Archaeological Investigation of Leeukop: a func- tional Approach '

Abstract

toin of the site in one short season. This would therefore have made it possible to do a singlesite-settlement study, i.e., a study of the types of activities that had taken place, and the location of these activities. From the stone walls that were visible (type IV in Jones' and Schofield's classification; in Fouche, 1937), we expected the site to have been used in the so-called Refuge Period, sometime in the 19th century. To my knowledge, no such site had yet been excavated. Schofield had made some surface collections on a number of such sites in the vicinity of Leeukop, on the Transvaal side of the Limpopo (Ratho, Parma, Schroda, etc.), but unfortunately the collections have been lost, and it has even proved difficult to relocate some of the sites (according to Mr Edwin Hanisch of the National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria). A few walled hill-sites in the Limpopo and adjacent valleys in southern Rhodesia were examined briefly by the Rhodesian Schools Exploration Society (1960 and 1966), but no excavation took place. Very little was known therefore about these sites - their dates or the types of activities that went on - except for a general assumption that they were defensive ones. The 19th century, with the Difaqane and the Anglo-Boer War, was a period of turmoil with much raiding and movement of people, and it is known from historical documentation and oral traditions that many people took to the hills for defense. The objectives of the excavation were, therefore, to establish the length and number of occupations, the overall function of the site (defensive and/or other), the range of activities that had taken place, and the spatial distribution of these activities.

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