Intensive hunting during the Iron Age of Southern Africa Shaw Badenhorst1,2 1
Archaeozoology and Large Mammal Section, Department of Vertebrates, Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (former Transvaal Museum), 432 Paul Kruger Street, Pretoria 0001, Republic of South Africa, 2 Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa, PO Box 392, UNISA, 0003, South Africa Domestic faunal samples from farming sites from southern Africa dating from the Early (∼AD 200–900) and Middle (∼AD 900–1300) Iron Ages with large faunal samples are typically dominated by sheep/goats (both number of identified specimens and minimum number of individuals for large samples). However, four exceptions to this general pattern from these time periods are Bosutswe, Nqoma (both in Botswana), KwaGandaganda and Mamba (both in KwaZulu-Natal). At these sites, cattle outnumber sheep/goats, which have previously been measured using a Cattle Index. Intensive hunting is investigated at one of these sites, Bosutswe. Using various lines of evidence, including measuring high- vs. low-ranked prey, economic activities, as well as grease extraction and ageing from the most common taxon, plains zebra (Equus quagga), it is suggested that resource depression of wild game likely occurred. This would fit the expectation, based on human behavioural ecology, that as high-ranked game resource diminished over time, more emphasis was placed on cattle herding. The greater emphasis could have influenced descent patterns of people at Bosutswe. By the Late Iron Age (∼AD 1300–1820s), cattle dominate most faunal assemblages in southern Africa with large sample sizes, and ethnographic and historical information confirm the central role these animals played in the social, political and economic lives of these farmers. Keywords: Human behavioural ecology, Resource depression, Iron Age, Southern Africa
Introduction Zooarchaeological research on the Iron Age of southern Africa is richly endowed with a great number of faunal samples that have been analysed (summaries in Plug and Voigt 1985; Plug 1996a, 2000, 2001; Plug and Badenhorst 2001; Badenhorst 2011; Fraser and Badenhorst in press). Despite challenges (O’Connor 2008), most zooarchaeological research in the region on horticultural farmers (Badenhorst 2010) has focused on the arrival and spread of livestock, establishing general dietary patterns, herd management, trade and taphonomy (cf. Plug 2001). Although more analyses are required, the accumulated body of faunal data on Iron Age farmers from southern Africa allow for testing ever-increasing and more complex hypotheses. This challenge requires the use of theoretical concepts and cross-cultural analogies to make optimal use of the faunal data available in the region.
Correspondence to: Shaw Badenhorst, Archaeozoology and Large Mammal Section, Department of Vertebrates, Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (former Transvaal Museum), 432 Paul Kruger Street, Pretoria 0001, Republic of South Africa. Email:
[email protected]
© Association for Environmental Archaeology 2015 DOI 10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000039
The first farmers settled in southern Africa during the first millennium AD (Early Iron Age, ∼AD 200–900). These farmers cultivated plants and kept domestic animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, chickens and dogs. People constructed pole-and-daga structures, manufactured ceramics and used metal technology. Towards the end of the first millennium AD (Middle Iron Age, ∼AD 900–1300), some settlements such as Mapungubwe in the Limpopo Valley became incorporated in the trans-Indian Ocean trade network. Gold, ivory and other trade items were supplied by farmers on the Zimbabwe Plateau in exchange for imported goods such as glass beads. Great Zimbabwe and other states controlled these trade networks during the second millennium (Later Iron Age, ∼AD 1300–1820s). Stone used for construction became widespread in southern Africa during the Late Iron Age. Stone were used to enclose villages, to demarcate spaces such as individual homesteads and livestock enclosures, as well as bases for huts. The Late Iron Age is associated with the arrival of ancestral Sotho-Tswana and Nguni-speakers in southern Africa. Since European contact after 1488, travellers, missionaries, ethnographers and historians
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documented the role of cattle in the social realm of farmers. From these works, it is well known that the Eastern Bantu-speakers of southern Africa used cattle in ceremonies, bride wealth payments and exchange (e.g. Schapera 1953; Mitchell 2002; Huffman 2007; Badenhorst 2011). Major socio-economic and political changes, including political centralisation and state formation, likely characterised the last 1800 years of farming settlement in southern Africa (Huffman 2007). For example, matrilineal and other non-patrilineal descent was likely common during the Early and Middle Iron Ages, whereas widespread patrilineal descent was a feature of the Late Iron Age (Badenhorst 2010 pace Huffman 2007). Archaeological research on the Iron Age of southern Africa has been dominated for the last three decades by the Central Cattle Pattern (CCP) as an explanatory model (e.g. Huffman 2007). The CCP was first formulated by Huffman (1982) some three decades ago and derives from an ethnographic model of modern Nguni and Sotho-Tswana settlement patterns (Kuper 1982; also Bruwer 1956; Mönnig 1967). The CCP explains the internal structure and layout of Iron Age farming villages in southern Africa (Huffman 1982, 1986, 1990, 1993, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007). According to the CCP, women live in huts arranged around a central cattle byre. The central part of the village is a focal point of ceremonies and iron forging. Important people are buried in the central region, usually in or close to the cattle byre. Men are associated with the central area, with restricted access for women. There may be several cattle byres in the centre of a village. Heads of villages store grain in the central region, whereas women, associated with huts, store theirs in granaries in the courtyard of their huts. The head man of the village resides opposite the entrance in the great hut. The CCP is associated with Eastern Bantu-language speakers with hereditary male leadership, and a patrilineal form of descent with cattle preferred for bride wealth (Huffman 2007). According to Huffman (2004:67), the CCP derived from theory about the relationship between worldview, social organisation and settlement patterns. In addition, the features of the CCP are not limited to any specific ethnic group, but are found among patrilineal Eastern Bantu-language speakers who use cattle for bride wealth (Huffman 1982:140). As a structuralist model, it is projected back in time and applied to Iron Age settlements by using a direct historical approach. Using this approach, it is concluded that since the ethnographically derived settlement model is present since the Early Iron Age, then the worldview and beliefs of those farmers must have been the same as those described in historical texts (Huffman 2007:328).
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Objections have been raised against the Central Cattle Pattern (Hall 1986, 1987a, 1987b; Lane 1994/1995; Maggs 1994/1995; Badenhorst 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2011, 2012) which indicates major changes over time. Briefly these include changes in settlement location (Maggs and Ward 1984; Maggs 1994/1995), cultural practices such as teeth modification (Morris 1993), fish eating (Maggs 1994/1995), descent patterns (Holden and Mace 2003; Badenhorst 2010), ceramic production (Maggs 1980a) and material artefacts such as bottomless pots (Maggs 1980b). Moreover, the presence of central livestock enclosures surrounded by huts may rather have been an effort to protect domestic animals against raids and predators such as lions, which posed a serious threat to herds and flocks (Badenhorst 2009a). Despite these criticisms, the CCP persisted as the dominant model to interpret the Iron Age of southern Africa (Whitelaw 2005) with few alternative interpretations that have been offered so far (but see Lane 1994/1995; Badenhorst 2010). As part of the debate on the antiquity of the CCP in southern Africa, the importance of cattle during the Iron Age has been a central theme (summary in Badenhorst 2012). On the one hand, archaeologists favouring the CCP (e.g. Huffman 2007) maintain that cattle were of great socio-political importance since the first farmers settled in southern Africa during the first millennium AD. Based on evidence such as dung remains, herd sizes of cattle and ethnographic observations, archaeologists like Huffman (2007) argue that great cultural continuity existed in Iron Age worldview from the Early to Later Iron Ages. On the other hand, some researchers (e.g. Badenhorst 2010, 2011, 2012) suggest that there were social changes over time and base their argument on bone counts and the dominance of sheep/goat over cattle remains during the Early and Middle Iron Ages. It is only during the Late Iron Age that cattle remains became more dominant in most faunal samples. To those that regard cattle as only being dominant during the Late Iron Age (e.g. Badenhorst 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2011, 2012), one of the most interesting aspects of Iron Age farmers from southern Africa during the last 1800 years is the nearly uniform pattern of domestic animal usage over time. During the Early and Middle Iron Ages, sites with large livestock samples (for both number of identified specimens (NISP) and MNI) are dominated by sheep/ goats. Using a Cattle Index (Badenhorst 2011), which measures the ratio of cattle and sheep/goats in faunal samples, four exceptions with large sample sizes of >200 NISPs (arbitrarily determined) for cattle and sheep/goats combined were found for the Early and Middle Iron Ages. These four sites are
Badenhorst Intensive hunting during the Iron Age of Southern Africa
Bosutswe (Toutse, Taukome/Zhizo-Toutse and Mapungubwe phases), Nqoma (both in Botswana), KwaGandaganda (Ndondondwane-Ntshekane and Ntshekane phases) and Mamba (both in KwaZuluNatal) (Fig. 1). Cattle outnumber sheep/goats in these samples (Turner 1987; Voigt and Peters 1994; Plug 1996b; Beukes 2000; Denbow et al. 2008). By the Late Iron Age, there is a clear shift in herding practices at most sites in southern Africa when cattle outnumber sheep/goats in most samples (Badenhorst 2011). While there are other sites dating from the Early and Middle Iron Ages with a dominance of cattle over sheep/goats like Le6, Malumba, Stayt, Manyikeni and Mwenezi Farm, they also have relative small sample sizes of 1450 AD
25 68 63 100 79 15
247 650 214 247 120 50
0·09 0·09 0·23 0·29 0·40 0·23
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Table 4
Proportion of cattle, sheep/goats, chickens and game at Bosutswe (NISP and NISP%)
Element Cattle Sheep/goats Chickens High + low ranked prey Total
Tau
Tou
TTZ
Map
Los
Zim
101 (22%) 76 (17%) 6 (1%) 272 (60%) 455 (100%)
1125 (44%) 698 (27%) 41 (2%) 718 (28%) 2582 (100%)
573 (44%) 456 (35%) 5 (
