Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-ksm4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T22:57:43.152Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Early Iron Age in Zambia—Regional Variants and some Tentative Conclusions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

D. W. Phillipson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Early Iron Age people appear to have been responsible for the introduction into Zambia of pot-making, metallurgy and, less certainly, food production. Recent research has greatly increased the known number of Early Iron Age sites in Zambia and a number of regional variants have been defined, based largely on the typology of the associated pottery. Radiocarbon dates suggest that these groups are all to be dated to the first millennium a.d. and that they are contemporary with, and related to, the earliest known Iron Age in Rhodesia and some East African sites. It is suggested that the Early Iron Age people slowly spread into eastern Africa from an area west of Lake Tanganyika during the first few centuries a.d. Some related sites are known from this westerly region. This hypothesis can be compared with Oliver's interpretation of Guthrie's linguistic evidence; but the use of archaeological and linguistic arguments together is impossible until proof is available that the Early Iron Age people spoke Bantu languages.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1968 , pp. 191 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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

1 I am most grateful to all those who have discovered and reported sites and who have helped with the excavations described in this paper. My own research was financed by the National Monuments Commission of Zambia. All the Zambian antiquities here described are preserved in the Livingstone Museum, Livingstone, Zambia.

2 Dart, R. A. and Grande, N. del, ‘The ancient iron-smelting cavern at Murnbwa, Northern Rhodesia’, Trans. R. Soc. S. Africa, XIX (1931), 379–427.Google Scholar Also Clark, J. D., ‘Further excavations (1939) at Mumbwa Caves, Northern Rhodesia’, Trans. R. Soc. S.Africa, XXIX (1942), 133–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Wells, L. H., ‘A study of the ceramics from the deeper levels of the Mumbwa Cave, Northern Rhodesia’, Man, XXXIX (1939), article 63.Google Scholar

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

5 Bernard, F. O., ‘The Ziwa Ware of Inyanga’, N.A.D.A. XXXVIII (1961), 84–92.Google Scholar

6 Allan, W., The African Husbandman (London, 1965).Google Scholar Also Peters, D. V., ‘Land usage in Serenje District’, Rhodes-Livingstone Papers, no. 15 (1950).Google Scholar

7 Alternative dates due to known variation in the C-14 content of the atmosphere. See Vogel, J. C. and Waterbolk, H. T., ‘Groningen radiocarbon dates, V’, Radiocarbon, VI (1964), 349–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 van Noten, F., ‘Archeologische Opgravingen in Rhodesië, 1963’, Africa-Tervuren, X (1964), 1–7.Google Scholar

9 Clark, J. D., ‘The newly-discovered Nachikufu Culture of Northern Rhodesia and the possible origin of certain elements of the South African Smithfield Culture’, S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. V (1950), 86–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ibid.

11 Fagan, B. M. and van Noten, F., ‘Two channel-decorated pottery sites from Northern hodesia’, Man, LXIV (1964), article 8.Google Scholar

12 Clark, J. D., ‘A note on the pre-Bantu inhabitants of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland’, S. Afr. J. Sci. XLVII (1950), 80–5.Google Scholar

13 Clark, J. D. and Fagan, B. M., ‘Charcoals, sands and channel-decorated pottery from Northern Rhodesia’, Am. Anthropologist, LXVII (1965), 354–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Inskeep, R. R., ‘Some Iron Age sites in Northern Rhodesia’, S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. XVII (1962), 136–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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

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

17 Fagan, B. M., ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa, IV’, J. Afr. Hist. VII (1966), 495–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 B. M. Fagan and T. Huffman, personal communication.

19 See note 14.

20 Daniels, S. G. H. and Phillipson, D. W., ‘The Early Iron Age site at Dambwa near Livingstone’, in Fagan, B. M., Phillipson, D. W. and Daniels, S. G. H., Iron Age Cultures in Zambia, ii (London, 1968; in the press).Google Scholar

21 Njame was discovered by Mr and Mrs C. Lancaster. For Sinazongwe see note 14.

22 J. D. Clark, personal communication.

23 See note 14.

24 See note 5.

25 Summers, R., Inyanga (Cambridge, 1958).Google Scholar

26 Robinson, K. R., ‘Further excavations in the Iron Age deposits at the Tunnel Site, Gokomere Hill, Southern Rhodesia’, S. Afr.Archaeol. Bull. XVIII (1963), 155–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Robinson, K. R., ‘The Iron Age site in the Kapula Vlei near the Masama Dam, Wankie Game Reserve, Rhodesia’, Arnoldia (Rhod.), II (1966), no. 39.Google Scholar

28 Cooke, C. K., ‘The archaeology of the Mafungabusi Area, Gokwe, Rhodesia’, Proc. Trans. Rhodesia Scient. Ass. LI (1966), 51–78.Google Scholar

29 Robinson, K. R., ‘The Leopard's Kopje Culture, its position in the Iron Age in Southern Rhodesia’, S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. XXI (1966), 5–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Robinson, K. R., ‘Bambata Ware: its position in the Rhodesian Iron Age in the light of recent evidence’, S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. XXI (1966), 81–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 See note 14.

32 Robinson, K. R., ‘The Sinoia Caves, Lomagundi District, Rhodesia’, Proc. Trans. Rhodesia Scient. Ass. LI (1966), 131–155.Google Scholar

33 de Vaal, J. B., ‘N Soutpansbergse Zimbabwe: ′n Voorlopige Ondersoek van ′n Bouval op die Plaas Solvent’, S. Afr. J. Sci. XI. (1943), 303–88.Google Scholar

34 E.g. Gabel, C., Stone Age Hunters of the Kafue (Boston University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

35 It is extremely difficult to distinguish these two species from their bones.

36 As at Kalundu. See note 14.

37 At the Gokomere site of Mabveni. Robinson, K. R., ‘An Early Iron Age site from the Chibi District, Southern Rhodesia’, S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. XVI (1961), 75–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Clark, J. D., ‘The spread of food production in sub-Saharan Africa’, J. Afr. Hist. III (1962), 211—28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 See note 13.

40 A word of caution, which has been frequently repeated but even more frequently ignored, must here be inserted concerning the interpretation of radiocarbon dates. The standard error is an integral part of the date: it is never, and least of all in comparatively recent Iron Age studies where a chronology must necessarily be highly detailed, an irrelevant appendage which can be ignored or discarded at will by the archaeologist or the historian. To say that the Situmpa site is dated to A.D. 96 by date C-829 is highly misleading. This date has a standard error of ± 212 years which means that, assuming total lack of contamination and a perfect association of the charcoal sample with the artifacts, the analytical data alone suggest that there are 2 chances in 3 that the site dates to between 116 B.C. and A.D. 308, and 19 chances in 20 that the true date falls between 328 B.C. and A.D. 520. A single radiocarbon date can generally only give a broad indication of probable age. Groups of two or more age determinations for an occupation, a site, or a group of related sites, are needed before we can estimate their age between acceptably narrow limits.

41 See note II.

42 See note 13.

43 Jones, N., ‘Excavations at Nswatugi and Madiliyangwa’, Occ. Pap. Natn. Mus. S. Rhodesia, 1, 2 (1933), 1–44.Google Scholar

44 See note 30.

45 This pottery was kindly shown to me by Messrs K. Robinson and R. Summers.

46 The distribution of tsetse flies changes so rapidly that any archaeological argument based on modern distributions is extremely dangerous. The causes of these movements of tsetse belts are at present imperfectly understood. See Lambrecht, F. L., ‘Aspects of evolution and ecology of tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis in prehistoric African environment’, J. Afr. Hist. V (1964), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Chittick, N. H., ‘British archaeology abroad’, Antiquity, XLI (1967), 125–136.Google Scholar

48 For references see Fagan, B. M., ‘Early Iron Age pottery in eastern and southern Africa’, Azania I (1966), 101–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Mortelmans, G., ‘Archéologie des Grottes Dimba et Ngovo’, Actes du IVe Congrès Panafricain de Préhistoire (Tervuren, 1962), 405–26.Google Scholar

50 Nenquin, J., ‘Notes on some early pottery cultures in northern Katanga’, J. Afr. Hist. IV (1963), 19–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Tweedie, A., ‘Towards a history of the Bemba from oral tradition’, in The Zambesian Past ed. Stokes, E. and Brown, R. (Manchester, 1966), 197–225.Google Scholar

52 See note 52.

53 Fagan, B. M., Southern Africa during the Iron Age (London, 1966).Google Scholar

54 Oliver, R., ‘The problem of the Bantu expansion’, J. Afr. Hist. VII (1966), 361–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar