RAMEKIN · Residue and Materials analyses of Early Iron Age ceramics, KwaZulu-Natal
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-05-01 → 2023-06-09
- EU contribution
- €162,806
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Residue and Materials analyses of Early Iron Age ceramics, KwaZulu-Natal
The Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) Individual Fellowship “Residue and Materials analyses of Early Iron Age ceramics, KwaZulu-Natal” (RAMEKIN), hosted at LMU Munich and FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, investigated the subsistence practices of ancient black farming communities (c. 300-1000 A.D.) during their southernmost expansion across Africa, in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa. It has long been thought that these agricultural pioneers first entered the region from southern Mozambique, cutting back the original dense coastal forests to plant crops and to prepare grazing lands for the extensive cattle herds that were preeminent amongst later southern African farming communities. The location of the earliest sites near to the shore, and evidence for marine shellfish harvesting suggest that these groups may have relied extensively on wild coastal resources. However, extremely limited archaeological prospection in the region, and poor recovery of faunal and plant remains means that little is certain about the livelihoods of these earliest groups and hypotheses about relative contributions of wild/ domestic or marine/ terrestrial foods have yet to be tested with dated archaeological material. RAMEKIN set out to evaluate two broadly contradictory hypotheses about the nature of early farmer’s subsistence. The more widely accepted posits that the earliest farmers brought cattle with them to the region, accepting that cattle, highly valued amongst both modern and historical black African farming communities, were similarly economically and ideologically important to the earliest pioneer farmers. An alternative interpretation of the record notes the limited evidence for cattle bones in ancient sites, and instead suggests that the pioneer groups organised their economies and social arrangements differently, and cattle had no special pre-eminence at this time. Further, some evidence for the use of marine resources such as shellfish suggests that early communities may have been dependant on the sea – this situation contrasts markedly with more recent groups in this region for whom marine resource usage is extremely small scale.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Ancient food systems are often broadly simplified as a dichotomy between foraging and farming. This view, however, is increasingly challenged by archaeologists who argue that it does not apply neatly to all contexts in the past. In fact, it is likely that ancient societies followed a myriad of pathways to full food production. The goal of this project, led by Dr Emma Loftus, is to explore the archaeology of food in coastal south-east Africa, one of the last major regions on Earth to be occupied by agriculturalists. Specifically, I test the hypothesis that this southernmost extension of pioneer farmers in Africa, during the 1st millennium AD, was only made possible by a substantial shift in subsistence practice, namely an extensive reliance on wild coastal foods. This project aims to document the little-explored Early Iron Age archaeology of the northern KwaZulu-Natal coastline, extending to Mozambique. In conjunction with foot surveys, new excavations and scientific dating, RAMEKIN will undertake portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and organic residue analyses of the distinctive pottery made by early farmers. Portable-XRF reveals details of the ceramic composition and manufacture, indicating the wider relationships between these groups and others, including foragers and farming groups that appeared later in this region. Organic residue analyses of adsorbed lipids in cooking vessels will demonstrate the relative importance of coastal foods, such as shellfish, and animal domesticates, such as cattle, during this expansion phase. Altogether, RAMEKIN will facilitate new, nuanced perspectives on the many routes to food production in Africa, and will help to document the ways in which ancient agriculturalists dealt with episodes of environmental change, an increasingly pertinent topic given the evermore extreme and unpredictable climates faced by farmers today.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · PlaneggCoordinatorGermany
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union