The Toromoja Late Stone Age Site: Lithic Assemblage Variability in Botswana and Southern Africa
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The Toromoja Late Stone Age Site: Lithic Assemblage Variability in Botswana and Southern Africa by Breanne Renae Clifton Bachelor of Arts, May 2008, Dickinson College A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts August 31, 2010 Thesis directed by Alison S. Brooks Professor of Anthropology Abstract of Thesis The Toromoja Late Stone Age Site: Lithic Assemblage Variability in Botswana and Southern Africa The Later Stone Age in South Africa has been continuously studied since the early twentieth-century, but little work concerning the Later Stone Age in Botswana has been conducted until recently. Ultimately, a thorough examination of intra-regional and inter-regional activity differences and stylistic variability is integral to the understanding of the diverse ways of life of Later Stone Age peoples. A more detailed understanding of the technology, subsistence practices, and regional or territorial interactions of LSA groups that lived in Botswana would add to our understanding of the LSA record in southern Africa as well as providing a foundation for regional comparisons of various LSA sites and groups in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (Fig.1). The understanding of the practices of LSA peoples and the foundation for regional comparisons between sites can be constructed through the comparison of tool type frequencies across various sites in Botswana and South Africa. In order to thoroughly understand the significance of the LSA and technological variability, first the history of archaeology in Botswana, and of the San people and their relationship to the LSA archaeological record should be scrutinized. Stone tool variability is one method of studying regional variability in technology, subsistence, and culture, and this method is applied to sites in southern Africa and Botswana. This thesis will analyze the Central District of Botswana, specifically the site of Toromoja and will compare it with other sites, both in Botswana and South Africa. Various technological industries have been identified previously in ii southern Africa, and these techno-typological categorizations will be used to assess the assemblages considered. The Toromoja assemblage will be compared with assemblages from the Tsodilo Hills, ≠Gi, Rose Cottage Cave, Thamaga, Toteng, and general technological trends in Zimbabwe and Zambia. Analysis of assemblage variability, for example in tool typologies and their corresponding functions, across southern Africa may be employed to add to data supporting inferences concerning the way of life of the Kalahari inhabitants and their relationships with other peoples. iii Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....ii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………..…v List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..vi Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………………..….1 Chapter 2: Historical Review of Archaeology in Botswana…………………….………18 Chapter 3: Geology and Paleoenvironment of the Kalahari…………………...………...40 Chapter 4: Toromoja…………………………………………………………………......45 Chapter 5: Questions Addressed and Methods…………………………………….........52 Chapter 6: Analysis………………………………………………………………………55 Chapter 7: Comparative Sites…………………………………………………………....77 Chapter 8: Conclusion: LSA Variability in Botswana……………………………..……99 References………………………………………………………………………………118 iv List of Figures Figure 1: Botswana and southern Africa……………………………………………….105 Figure 2: Industrial Complexes of southern Africa from Sampson (1974)…………….106 Figure 3: Satellite image of the Okavango Delta……………………………………….107 Figure 4: Geomorphic Chronology of the southern Makgadikgadi…………………….108 Figure 5: Soil profile of Toromoja……………………………………………………...109 Figure 6: Sediment profile of Toromoja lake bed……………………………………...110 Figure 7: Relict lakeshore at Toromoja………………………………………………...111 Figure 8: Toromoja profile……………………………………………………………..112 Figure 9: TM 4 2/0 Quartz convex scraper…………………………………………….113 Figure 10: TM 143 8/10 Convex scraper…………………………………………...….114 Figure 11: TM 197 22/0 Sidescraper and chert bladelet…………………………..…..115 Figure 12: TM 70 2/0 Pointed bladelet……………………………………………..…116 Figure 13: LSA tools from White Paintings Rock Shelter………………………...…..117 v List of Tables Table 1: Major industries of the southern African LSA…………………………………17 Table 2: Mammalian Taxa identified at Toromoja………………………………………49 Table 3: Non-Mammalian Taxa identified at Toromoja…………………………………50 Table 4: Retouched pieces from Toromoja………………………………………………56 Table 5-10: Lithic measurements…………………………………………………….58-63 Table 11: Size category percentages……………………………………………………..64 Tables 12-20: Debitage……………………………………………………………….65-68 Tables 21-29: Tool types by depth…………………………………………………...68-74 Tables 30-32: Totals by depth and size………………………………………………74-75 Table 33: Rose Cottage Cave frequencies of formal tools………………………………90 Table 34: Estimated dates for Thamaga shelters………………………………………...96 Table 35: Site tool type comparison……………………………………………………..98 Table 36: Site time frames compared……………………………………………………98 vi Chapter 1: Introduction The Later Stone Age (LSA) in southern Africa was first distinguished from the European typological nomenclature by Goodwin and van Riet Lowe in “The Stone Age Cultures of South Africa” (1929). Goodwin and van Riet Lowe organized various technological industries and cultures within the phase. Typically the LSA, including roughly the past twenty thousand years in South Africa, or longer in East and Central Africa, is thought to be characterized by items of personal adornment and portable art, polished bone points, backed microliths, a variety of formal scrapers, specialized food gathering tools and containers, and formal burial of the dead (Deacon, 1984). The Later Stone Age in South Africa has been continuously studied since the early twentieth-century, but little work concerning the Later Stone Age in Botswana has been conducted until recently. Ultimately, a thorough examination of intra-regional and inter-regional activity differences and stylistic variability is integral to the understanding of the diverse ways of life of Later Stone Age peoples. A more detailed understanding of the technology, subsistence practices, and regional or territorial interactions of LSA groups that lived in Botswana would add to our understanding of the LSA record in southern Africa as well as providing a foundation for regional comparisons of various LSA sites and groups in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (Fig.1). The understanding of the practices of LSA peoples and the foundation for regional comparisons between sites can be constructed through the comparison of tool type frequencies across various sites in Botswana and South Africa. In order to thoroughly understand the significance of the LSA and technological variability, first the history of archaeology in Botswana, and of the San people and their relationship to the LSA archaeological record should be 1 scrutinized. Stone tool variability is one method of studying regional variability in technology, subsistence, and culture, and this method is applied to sites in southern Africa and Botswana. This thesis will analyze the Central District of Botswana, specifically the site of Toromoja and will compare it with other sites, both in Botswana and South Africa. Various technological industries have been identified previously in southern Africa, and these techno-typological categorizations will be used to assess the assemblages considered. The Toromoja assemblage will be compared with assemblages from the Tsodilo Hills, ≠Gi, Rose Cottage Cave, Thamaga, Toteng, and general technological trends in Zimbabwe and Zambia. Analysis of assemblage variability, for example in tool typologies and their corresponding functions, across southern Africa may be employed to add to data supporting inferences concerning the way of life of the Kalahari inhabitants and their relationships with other peoples. The LSA of Southern Africa Compared to the evolutionary developments of the Early and Middle Stone Ages and their ties to the spread of humans across the Old World, the LSA may seem of lesser global significance. In the global study of Paleoanthropology and Paleolithic Archaeology, the LSA receives little focus and attention from researchers, and the LSA is most often studied in relation to the prehistory of the San, or Bushmen, and their reactions to „outsiders,‟ whether Europeans or „Bantu‟. In the scholarship of southern Africa, this same trend of disinterest in the LSA persists (Mitchell, 2005). However, the study of LSA hunter-gatherers is important, and of interest far beyond southern Africa. An issue of particular distinction is the history and life ways of the Kalahari Bushmen (Mitchell, 2005). The Kalahari Bushmen have been used as the modern model of 2 idealized hunter-gatherer groups, yet the ethnographic parallels made are tenuous at best, especially since the actual history of these diverse people is still little understood and inadequately supported by the archaeological record (Sadr, 1997). Southern African LSA archaeology also presents a unique and interesting context for studying the interactions between different social formations as they develop (Mitchell 2005). Indeed, southern African LSA archaeology presents a rare opportunity for the study of hunter-gatherer relations with numerous other groups over such a relatively recent span of time. Also of great importance is the special potential of