Ina Plug

HERDERS AND FORAGERS ON KASTEELBERG: INTERIM REPORT OF EXCAVATIONS 1999-2002

Smith et al. (1991) proposed a model to distinguish the archaeological sites of Khoekhoe pastoralists from those of San. This model was based on information gathered from sites scattered over hundreds of square kilometres and several millennia. Between 1999 and 2002 we re-examined Smith et al. s (1991) model by excavating six neighbouring contemporary sites on the hill Kasteelberg. In a previous survey, three of these sites had been provisionally identified as pastoralist sites and three as forager sites. Here we present a brief comparison of the materials from these six sites. Although there are clear differences between the two sets of sites, the hypothesis that one set represents Khoekhoe herders and the other Bushman hunter-gatherers is not supported. Rather, one set of sites seems to represent a more mobile, herder-forager adaptation with a preference for inland resources while the other set appears to represent a more sedentary herder-forager adaptation with emphasis on shoreline resources. It remains to be determined how the occupants of the two sets of sites related to each other

FAUNAL REMAINS IN THE TRANSITION FROM HUNTING TO HERDING IN SOUTHEASTERN BOTSWANA

Because foragers became pastoralists so late in southern Africa, their well-preserved remains can help us better understand the original herders of this world. The dominant thinking is that becoming herders is hard. Hunters share meat, herders keep it to themselves. Perhaps only a few hunters ever bridged this gap: the socially important habit of sharing meat may have held the rest back. Following this line of thinking, herding must have reached the southern tip of Africa with migrating herders because, otherwise, too many hunters would have had to bridge the gap for sheep to arrive by diffusion. This paper explores the opposite view: that becoming herders may not have been so hard. Faunal remains from two rockshelters in southeastern Botswana suggest that hunters could have first treated domestic stock as socially unimportant meat, not subject to rules of sharing. Continued hunting and sharing of large and medium game could have fulfilled social obligations, while privately owned domestic stock

PITS, TUNNELS AND CATTLE IN NYANGA, ZIMBABWE: NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD PROBLEM*

Muozi Hill Later Iron Age site is part of the Nyanga complex of terraces and pit structures. The debate on the use of these structures has been raging for many decades. The faunal material from the Muozi Hill site provides evidence for dwarf cattle, 20% or more smaller than modern African breeds. These animals are, on average, smaller than any cattle thus far identified from the southern African Iron Age. This in itself does not necessarily prove that these structures were used as cattle pens. The estimated size of the animals is, however, such that most of them would have been small enough to enter the pit structures through the tunnels and passages, so the use of these structures as cattle pens is a possibility. The samples also yielded sheep and goat remains, but these do not appear significantly smaller than modem breeds.