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Flexner, James L.; Fleisher, Jeffrey B.; LaViolette, Adria
2008 Journal of African Archaeology
This paper focuses on a specific class of locally made artifacts known in the archaeological literature of the eastern African coast as bead grinders. Bead grinders are discarded potsherds or stone cobbles distinguished by long grooves abraded into their surfaces. Although they are some of the most commonly located artifacts on late first-millennium AD coastal sites, few close analyses of them have been conducted. Here we examine a particularly large assemblage of bead grinders from the site of Tumbe on Pemba Island, Tanzania, the largest such assemblage recovered from any site in eastern Africa. This essay is not aimed at determining whether or not these artifacts were in fact used to grind shell beads, the subject of considerable local debate, although we operate from that assumption. Rather, we treat them as artifacts related to production, and focus on standardization as a way to provide insight into the organization of production at Tumbe. Based on our analysis we argue that despite the intensive production implied by the sheer quantity of grinders recovered at Tumbe, the high degree of variation within relevant variables suggests that production was unstandardized and decentralized, carried on in individual households. We hope that this case study encourages more comparative research between coastal regions on bead grinders and other classes of artifacts related to production.
Challis, Sam; Mitchell, Peter; Orton, Jayson
2008 Journal of African Archaeology
This paper describes a previously unrecorded rock art site in the highlands of Lesotho, southern Africa. It then explores the significance of the paintings at this site, which adds to the still small number of locations in the wider Maloti-Drakensberg region at which fishing scenes are depicted. Unusually, paintings of fish at this site are closely associated with that of a rain-animal and with other images, including dying eland and clapping and dancing human figures, that have clear shamanistic references. Drawing also on the local excavated archaeological record, we argue that these images may collectively refer to the power of Bushman shamans to harness and make rain, using that power to produce socially desirable benefits, including perhaps opportunities for group aggregation around seasonally restricted spawning runs of fish.
2008 Journal of African Archaeology
Following a line of research amply discussed in a paper that appeared in this same journal (Vol. 3 (1), 2005: 103- 115), the data presented here represent a further attempt to “track” the movements of the Western Desert dwellers into the Nile Valley and to reinforce the hypothesis that the Western Desert and the Nile Valley were, even in the Early Holocene, part of an integrated ecological and cultural system. The continuous search for archaeological data to prove this link led us to a site located nearly 45 years ago by the Colorado Expedition in Nubia in Wadi Karagan that displays a lithic assemblage that literally looks like a “photocopy” of some of the El Kortein/Bir Kiseiba collections. A comparison with these assemblages and a detail analysis of their chronological setting allow the establishment of a relative date for site 11-I-13 and pinpoint some new problems to be solved.
2008 Journal of African Archaeology
One of the principal manifestations of African complex societies is urbanism. However, a concentration on the excavation of larger settlements built in long-lasting materials and on the excavation of elite structures within such settlements, means that the archaeology of African social complexity presents an unrepresentative picture. Archaeologically, some societies have a low visibility. There is a need to improve our methodology if this problem is to be overcome. A greater use should be made of aerial photography and satellite coverage to locate sites, and many known sites need detailed planning by these and other means. Regional surveys are also needed, in order to establish the settlement hierarchies of which the principal sites were a part. Such surveys should be followed by systematic surface collection and by both physical and electronic sub-surface prospection, use of the latter particularly needing development in the African context. Only then should excavation be resorted to but it is largescale open-area excavation guided by rigorous sampling procedures that will be necessary to obtain the most useful information about social organization in the past. In addition, relevant ethnoarchaeological investigations need to be undertaken wherever possible, and extensive use should be made of ethnohistorical documentation. It is concluded that, to improve the archaeological visibility of ancient African urbanism, we need either larger and internationally-funded research programmes or we need programmes that make up for modest funding by continuing over a number of years.
2008 Journal of African Archaeology
The textile evidence for the archaeological site of Kissi, Burkina Faso, is presented and the implications for the history of weaving in West Africa are discussed. Woolen textiles have been preserved in Iron Age graves of the first millennium AD due to the corrosion of metal objects in the graves. This lucky circumstance adds further examples to the very small corpus of first millennium AD textile finds, pushing back in time the evidence for the demand and use of cloth in sub-Saharan Africa.