situated on the banks of...
Patterns of Hominin Land Use and Raw Material Procurement in the Paleo-Olduvai Basin, Tanzania (2017)
Suitable toolstone was a key affordance for Early Stone Age (ESA) populations across Africa. Northern Tanzania’s Olduvai Basin, because it contains numerous ESA archaeological localities and a variety of quartzitic outcrops, offers an excellent opportunity to evaluate the effect of raw material distribution on hominin landuse. While the lithology and mineralogy of these outcrops have been well described, their macroscopic similarities confound efforts to reliably determine the exact source of...
People and Palaeoclimates at the Diallowali Site Complex: Changing patterns along the Middle Senegal Valley throughout the 1st millennium BC (2017)
The first millennium BC was a time of considerable social, technological, and environmental change for the peoples of West Africa. Despite the growing number and distribution of archaeological projects throughout the region, very little is known about this critical period. Likewise, many of the climate models currently in use lack the sufficient temporal or spatial resolution needed to provide context for the variety of changes occurring at a localized level. Recent research at the Diallowali...
Petrographic and Chemical Analysis of Ceramics of the Atlantic Period of Baol (1400–1900), Historical Kingdom of Northern Senegambia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The petrographic and chemical analysis of ceramic shards from the Senegalese Atlantic period (1400-1900) is the weak link in archaeological research in Senegal. Archaeological surveys and excavations carried out for my doctoral thesis yielded several artifacts, including local ceramics. A qualitative study of the ceramics collection was carried out...
Petrographic Perspectives on Ceramic Technology and Provenance in Northern Botswana (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 45 years, Wilmsen, James Denbow, and others have recovered ceramics from nearly thirty excavated sites, in the northern half of Botswana. Together with Phenyo Thebe and Ann Griffiths, Wilmsen has also sampled clays and sands throughout the region, has obtained samples of raw materials, and prepared pastes and pots...
Pfahlbauten in Afrika, Phil. Diss. (1978)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Photo Log (2019)
Photo log for photos taken during the course of this NSF project (photo log number corresponds to photos uploaded to this tDAR project)
Place Of Refuge: "The Fighting Missionary", Alexander Merensky, And The Forts Of Botshabelo Mission Station, South Africa. (2018)
Botshabelo Mission Station, Mpumalanga, South Africa was established in 1865 within the borders of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (ZAR) by Alexander Merensky and groups of Bapedi and Bakopa converts and refugees, all of whom had been displaced from territories further to the north through processes of intra-societal and colonial violence. It is perhaps for this reason that the mission station boasted three forts, unusual features for such a site. This paper examines the ways in which the object...
Post-Depositional Ridge Rounding on Banded Ironstone and the Condition of the Fauresmith Artifacts at Bestwood, South Africa (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Transitional lithics have the potential to inform researchers about innovation during significant periods of human evolution. The Fauresmith, an Early Stone Age (ESA) to Middle Stone Age (MSA) transitional industry in South Africa, is marked by the appearance of blade technology and composite tools alongside continuing traditions of large cutting tools. This...
Pots, Ethnoarchaeology, and Snake-Oil: James Skibo’s Lasting Impact on the Future of Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Method and Theory: Papers in Honor of James M. Skibo, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. James Skibo changed the way we study pottery. Jim’s archaeological career incorporated many different facets of archaeological research including experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, archaeology, and theory, all focusing on pottery research. One of his biggest influences is combining ethnoarchaeology and...
PP5-6 Mineral Pigment Artifact Analysis Data (2018)
The artifact analysis data set for the PP5-6 mineral pigment assemblage. The first page (PP5-6 Data Notes) provides information on the coding fields, while the second page (PP5-6 Data) provides the complete data set.
The pre-Aksumite Period in Eastern Tigrai: The Chronology and Stratigraphy of the Site of Mezber (2017)
The current understanding of the pre-Aksumite period of northern Ethiopia has been heavily influenced by data originating from sites in western Tigrai, particularly those in the area of Aksum. The Eastern Tigrai Archaeological Project (ETAP), however, has also documented substantial evidence for pre-Aksumite settlement further to the east, through both survey and excavation. This paper will summarize ETAP’s efforts to understand the pre-Aksumite period in eastern Tigrai at the site of Mezber,...
The Pre-Aksumite to Aksumite Transition in EasternTigrai: Ceramic Evidence from Ona Adi (2017)
The pre-Aksumite to Aksumite transition (PA-A transition) is critically important for the culture history of the Horn of Africa. This period in Western Tigrai (400/300–150 BCE) represents a cultural break between the Sabaean-influenced pre-Aksumite period (≥800–400/300 BCE) and the predominantly indigenous kingdom of Aksum. Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite polities in Western Tigrai were not directly related and marked by significant sociopolitical change. The emerging picture of the PA-A transition in...
Preheating: Practice or Illusion? (1996)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Preliminary results from new excavations of the Late Pleistocene occupations at Grassridge Rockshelter, South Africa. (2017)
Grassridge Rockshelter sits at the base of the Stormberg Mountains in the northern part of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This region has only been the focus of two previous major archaeological projects, with research at Grassridge last conducted in 1979 and identifying Holocene Later Stone Age and Late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age occupations. The Grassridge Archaeological and Palaeoenvironmental Project (GAPP) renewed research at Grassridge in 2014. In this presentation, we summarise the...
Preliminary Results of Geoarchaeological Sampling and Survey to Investigate Landscape History in Northern Unguja, Zanzibar (2017)
We present the preliminary results of a study investigating long-term agricultural history in northern Unguja, the southern island of Zanzibar. In the summer of 2016, we excavated four test pits in modern rice fields to collect bulk, starch, phytolith, C14, and micromorphology samples, as well as samples from upland areas along watersheds, with the aim of characterizing contemporary and ancient land use in the rice-growing western side of the island. We also carried out brief archaeological...
Primitive pottery for the contemporary Neanderthal, a Pacific Nortwest perspective, part I - the nature of primitive pottery and the quest for clay (2003)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Primitive pottery for the contemporary Neanderthal, a Pacific Nortwest perspective, part II - shaping the clay forming the pot (2004)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Primitive pottery for the contemporary Neanderthal, a Pacific Nortwest perspective, part III - into the fire (2004)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
The problem of reconstructing an Afro-iberian ship from the neolithic age (1972)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
The promise and pitfalls of quantitative paleoenvironmental reconstruction in zooarchaeology: evaluation of late Quaternary micromammal assemblages from southern Africa (2017)
Over the last several decades, Quaternary scientists have developed numerous techniques to generate quantitative paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on the taxonomic composition of fossil assemblages. The appeal of these methods is that, rather than providing reconstructions in qualitative terms (e.g., cooler versus warmer), they offer potential to generate numerical assessments. While these methods have been applied to a variety of fossil organisms, including pollen, diatoms, foraminifera,...
Provenance and Distribution of Neo-Punic Ceramics at Zita, Southern Tunisia, and Beyond. (2017)
The site of Zita is an urban mound located in southern Tunisia and situated along an ancient trade route from Carthage to Tripoli. It is the highest point on a peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea across from the Island of Djerba, often identified as the Island of Calypso of the Lotus-Eaters from the Odyssey. Established as a Carthaginian settlement around 500 BCE, the city became a Roman regional center in the 1st century CE. Zita still has industrial features such as ceramic kilns and...
Public Opinion and Archaeological Heritage: An Initial Perspective from Egypt (2017)
A recent survey of Egyptian public opinion on archaeological heritage issues focused on four main areas: level of public interest and participation in archaeology, the role of antiquities and monuments in contemporary society, perceived reasons behind the spread of the iliicit antiquities trade, awareness of problems and issues that endanger Egyptian antiquities and monuments. Data collected from a sample of 908 residents across nine governorates in Egypt are used to examine trends and patterns...
Putting Southern African Rock Paintings in Context: The View from the Mirabib Rockshelter, Namibia (2017)
Various researchers have made great strides toward understanding southern African rock art through the exploration of the ethnographic and ethnohistoric records of San hunter-gatherer shamanism. In contrast, less attention has been paid to the archaeological context of the Later Stone Age (LSA) in which rock art was produced. This paper examines Middle Holocene rock paintings at the Mirabib rockshelter in the Central Namib Desert, western Namibia. Our fieldwork at Mirabib and our re-analysis of...