Historical archaeology of the Mapungubwe area: Boer, Birwa, Sotho-Tswana and Machete

Thomas N. Huffman

16 citations0/0 files storedSouthern African humanities

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Archaeology and Rock Art Studies African history and culture studies Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies

Abstract

In the Mapungubwe area, nineteenth-century Venda capitals housed virtually the entire chiefdom, totalling only some 350 people. This was in marked contrast to the earlier, and related, Khami period, largely because of different climatic conditions. Although sparsely populated, interaction of the Venda-speaking Machete chiefdom with Birwa and Sotho-Tswana created a heterogeneous social landscape. Before Machete moved to Leokwe Hill, Bambandyanalo was the Birwa capital under a Kalanga chief. In addition to ethnic interaction with Birwa and Sotho-Tswana, internal politics, the purchase of farms in the 1870s, the Anglo-Boer War and the search for diamonds affected the Machete chiefdom. When Mapungubwe was re-discovered in the early 1930s, the chiefdom had already disintegrated, and the people spoke Sotho.

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References

2008Handbook to the Iron Age: the archaeology of pre-colonial farming societies in Southern Africa 1982Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the African Iron Age 1997Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe 1978Iron Age Communities of the Southern Highveld 2008Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The origin and spread of social complexity in southern Africa 2011A Glass Bead Sequence for Southern Africa from the 8th to the 16th Century AD 2001The Central Cattle Pattern and interpreting the past 2007The Emergence of Social and Political Complexity in the Shashi-Limpopo Valley of Southern Africa, AD 900 to 1300: Ethnicity, class and polity

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