Lecture 3. Cosmologies of Later Stone Age Shelters and Landscapes

preview slides
created by:

Hannah le Roux, Sechaba Maape


from the module:

Southern African Formations of Spatial Culture

In African archaeology, the term Later Stone Age was created in the 1920’s to refer to a period from 50 000 BP when behavioral modernity was first assumed to have started. However, the last few decades have seen considerable evidence of much earlier milestones for the complex thought put into crafting objects and representations that were once thought to be part of the Later Stone Age. For the purposes of this lecture, we will focus on shelters that are part of the later period of this bracketing, specifically those from roughly 4000 years ago, mostly those used by stone tool-using hunter/gatherer populations, but also some used by later herding groups. This lecture will give an overview of Later Stone Age shelters in Southern Africa, specifically where rock art exists, to give an insight of lifeways and beliefs of the people who lived in them. It will also relate how these spaces relate to those with remains of Middle Stone Age cultures, which include some of the case studies that were occupied in an ongoing sequence. The readings of rock art in these shelters will draw on the work of David Lewis-Williams and other Western observers, whose interpretations were developed in turn from oral histories of indigenous people. We have insight into how shelters were inhabited through the window of rock art and other artefacts left behind by early indigenous communities. These sites are ecologically varied but archaeologist argue that the early people of South Africa viewed these varied landscapes through their cosmological worldview. Whether in the drier flat conditions of the interior, or the misty cold climates of the Drakensberg mountains, people inhabited and psychologically structured the physical world using their beliefs. Through the archaeological record we discover the significance of animals, the landscape and ritual practices that in their totality portray life in the later stone age. The lecture covers two areas: firstly, the Ukamhlaba / Drakensberg landscape, and then the West Coast and related Cederberg landscape that contains thousands of shelters identified as lived spaces through rock paintings and/or the excavated traces of inhabitation. The lecture covers two sites due to their significance for constructing narratives of use and their public accessibility. These sites, some of which have been digitally modelled, give a rich understanding of the interplay of environment, shelter, animals, representation and life, including ritual practices involving rain making. Using Lewis-William’s interpretation, the paintings are evidence of distinctions and links between the material and spirit world. Finally, Klasies River caves discussed in L2 for their early inhabitations will be discussed as a soundscape during the Late Stone Age.

supporting documents:

Handout

Lecture Notes

Quiz with Answers