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The Date of the Ingombe Ilede Burials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

D. W. Phillipson  and
Brian M. Fagan
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Extract

Recent excavations and radiocarbon dates provide evidence that the rich Ingombe Ilede burials date from the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries a.d., not from the ninth/tenth centuries as was previously supposed. There is thus little evidence for intensive trade between the Middle Zambezi and the Moçambique coast before ca. a.d. 1400.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 1969 , pp. 199 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 Fagan, B. M., ‘Excavations at Ingombe llede, 1960–1962’, in Fagan, B. M., Phillipson, D. W. and Daniels, S. G. H., Iron Age Cultures in Zambia 11 (London, 1968). This work is quoted below as the ‘site report’ and readers are referred to it for a detailed description of the site and finds.Google Scholar

2 The notes accompanying the radiocarbon samples taken by Mr Chaplin stated that they were ‘associated with the gold burials’. It now appears likely that they come from the midden soil surrounding the skeletons and not from the grave pits.

3 The archaeological work was financed by the National Monuments Commission of Zambia. We wish to thank the Water Affairs Department for their total co-operation. We are grateful to Mr C. S. Lancaster for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

4 Site report, op. cit. (1968), tables xii-xiv.

5 It is possible, but unlikely, that the occupation was continuous. Abandonment would not necessarily be represented by a sterile layer as Ingombe llede is prone to rapid erosion once the vegetation cover is removed.

6 Fagan, B. M., Iron Age Cultures in Zambia 1, (London, 1967).Google Scholar

7 Site report, op. cit. (1968), chapter IX.

8 Fagan, B. B., op. cit. (1967).Google Scholar

9 Fagan, B. M. and Phillipson, D. W., ‘Sebanzi: the Iron Age sequence at Lochinvar, and the Tonga’, J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. xcv (1965), 253–94.Google Scholar