NYAME AKUMA No. 15 November 1979 Newsletter of the Society Of

NYAME AKUMA No. 15 November 1979 Newsletter of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists in America Edited by P. L. Shinnie and issued from the Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1~4.This issue edited by Mr. Francois J. Kense with typing assistance by Mrs. J. Karch. Once again, I have the privilege of acting as editor of Nyame Akuma in the absence of Professor P.L. Shinnie. As some of our readers may be aware, Professor Shinnie is spending the months of October through December in the Nubian Sudan undertaking an intensive language study of modern-day Nubian. He will return to Calgary in the early part of January, 1980 (in time for the most pleasant part of the Cal- gary winter ! ) . The amount of material forwarded to me the last six weeks in response to Professor Shinnie's circular of September has been very satis- fying. It is gratifying to see that the range of African nations for which news items and reports are included has been expanding over the last year or two. We note with special interest and excitement the report by Dr. Posnansky concerning a survey carried out in Togo - a country in which no formal archaeological work has yet been undertaken, as he points out. We can only look forward (with an admittedly Ghana- based bias) to further work in this area in the near future. I must emphasize to readers and contributors to Nyame Akuma that while the number of submissions have increased over time (this being desirable), so have the size of the reports and news items themselves (this being undesirable). As indicated on the back inside cover of Nyame Akuma No. 14 (and in this one), Professor Shi-nnie has urged that submissions be limited to 3-4 quarto-sized, single-spaced sheets. More than half a dozen items submitted this time exceeded those parameters, often by 100% or so. Within the confines of labor and production costs for each number, I am afraid that this practice cannot be encouraged. However, in my capacity as acting editor, I have decided to dedi- cate this number as representative of a period of grace to contributors. The reader will note a number of items therefore which exceed the guide- lines suggested by Professor Shinnie but let me firmly point out that this does not signify a changing or softening of policy; I anticipate that Professor Shinnie will be much less sympathetic to lengthy items for the next number, now that our position is made explicit. Two final points remain. First, Dr. Green reports that the "British connection" for subscriptions is in full gear and being utilized (see report for details ) . And second, although two members submitted abstracts of their papers presented at the SAAAM conference in April, I have not included them in this number as I was unsure how Professor Shinnie had intended to incorporate these into Nyame Akuma. I have delayed action on them therefore until his return. F. J. Kense, Acting Editor. STERLING SUBSCRIPTION TO NYAME AKUMA I am pleased to report a favourable response to this new venture. In all we now have two institutional subscribers plus fifteen individuals. To avoid any possible misunderstanding I should like to explain how the system will operate. The annual subscription is 83.25, of which a minimum of £3.00 will go to Nyame Akuma, the remainder being used to cover bank charges and any other administrative costs. The subscription is due on 1st January and will be forwarded each year at the end of January. Any who are overdue with their payments will have to send them direct to Canada (at much greater cost to themselves ) . FQ role is merely that of British Hon. Treasurer and copies of Nyame Akuma will be posted direct to individual subscribers from Canada. New subscribers may like to note that their subscriptions for 1979 are now being forwarded ( October 1979) to Canada and that they should receive their 1979 issues by the end of the year. Stephen Green, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, CF1 3NP, U.K. NEWS ITEMS ALGERIA Dr. C. Meiklejohn of the University of Winnipeg sends the following report : The adult burial from the site of Ain Misteheyia, Algeria, has been published in volume 8 (4) (1979) of the Journal of Human Evolution, C. Meiklejohn, C. Pardoe and D. Lubell, "The Adult Skeleton from the Capsian Site of Ain Misteheyia", pp. 411-426. We have described the finds and give a brief comparative analysis. Dated at ca. 7000 B.C. (see Lubell in Nyame Akuma, No. lo), the poorly preserved skeleton is morphologically compatible with contemporary series. The individual was a 20-30 year old male of moderate robusticity, with a stature of ca. 180 cms. The individual showed evidence of infection of the right foot which was unhealed at the time of death and may have been a (at least secondary) factor in the cause of death. There was no ritual ablation of teeth, a condition present in virtually all Iberomaurusian but only ca. 50% of Capsian individuals. Dental size is compatible with other Maghrebian Epipalaeolithic samples but smaller than those from Wadi Half a. In conjunction with the above study, the writer is engaged in a study with Gisele Molgat , a senior student, to analyze the range and mode of variation of terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene North African Epipalaeolithic populations, using Principal Components analysis and Cluster analysis involving the CLUSTAN set of programmes. Prelimi- nary analyses of metric data raise some doubts as to the presence of clear identifiable groups within the Epipalaeolithic. Initial tests failed to show any meaningful correlation of morphology with either temporal or spatial coordinates. Variability within the samples from individual sites matched the degree of variability between sites. This study is continuing and further data collection is ongoing. The writer would welcome any as yet unpublished data on North African Epipalaeo- lithic series to include in this analysis and would be happy to enter into correspondence on the ongoing work. BOTSWANA James R. Denbow, National Monuments Officer in Gaborone, sends the following news : In the past six months several new discoveries have been made in the more remote parts of the country. The first is the discovery of several M.S.A. and L.S.A. sites along the 912 meter beach of prehistoric Lake Makgadikgadi. All of these sites have excellent bone preservation and indications are that the area was extensively occupied during these time periods. In addition, several Iron Age sites have also been located in the area, one of which appears to have an Early Iron Age component related to Bambata or Gokomere further east. This site has not yet been excavated, but its presence does suggest that the area along the Botletli River was utilized by Early Iron Age peoples con- siderably earlier than was previously thought. The second development has been a test excavation by the National Museum at an Early Iron Age site in the Tsodilo Hills of northwestern Botswana. This site has produced sherds typologically related to Dambwa and other 'eastern stream' sites. Its position so far to the west is therefore of great interest. In addition, although the sherds are stylistically well within the range of Iron Age ceramics, they are al- most universally tempered with charcoal. This temper is very unusual among Bantu potters, though organic tempers are quite characteristic of Khoisan ceramics. The location of the Society site, along with the nature of its ceramics, is interesting in light of Phillipson's model regarding the early diffusion of domesticated animals and pot-making techniques to Khoi groups in the highlands of northern Namibia and southern Angola. In addition to the iste itself, several rock paintings at Tsodilo show cattle and cattle raiding (herding?) in a style which seems to occur towards the middle of the sequence. These paintings could possibly relate to interactions between local Khoisan and Early Iron Age peoples in the area. Interestingly, no sheep or other domesti- cates are portrayed in this style at Tsodilo. The Significance of Archaeological Sites Located Near or in Association with Ancient Strandlines of Lake Makgadikgadi, Botswana, from James I. Ebert, Kalahari Peoples Fund, Albuquerque, New Mexico. The central basin of southern Africa, at the lowest point of which lies the Sua and Ntwetwe Pans of Botswana today, is a shallow geologic structure with gently sloping sides. Remnants of ancient strandlines noted on aerial and space imagery and on the ground, first mentioned in the literature by Grove (1969)~ suggest that at some time in the past this basin hoted a series of concentric lakes, each of which persisted for some time. The placement of archaeological sites in respect to these shorelines, coupled with hydrological reasoning, allows the in- terpretatio of palaeoclimate, past ground cover, animal behavior, and associated human subsistence strategies for these sites, and may also aid in the temporal placement of archaeological materials in the area. Recent interpretation and analysis of photographic representations of digital multispectral scanner (MSS) data from the Landsat I and I1 satellites has resulted in the accurate mapping of the extent of dif- ferent levels of ancient Lake Makgadikgadi (E3ert 1978; Ebert & Hitchcock 1978). Individual 1:1,000,000 scale Landsat band 5 and 7 prints were examined in detail, and indications of the extent of the past lake levels such as raised strandlines, obliterated alab dune patterns, and lake terraces were delimited; these indications were selectively ground- checked in the field in 1975 and 1976 during the course of archaeological survey carried out by the University of New Mexico Kalahari Project .

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