Iron smelting in pre-colonial Zimbabwe: Evidence for diachronic change from Swart village and Baranda, northern Zimbabwe

In conventional reconstructions of southern African archaeology, the production of iron has been seen as unchanging for the last 2000 years. Significantly, this contrasts with the changes that have been noted in broader society and other classes of material culture of the same period. Despite iron being used as a chronostratigraphic indicator, virtually nothing is known on the patterns of iron production within the Iron Age and whether change in technology and the socio-cultural context of production took place. From a combined archaeological and metallurgical perspective, the historical development of iron working has never been explored. For example, it is not known whether similar types of furnaces were constantly operated throughout the last two millennia. Excavations at two sites in northern Zimbabwe, one Gokomere-Ziwa (800 - 1200 cal AD) and one Zimbabwe tradition (1500 - 1700 cal AD), have shown differences in iron pyrometallurgical debris, tentatively suggesting that they represent separate metal working practices. By comparing the archaeological and metallurgical evidence from the two sites, this paper represents an initial step in delineating patterns of indigenous iron production in one region of Zimbabwe

A Technology of Multiple Smelting Furnaces per Termite Mound: Iron Production in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia

With exception of Maluma (1979) and Musambachime (2016, 2017), there have been no archaeometallurgical publications on the technology and culture of iron production in Zambia. This paper presents archaeological and archaeometallurgical evidence of a technology of iron production in Chongwe in terms of spatial organization, the process of metal production (either a three-stage process involving smelting in relatively tall furnaces, refining in miniature (vintengwe) furnaces, and smithing on a hearth or a two-stage process involving smelting and smithing), furnace air supply mechanisms, liquid slag handling techniques, variation in the geochemistry of ore and clay, and the nature of the final smelting products. Archaeological field data collection techniques included ethnoarchaeological interviews, (furnace) excavation, surface collections, and surface walkover surveys, while laboratory analytical techniques included optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and x-ray fluorescence (XRF). New field evidence indicates that iron production in Chongwe in the previous two centuries was secluded from respective pre-modern settlements for socio-cultural and technical reasons. There are no settlement remains in and around Chongwe smelting sites. Also, most of the archaeological data in Chongwe are supportive of the two-stage process that did not involve iron refining in vintengwe furnaces. There were no iron refining sites in Chongwe. Archaeological evidence also strongly points to the use of natural air supply mechanism for the smelting furnaces because proximal ends of tuyères inter alia were not trumpeted. All smelting sites were systematically located on termite mounds. There were three to four smelting furnaces located on the western side of a termite mound. The presence of tuyère mould slags and thin and elongated slag microstructures strongly indicates that liquid slag was tapped outside the furnace apparently through tuyères and was left to cool quickly. Presence of primary wüstite and iron particles in the slags strongly suggests the production of iron as the final smelting product in Chongwe. The results are compared with the archaeology, chemistry, and mineralogy of iron production from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the Lake Tanganyika-Nyasa Corridor. The presence of three to four smelting furnaces per termite mound makes iron production in Chongwe a unique technology in the Corridor

Sourcing elephant ivory from a sixteenth-century Portuguese shipwreck

The oldest known shipwreck in southern Africa was found in Namibia in 2008. Forty tons of cargo, including gold and silver coins, helped identify the ship as the Bom Jesus, a Portuguese nau (trading vessel) lost in 1533 while headed to India. The cargo included >100 elephant tusks, which we examined using paleogenomic and stable isotope analyses. Nuclear DNA identified the ivory source as African forest (Loxodonta cyclotis) rather than savanna (Loxodonta africana) elephants. Mitochondrial sequences traced them to West and not Central Africa and from ≥17 herds with distinct haplotypes. Four of the haplotypes are known from modern populations; others were potentially lost to subsequent hunting of elephants for ivory. Stable isotope analyses (δ13C and δ15N) indicated that the elephants were not from deep rainforests but from savanna and mixed habitats. Such habitats surround the Guinean forest block of West Africa and accord with the locations of major historic Portuguese trading ports. West African forest elephants currently range into savanna habitats; our findings suggest that this was not consequent to regional decimation of savanna elephants for their ivory in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the time of the Bom Jesus, ivory was a central driver in the formation of maritime trading systems connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia. Our integration of paleogenomic, archeological, and historical methods to analyze the Bom Jesus ivory provides a framework for examining vast collections of archaeological ivories around the world, in shipwrecks and other contexts.Supplemental Information: Document S1. Figures S1–S3, Tables S1–S5, and Supplemental References.US Fish and Wildlife Service African Elephant Conservation, South African Research Chairs Initiative of the National Research Foundation (NRF), Department of Science and Technology of South Africa, US Department of Agriculture, PEEC and Clark Research Support Grants, Claude Leon Foundation and the European Union.http://www.cell.com/current-biology/homeam2022Zoology and Entomolog

The Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) project: analysing archaeological housing data

The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally

Understanding the chronology and occupation dynamics of oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands

A long held view about the occupation of southern proto-Je pit house villages of the southern Brazilian highlands is that these sites represent cycles of long-term abandonment and reoccupation. However, this assumption is based on an insufficient number of radiocarbon dates for individual pit houses. To address this problem, we conducted a programme of comprehensive AMS radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling at the deeply stratified oversized pit Houe 1, Baggio 1 site (Cal. A.D. 1395-1650), Campo Belo do Sul, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The straigraphy of House 1 revealed an unparalleled sequence of twelve well preserved floors evidencing a major change in occupation dynamics including five completely burnt collapsed roofs. The results of the radiocarbon dating allowed us to understand for the first time the occupation dynamics of an oversized pit house in the southern Brazilian highlands. The Bayesian model demonstrates that House 1 was occupied for over two centuries with no evidence of major periods of abandonment, calling into question previous models of long-term abandonment. In addition, the House 1 sequence allowed us to tie transformations in ceramic style and lithic technology to an absolute chronology. Finally, we can provide new evidence that the emergence of oversized domestic structures is a relatively recent phenomenon among the southern proto-Je. As monumental pit houses start to be bulit, small pit houses continue to be inhabited, evidencing emerging disparities in domestic architecture after AD 1000. Our research shows the importance of programmes of intensive dating of individual structures to understand occupation dynamcis and site permanence, and challenges long held assumptions that the southern Brazilian highlands were home to marginal cultures in the context of lowland South America

Shades of urbanism(s) and urbanity in pre-colonial Africa towards Afro-centred interventions

A cross-regional assessment finds varied trajectories of how, at the expense of alternatives, humans in Holocene Africa gradually opted for urbanization as the lifeway of choice. However, based on locally centred benchmarks and descriptors, what is the nature of and evidence for urbanity and urbanism across Africa’s regions? Inspired by the African philosophy of hunhu/ubuntu and decolonial analytical lenses, this contribution engages with case studies of variable shades of urbanity scattered across southern Africa’s deep and recent pasts, to strike comparison with corresponding behaviours etched elsewhere on the continent and outside of it. It ends by sketching, as motivated by African ways of knowing, conditions, and peculiarities, profitable lines for future interdisciplinary forays into urbanism and nested comportments

Exotica in Context: Reconfiguring Prestige, Power and Wealth in the Southern African Iron Age

Prestige goods, in various combinations and permutations, feature prominently in anthropological and archaeological templates of the emergence of social inequality and early state formation in premodern societies. In Africa, discussion of the contribution of prestige goods to the evolution of cultural behaviours such as class distinction and statehood has been conducted primarily through theoretical lenses that allocate significant weight to the proceeds of external long distance trade. The major outcome is that archaeologists have rarely paused to evaluate not just the definition of prestige goods but also the congruity between global ‘universals’ and African ‘particularities’. Using empirical evidence from the southern African historical and archaeological records, this paper seeks to evaluate the concept of prestige goods and to assess their contribution to the evolution of Iron Age (AD 200–1900) communities of different time periods, from locally centred positions. It reveals that the distribution, use and deposition of exotic imports in southern Africa is not compatible with the pattern suggested by the prestige goods model, and points towards their valuation as embedded within situational contexts of meaning. In fact, hinterland elites controlled neither the source nor the distribution of exotic goods from producer regions, making them a volatile source of power and prestige. While local elites used exotic imports when available, and imposed taxes on their citizens—payable in both local and external goods—land, cattle, religion and individual entrepreneurship were far more predictable and stable sources of prestige, wealth and power. This provides the basis for reassessing the development of complexity in the region and potentially contributes towards global debates on the impact of long-distance trade in the development of complex states

Archaeological implications of ethnographically grounded functional study of pottery from Nyanga, Zimbabwe

The value of typological analyses of pottery in global archaeology is widely acknowledged. However, pottery typologies in southern Africa are frequently criticised for one-dimensionally revealing more about decorations on pots and not their function and meaning to people that made and used them. This motivated an experiment to combine functional and stylistic variables of pottery from modern-day Nyanga district, in north-eastern Zimbabwe to develop alternative ways of approaching archaeological pottery. With the alertness that the present and the past are different, even in contexts of strong cultural continuity, we applied the results of the experiment to a collection of archaeological pottery from Nyanga tradition (CE 1300–1900) sites. For the recent past, the study indicated that vessel shapes strongly correlated with names and functions of pottery across the mundane, ritual and symbolic worlds. Comparisons with the archaeological picture identified a similarity of shapes between the past and the present. This stimulated reflections on a wide array of quotidian roles and functions that pottery fulfilled for Nyanga populations in the deep past. The conclusion to the paper is that functional classifications, particularly when combined with style, are a strong alternative to dominant classification schemes which enlighten more on people and not the vessels. However, the robustness of such an approach must be firmed up with the application of techniques from the material, chemical, and molecular techniques to develop a holistic view of pottery and its role in everyday practice at individual, community and societal levels

Archaeological implications of ethnographically grounded functional study of pottery from Nyanga, Zimbabwe

The value of typological analyses of pottery in global archaeology is widely acknowledged. However, pottery typologies in southern Africa are frequently criticised for one-dimensionally revealing more about decorations on pots and not their function and meaning to people that made and used them. This motivated an experiment to combine functional and stylistic variables of pottery from modern-day Nyanga district, in north-eastern Zimbabwe to develop alternative ways of approaching archaeological pottery. With the alertness that the present and the past are different, even in contexts of strong cultural continuity, we applied the results of the experiment to a collection of archaeological pottery from Nyanga tradition (CE 1300–1900) sites. For the recent past, the study indicated that vessel shapes strongly correlated with names and functions of pottery across the mundane, ritual and symbolic worlds. Comparisons with the archaeological picture identified a similarity of shapes between the past and the present. This stimulated reflections on a wide array of quotidian roles and functions that pottery fulfilled for Nyanga populations in the deep past. The conclusion to the paper is that functional classifications, particularly when combined with style, are a strong alternative to dominant classification schemes which enlighten more on people and not the vessels. However, the robustness of such an approach must be firmed up with the application of techniques from the material, chemical, and molecular techniques to develop a holistic view of pottery and its role in everyday practice at individual, community and societal levels