Into the Depths: Developing Tools to Examine the Deep-History of Fishing in the Kafue River Floodplain

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Kafue River Floodplain is a critical freshwater resource in Zambia for local fisheries and communities. The Bantu-Mobility Project has worked on archaeological sites in this region that chronicle the settlement and movement of the Bantu-speaking communities and their trade routes during the 6th to 16th centuries. Our contribution to this project is to evaluate the socio-ecological impact of sustained fishing in the region through zooarchaeological analysis of excavated fish remains from one of the continuously occupied mounds called Mwanamaimpa. In order to do this, we have developed research tools for analyzing fish remains in a largely unstudied region. This presentation summarizes the preliminary results of the identification and analysis of species from the archaeological record and presents further research questions. To perform this investigation, we created a contemporary reference collection, applied size estimation equations to the applicable catfish bones, and created a qualitative and quantitative data entry form for a complete analysis of the collection. Our findings connect local practices and environmental change to the past movement of Bantu-speaking populations, helping sustain fishing practices for the communities that rely on these resources today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52945