Africa: Southern Africa (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (109 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology is of great public interest, but a lack of approachable academic and popular materials may deter public engagement with our field and our research, meaning archaeologists must develop innovative means of communication. It is also vital that we make our work more accessible to local community members, whose history we are often excavating. Digital...
Analysis of a Jun/Wasi Nut Cracking Stone from Western Ngamiland, Botswana: Implications for the Origins of Hominin Technology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A nut cracking stone collected from a 1960s dry season occupation site at Dobe (Western Ngamiland, Botswana) shows not only evidence of cracking and pounding of mongongo nuts and other uses, but also repetitive flaking around the periphery. This flaking is reminiscent of the putative anvil stones from Lomekwi, Kenya (~3.3 Ma) and reinforces the idea that...
An Animist Shamanism: The World behind San Rock Art (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hunter-gatherer cosmology in southern Africa is very clearly multinatural; persons human and nonhuman working to behave intelligibly to each other so that relations are brokered and maintained. Until recently, however, rock art interpretations have implied a physical division between realms animal and human,...
Anthracological Analyses of the Iron Age Shell Middens Complex at Praia da Rocha, Inhambane, Mozambique (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016, our teams carried out survey and excavation field work in the Inhambane Province, located in southern coastal Mozambique. At Praia da Rocha we have identified several previously unknown shell middens dated to the regional Iron Age (c. 700 BP). All sites are located within few hundred meters of each other and only one (Praia da Rocha 1) was, so far, ...
Archaeological Identification, Investigation, and Implications of the Portuguese Slaver São José Paquette de Africa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "To Move Forward We Must Look Back: The Slave Wrecks Project at 10 Years" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In December 1794 the São José Paquete de Africa foundered near Cape Town, South Africa, while transporting over 500 slaves from Mozambique destined for northeastern Brazil, resulting in the death of over 200 souls. This presentation reviews the process through which independent lines of archaeological and archival...
The Archaeology and Anthropology of Megafauna Exploitation in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southern Africa has some of the world’s largest elephant (Loxodonta africana) populations. Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe all allow elephant hunting by safari company clients. Wildlife departments in the three countries engage in problem animal control (PAC) to reduce human-elephant conflict (HEC). Local indigenous community members, while not allowed to...
Archaeology, Local History, and Heritage in Limpopo National Park (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over a period of several years (from 2003 to 2018), we carried out interviews on local history in combination with archaeological surveys, vegetation studies, and livelihood assessments in several villages in Limpopo National Park (LNP), southern Mozambique. We present the results of the...
The Art of Survival: Mitigating the Impacts of PTSD and Combat Stress through the Manipulation of Moral Status and Identity in the Colonial-Era Rock Art of Southern Africa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the South African colonial period, settler incursion was met by indigenous resistance, sparking a series of brushfire conflicts. In the borderlands of the colony, “Bushman” bandits conducted an insurgency against colonists, facing as they did so significant traumatic stress. Being horse-borne was part of their identity, as was their association with...
An Assemblage-Level Comparison of Silcrete Flake Attributes across Three Methods of Heat Treatment: Preliminary Results from Actualistic Experiments (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic heat treatment technology was utilized as early as ~162,000 years ago at Pinnacle Point in South Africa to improve the quality of silcrete raw material for flaking. Despite its antiquity, we have little understanding of how these early Middle Stone Age humans heat-treated silcrete and why. A primary reason for this is a general lack of proxies for...
Bantu Arrival in Southern Mozambique: Ceramic Analysis as a Source of Information for Dating, Diversity, Technology Transfer, and Nutrition (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016, a research cooperation between the Eduardo Mondlane University and the German Archaeological Institute was started. Since then, this cooperation performed various surveys and geomagnetic prospection and developed with Hamburg University a dedicated research project which this...
Bead Production of the Later Stone Age in Northern Malawi (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Human Origins Migration and Evolution Research Consortium Poster Symposium" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Later Stone Age (LSA) bead production is typically reported with ostrich eggshell (OES) as the primary raw material. In south central Africa, land snail shell (LSS) was also used, but most sites have uncertain and poorly dated associations. The Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project has now recovered both...
Best Foot Forward: The Social Significance of Cattle Forelegs in South African San Rock Art (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rock paintings of cattle raids are common in South Africa's southeastern mountains. Traditionally, such scenes are thought to illustrate some degree of conflict between two groups. The postures of the cattle depicted in the same scenes have been interpreted as showing movement such as walking or being driven from one...
Bodies Shaping Bodies: Using Butchery to Trace Human-Animal Relationships (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers in Animal Management: Unconventional Species, New Methods, and Understudied Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While our relationship encompasses far more than just the dinner menu, food is one of the key ways in which human and animals lives and bodies directly shape one another. Indeed, beyond just the act of eating, how human and animal bodies meet in the context of procurement and processing can...
Body Modifications among San Hunter-Gatherers: A Relational Practice and Subsistence Strategy (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Body Modification: Examples and Explanations" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Body modifications are a well-known aspect of various cultural practices among the historically and ethnographically known San hunter-gatherers of Southern Africa, but not until recently have such practices been analyzed within an interpretative framework that gives reason to suggest that they were mostly performed to ensure harmonious...
The “Bronze Age” of Southern Africa: Insights from Isotopes and Trace Elements (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science and African Archaeology: Appreciating the Impact of David Killick" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Southern Africa project (2015–present) uses lead and tin isotopes plus trace element concentrations to infer the geological provenance of copper and tin in Iron Age copper alloys, and to investigate the behaviors responsible for moving these objects from their geological source to the eventual...
Building Expectations to understand the Evolutionary Significance of Archaeological Assemblages (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Human Origins: Archaeological Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the past thirty years has witnessed tremendous advances in our understanding of the geographic and temporal scope of the Paleolithic record, we still know remarkably little about the evolutionary and ecological consequences of changes in human behavior. Are there events in human evolution that...
Can archaeo-faunal data track site-specific occupational intensity? Case studies from the Late Pleistocene in the southern Cape of South Africa (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ubiquity of archaeo-faunal remains and discarded bone at Paleolithic sites make these useful datasets for investigating a range of site formation processes, including anthropogenic site-use activity. Occupational intensity is a common theme in current research and is often linked to demographic changes in the past. Given its association with early...
Can HBE Help Explain Variation in the Presence of Blue Duiker (Philantomba monticola) throughout the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave (South Africa)? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Do Good Things Come in Small Packages? Human Behavioral Ecology and Small Game Exploitation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Blue duiker (Philantomba monticola) is a small, forest dwelling bovid present throughout Central and southern Africa. The species remains an important source of bushmeat in Central Africa, and in southern Africa, its exploitation dates at least as far back as 77,000 years ago. At the Middle Stone...
Capturing People on the Move: Spatial Analysis and Remote Sensing in the Bantu Mobility Project, Basanga, Zambia (2018)
From its inception in 2014, the Bantu Mobility Project has sought to recover the various mobilities that made up peoples’ experience of the Bantu Expansions, the spread of over 500 related languages across nearly half the African continent. We have sought to refocus research on the Bantu Expansions away from the macro-scale and onto the specific movements of people, animals, and material goods at various spatial and temporal scales. From an archaeological standpoint this effort necessitates...
Charred Organic Matter in the Middle and Later Stone Record in South Africa: Exploring Multiple Anthropogenic Processes and Origins (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Charred Organic Matter in the Archaeological Sedimentary Record" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Middle and Later Stone caves and rockshelters in South Africa are commonly rich in organic matter. The formation history of the organic component in the archaeological deposits is still unclear and several natural and anthropogenic processes can be considered. This paper will focus on a discussion of possible anthropogenic...
Charting Late Pleistocene Social Networking in Southern Africa Using Strontium Isotope Geochemistry (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The roots of long-distance social networking run deeper than Facebook. At some point in the Pleistocene, hunter-gatherers began exchanging ‘non-utilitarian’ artifacts like beads and other ornaments over hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of kilometers. Among ethnographically documented foragers these networks...
Chemical Diagenesis of Charcoal and Charred Organic Material in South African Middle Stone Age Rockshelter Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Charred Organic Matter in the Archaeological Sedimentary Record" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Several South African Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites contain deposits rich in anthropogenic materials whose preservation was impacted by extreme burial environments. The specific chemistries of the burial environments are evidenced by dissolution of archaeological materials and/or precipitation of secondary minerals. In sites...
Coastal Occupation and Foraging During the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene at Waterfall Bluff, Eastern Pondoland, South Africa (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The P5 Project is an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers studying hunter-gatherer adaptations in persistent coastal contexts in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Since 2015, excavations at the site of Waterfall Bluff (A2SE-1) have revealed stratified and well-preserved remains of coastal...
Colorimetric Analysis of the PP5-6 Ochre (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents the results of recent colorimetric analyses of the archaeological ochres from Pinnacle Point 5-6 (PP5-6), Western Cape Province, South Africa. Ochre colors are derived from digital photographs of streak plates and quantified in CIE L*a*b* color space. Results presented here indicate that the vast majority of ochres from this site produce...
Deviant or Normal? Assessing Anomalies in Middle Stone Age Small Prey Exploitation (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Do Good Things Come in Small Packages? Human Behavioral Ecology and Small Game Exploitation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of forager economies in southern Africa have documented changes in subsistence strategies between the Middle and Later Stone Age. As evidenced by the disproportionate frequencies of faunal remains from large, gregarious grazers, the prevailing interpretation has been that MSA foragers...