Carmel Schrire

Beyond lifetime averages: tracing life histories through isotopic analysis of different calcified tissues from archaeological human skeletons

Stable-isotopic analyses of human bone, now an established aid to dietary reconstruction in archaeology, represent the diet as averaged over many years. Separate analysis of different skeletal components enables changes in diet and place of residence to be tracked, giving a fuller life-history for long-dead individuals.

An inquiry into the evolutionary status and apparent identity of San hunter-gatherers

An attempt is made to reconcile a popular view of the Bushmen or San of southern Africa with reality. Following an analysis of the assumed relationships of living hunter-gatherers with their Pleistocene forebears and modem neighbors, the identity of the San is explored using archaeological and historical evidence. Finally an alternative view of modern San, consistent with this evidence, is proposed.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses of the underclass at the colonial Cape of Good Hope in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Analysis of the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of burials in a colonial cemetery in Cape Town, South Africa, reveals life histories of the underclass there. We are able to distinguish foreign from local-born people, and to infer social status, specifically slavery, by linking bone chemistry and somatic modification. This is the first use of bone chemistry to reconstruct the life histories of a mixed population of diverse origin, buried in a cosmopolitan colonial city. As such, it may be used as a guide for future work in other colonial sites.

The historical archaeology of the impact of colonialism in 17th-century South Africa

The written sources are overwhelming for that great historical event, the conquest of the world by Europeans between the 15th and the 19th centuries. Historical archaeology, especially in north America, now provides an important source of evidence of a different character. But what was it like to receive Europeans on your shore, what was it like to be dispossesed? Here is a report specifically concerned with relations between native and newcomer at the Cape, one of those African regions which first felt the European impact.

The historical archaeology of Vergelegen, an early Farmstead at the Cape of Good Hope

Excavations at Vergelegen, a large estate in the Western Cape of South Africa that dates to the earliest years of the 18th century, have allowed archaeologists to address a number of questions about the nature of colonial settlement in this former Dutch colony. Primary among these were questions about slavery and about the interrelationships between slaves, colonists, and the indigenous inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope. This article offers some of the results of this investigation, and an interpretation of those results in light of the original questions about slave community, slave-indigenous interaction, and early colonial architecture in the Cape.

The chronology of Oudepost I, Cape, as inferred from an analysis of clay pipes

Abstract The excavation of Oudepost I, a Dutch East India Company outpost on the southwest coast of South Africa (1669–1732), reveals evidence of colonial-indigenous interactions in this early period of European settlement. The site revealed very little stratigraphy and a complex taphonomic history. The chronological integrity of Oudepost I is assessed through a comprehensive analysis of its major artefactual component, namely, a large collection of white clay tobacco pipes. The data from this analysis are integrated with field observations of the building sequence, with findings relating to residues, and with information from documentary sources to infer an occupational history of the site. The results explicate the potential importance of pipes in historic sites, as key elements in decoding occupational sequences.

Excavating archives at Oudepost 1, Cape

Read together, archival sources and archaeological data reveal more than either source standing alone. In this paper, we present the results of research at Oudepost I, a seventeenth/eighteenth century outpost on the Cape west coast. Here, a small garrison of Dutch East India Company soldiers guarded the Companys interests, particularly in the stock trade. Archaeological and documentary records agree on most details of daily life ‐ with one major exception. Faunal analysis of excavated samples shows that a large proportion of the garrisons diet was from wild species. This provides a new dimension to understanding colonial impact on the frontier: the effect of Dutch hunting and foraging on the ecological niche of Khoikhoi herder‐foragers.