Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-dwq4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T16:02:59.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Archaeological evidence and conventional explanations of southern Bantu settlement patterns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Thomas N. Huffman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The settlements of Bantu-speaking people in Southern Africa vary widely in size and distribution, ranging from the dispersed homesteads of the Nguni to the large towns of the Tswana. These two extremes have interested Africanists since the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Europeans first encountered the Thlaping at Dithakong near present-day Kuruman. Today the contrast between Tswana and Nguni settlements are most often attributed to differences in social stratification, cultural preference or environmental conditions.

These conventional explanations provide a focus for considering the meaning of settlement patterns among the southern Bantu. I first develop a model of political and settlement hierarchies to isolate the essential differences between Nguni and Tswana communities, and then I present archaeological evidence that calls into question the conventional explanations.

Résumé

Preuves archéologiques et explications conventionnelles des types de villages des Bantous du Sud

Le contraste qui existe entre le type de village aggloméré de ceux qui parlent le Sotho-Tswana et le type de village dispersé des Ngqunis s'est d'habitude expliqué par des différences dans l'environnement, les préférences culturelles ou la stratification sociale. Cependant, toutes ces explications conventionnelles sont réfutées par les données archéologiques. Un modèle archéologique met en lumière le caractère unique du type aggloméré et attribue ses origines à des évènements particuliers qui se sont déroulés au cours du dix-huitième et du dix-neuvième siècle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , July 1986 , pp. 280 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ashton, E. H. 1938. ‘Political organization of the southern Sotho’, Bantu Studies, 12, 287–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashton, E. H. 1952. The Basuto: a study of traditional and modern Lesotho. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Bent, J. T. 1896. The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland. London: Longman, Green.Google Scholar
Blacking, J. 1969. ‘Songs, dances, mimes and symbolism of Venda girls' initiation schools. Part 1: Vhusha. Part 2: Milayo. Part 3: Domba. Part 4: The great Domba song’, African Studies, 28, 3–35, 69–118, 149–99, 215–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdillon, M. F. C. 1976. The Shona Peoples. Gwelo: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Bullock, C. 1927. The Mashona. Cape Town: Juta.Google Scholar
Burchell, W. J. 1824. Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, vol. II. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Caister, D. 1982. ‘Archaeological perspectives on settlement patterns in South East Kweneng District’, in Hitchcock, R. R. and Smith, M. R. (eds.), Proceedings of the Symposium on Settlement in Botswana: the historical development of a human landscape, pp. 87–91. Gaborone: Heinemann Educational Books for the Botswana Society.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1815. Travels in South Africa, 1813 (third edition). London: Black, Parry.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1822. Travels in South Africa … being a narrative of a second journey, 1820, 2 vols. London: Westley.Google Scholar
Cobbing, J. R. D. 1976. ‘The Ndebele under the Khumalos, 1820–1896’, PhD thesis, University of Lancaster.Google Scholar
Colson, E. 1951. ‘The Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia’, in Colson, E. and Gluckman, M. (eds.), Seven Tribes of British Central Africa, pp. 94–162. London: Oxford University Press for Rhodes-Livingstone Institute.Google Scholar
Cook, P. A. W. 1931. The Social Organization and Ceremonial Institutions of the Bomvana. Cape Town: Juta.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1979. ‘Cenchrus ciliaris: an ecological indicator of Iron Age middens using aerial photography in eastern Botswana’, South African Journal of Science, 75, 405–8.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1981. ‘Broadhurst - a 14th century A.D. expression of the Early Iron Age in southeastern Botswana’, South African Archaeological Bulletin, 36, 66–74.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1982. ‘The Toutswe tradition: a study in socio-economic change’, in Hitchcock, R. R. and Smith, M. R. (eds.), Proceedings of the Symposium on Settlement in Botswana: the historical development of a human landscape, pp. 87–91. Gaborone: Heinemann Educational Books for the Botswana Society.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. 1983. ‘Iron Age Economics: herding, wealth and politics along the fringes of the Kalahari Desert during the Early Iron Age’, PhD thesis, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Ellenberger, V. 1937. ‘Di Robaroba Matlhakola - Tsa Ga Masodi-a-Mphela’, Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, 25, 1–72.Google Scholar
Ellenberger, V. 1939. ‘History of the BaTlokwa of Gaborone (Bechuanaland Protectorate)’, Bantu Studies, 13, 165–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eloff, J. R., and Meyer, A. 1981. ‘The Greefswald sites’, in Voigt, E. A. (ed.), Guide to Archaeological Sites in the Northern and Eastern Transvaal, pp. 7–22. Pretoria: Transvaal Museum.Google Scholar
Evers, T. M. 1981. ‘The Iron Age in the eastern Tansvaal’, in Voigt, E. A. (ed.), Guide to Archaeological Sites in the Northern and Eastern Transvaal, pp. 65–109. Pretoria: Transvaal Museum.Google Scholar
Evers, T. M. 1984. ‘Sotho-Tswana and Moloko settlement patterns and the Bantu cattle pattern’, in Hall, M., Avery, G., Avery, D. M., Wilson, M. L. and Humphreys, A. J. B. (eds.), Frontiers: Southern Africa today, pp. 236–47. Oxford BAR (International Series 207).Google Scholar
L., Fouche (ed.). 1937. Mapungubwe: ancient Bantu civilization on the Limpopo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gardiner, A. F. 1836. Narrative of a Journey to theZoolu Country, in South Africa. London: William Crofts.Google Scholar
Gardner, G. A. 1963. Mapungubwe, vol. II. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik.Google Scholar
Garlake, P. S. 1968. ‘Test excavations at Mapela Hill, near the Shashi River, Rhodesia’, Arnoldia (Rhodesia), 3 (34), 1–29.Google Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1940. ‘The kingdom of the Zulu of South Africa’, in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. (eds.), African Political Systems, pp. 25–55. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Guy, J. 1979. The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hall, M. 1976. ‘Dendroclimatology, rainfall and human adaptation in the later Iron Age of Natal and Zululand’, Annals of the Natal Museum, 22, 693–703.Google Scholar
Hammond-Tooke, W. D. 1962. Bhaca Society: a people of the Transkeian uplands, South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hammond-Tooke, W. D. 1969. ‘The “other side” of frontier history: a model of Cape Nguni political progress’, in Thompson, L. (ed.), African Societies in Southern Africa, pp. 230–58. New York: Praeger for University of California African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Hammond-Tooke, W. D. 1981. Boundaries and Belief: the structure of a Sotho world view. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Hanisch, E. O. M. 1979. ‘Excavations at Icon, northern Transvaal’, South African Archaeological Society, Goodwin Series, 3, 72–9.Google Scholar
Hanisch, E. O. M. 1980. ‘An Archaeological Interpretation of Certain Iron Age Sites in the Limpopo/Shashi Valley’, MA thesis, University of Pretoria.Google Scholar
Hardie, G. J. 1980. ‘Tswana Design of House and Settlement: continuity and change in expressive space’, PhD thesis, Boston University.Google Scholar
Hodza, A., and Fortune, G. 1979. Shona Praise Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Holleman, J. F. 1952. Shona Customary Law. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huffman, T. N. 1981. ‘Snakes and birds: expressive space at Great Zimbabwe’, African Studies, 40, 131–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huffman, T. N. 1982. ‘Archaeology and ethnohistory of the African Iron Age’. Annual Review of Anthropology, 11, 133–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huffman, T. N. 1986. ‘Iron Age settlement patterns and the origins of class distinction in Southern Africa’, in Wendorf, F. and Close, E. (eds.), Advances in World Archaeology, 5, pp. 291–338. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Huffman, T. N. in press. ‘Great Zimbabwe and the politics of space’, in Posnansky, M. and Brokenshaw, D. (eds.), The Indigenous African Town. Los Angeles: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Jackson, A. O. [1983]. The Ndebele of Langa (Ethnological Publication no. 54). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Jones, P. 1978. ‘An approach to stone settlement typology of the Late Iron Age: stone walling on the Klip River 27° 10′ S 29° 10′ E’, African Studies, 37, 83–97.Google Scholar
Junod, H. A. 1927. The Life of a South African Tribe, 2 vols. (1962 reprint). New York: University Books.Google Scholar
Krige, E. J. 1936. The Social System of the Zulus. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Krige, E. J. 1938. ‘The place of the north-eastern Transvaal Sotho in the south Bantu complex’, Africa, 11, 265–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krige, E. J. and Krige, J. D. 1943. The Realm of a Rain Queen. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Kuper, A. 1982. Wives for Cattle: bridewealth and marriage in Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Kuper, H. 1947. An African Aristocracy: rank among the Swazi. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Kuper, H. 1963. The Swazi: a South African kingdom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Legassick, M. 1969. ‘The Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana, and the Missionaries, 1780–1840: the politics of a frontier zone’, PhD thesis, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Legassick, M. 1979. ‘The Northern Frontier to 1820: the emergence of the Griqua people’, in Elphick, R. and Giliomee, H. (eds.), The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1820, pp. 243–90. Cape Town: Longman.Google Scholar
Livingstone, D. 1857. Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Lye, W. F., and Murray, C. 1980. Transformations on the Highveld: the Tswana and southern Sotho. Cape Town: David Philip.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, J. 1871. Ten Years North of the Orange River. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglass.Google Scholar
Maggs, T. M. 1976. Iron Age Communities of the Southern Highveld. Pietermaritzburg: Natal Museum.Google Scholar
Maggs, T. M. 1982. ‘Mgoduyanuka: terminal Iron Age settlement in the Natal grasslands’, Annals of the Natal Museum, 25, 83–113.Google Scholar
Maggs, T. M. 1984. ‘Iron Age settlement and subsistence patterns in the Tugela River Basin, Natal’, in Hall, M., Avery, G., Avery, D. M., Wilson, M. L. and Humphreys, A. J. B. (eds.), Frontiers: Southern Africa today, pp. 194–206. Oxford BAR (International Series 207).Google Scholar
Marks, S. 1967. ‘The rise of the Zulu kingdom’, in Oliver, R. (ed.), The Middle Age of African History, pp. 85–91. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mason, R. J. 1968. ‘Transvaal and Natal Iron Age settlements revealed by aerial photography and excavation’, African Studies, 27, 167–80.Google Scholar
Mason, R. J. 1969. Prehistory of the Transvaal: a record of human activity. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, A. 1980. ‘'n Interpretasie van di Greefswald potwerk’, MA thesis, University of Pretoria.Google Scholar
Moore, M. P. J. 1981. ‘The Iron Age of the Makapan Valley Area, Central Transvaal’, MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.Google Scholar
Myburg, A. C. 1950. The Tribes of the Barberton District (Ethnological Publication 25). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Omer-Cooper, J. D. 1966. The Zulu Aftermath: a nineteenth-century revolution in Bantu Africa. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Posselt, F. W. T. 1935. Fact and Fiction. Bulawayo: Rhodesian Printing & Publishing.Google Scholar
Preston-Whyte, E. 1974. ‘Kinship and marriage’, in Hammond-Tooke, W. D., The Bantuspeaking Peoples of Southern Africa, pp. 177–210. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ralushai, N. M. N., and Gray, J. F. 1977. ‘Ruins and traditions of the Ngona and the Mbedzi among the Venda of the northern Transvaal’, Rhodesian History, 8, 1–11.Google Scholar
Richards, A. I. 1935. ‘Preliminary notes on the Babemba of northeast Rhodesia’, Bantu Studies, 9, 225–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, A. I. 1939. Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Sansom, B. 1974a. ‘Traditional economic systems’, in Hammond-Tooke, W. D. (ed.), The Bantu-speaking Peoples of Southern Africa, pp. 135–76. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Sansom, B. 1974b. ‘Traditional rulers and their realms’, in Hammond-Tooke, W. D. (ed.), The Bantu-speaking Peoples of Southern Africa, pp. 246–83. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. 1938. A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. 1942. ‘A short history of the Bagwaketse’, African Studies, 1, 1–26.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. 1943. Native Land Tenure in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Alice: Lovedale Press.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. 1970. Tribal Innovators: Tswana chiefs and social change 1795–1940. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Seddon, J. D. 1968. ‘An aerial survey of settlement and living patterns in the Transvaal Iron Age: preliminary report’, African Studies, 27, 189–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sillery, A. 1952. The Bechuanaland Protectorate. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sinclair, P. 1982. ‘Chibuene - an early trading site in southern Mozambique’, Paideuma, 28, 150–64.Google Scholar
Smith, E. W., and Dale, A. M. 1920. The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (1968 reprint), 2 vols. New York: University Books.Google Scholar
Stayt, H. A. 1931. The Bavenda. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Summers, R., and Pagden, C. W. 1970. The Warriors. Cape Town: Books of Africa.Google Scholar
Tamplin, M. J. 1977. ‘Preliminary Report on an Archaeological Survey in the Republic of Botswana’, manuscript, Trent University, Peterborough.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. O. V. 1979. ‘Late Iron Age Settlements on the Northern Edge of the Vredefort Dome’, MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.Google Scholar
Theal, G. M. 1898–1903. Records of South-Eastern Africa, 9 vols. London: Government of the Cape Colony.Google Scholar
Trevor, T. G., and Mellor, E. T. 1908. ‘Report on a Reconnaissance of the North-Western Zoutpansberg District’, Special Publication Transvaal Mines Department. Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Tyson, P. D. 1978. ‘Rainfall changes over South Africa during the period of meteorological record’, in Werger, M. J. A. (ed.), Biogeography and Ecology of Southern Africa, pp. 55–70. The Hague: W. Junk.Google Scholar
Van Der Waal, C. S. 1979. ‘Woonwyse van die Venda’, South African Journal of Ethnology, 2, 11–27.Google Scholar
Van Niekerk, B. J. 1966. ‘Notes on the administration of justice among the Kwena’, African Studies, 25, 37–45.Google Scholar
Van Warmelo, N. J. (ed.). 1932. Contributions Towards Venda History, Religion and Tribal Ritual (Ethnological Publication 3). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Van Warmelo, N. J. 1935. A Preliminary Survey of the Bantu Tribes of South Africa (Ethnological Publication 5). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Van Warmelo, N. J. (ed.). 1940. The Copper Miners of Musina and the Early History of the Zoutpansberg (Ethnological Publication 8). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Van Warmelo, N. J. 1948. Venda Law, Part 1, Betrothal (Ethnological Publication 23). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Van Warmelo, N. J. 1949. Venda Law, Part 4, Inheritance (Ethnological Publication 23). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Van Warmelo, N. J. 1967. Venda Law, Part 5, Property (Ethnological Publication 50). Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Voigt, E. A. 1983. Mapungubwe: an archaeozoological interpretation of an Iron Age community. Pretoria: Transvaal Museum.Google Scholar
Wentzel, P. J. 1983. The Relationship between Venda and Western Shona, vol. III. Pretoria: University of South Africa.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1969. ‘The Sotho, Venda and Tsonga’, in Wilson, M. and Thompson, L. (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa: I. South Africa to 1870, pp. 131–82. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar