‘Phalaborwa where the hammer is heard’: crafting together the political economy of Iron Age communities in southern Africa, AD 900–1900

Abstract

In Africa and elsewhere, producers form a critical dimension to archaeological reconstructions of the political economy. However, few studies address the relationship between producers and the political economy from the vantage point of production sites. This study addresses the position of metal producers in the regional political economy of Iron Age (AD 200-1900) communities in southern Africa through an in-depth analysis of one production locale, Shankare. Shankare is a production and habitation site located in close proximity to the Lolwe mineral body in Phalaborwa. Studying the organisation of production, identity of producers, mechanisms of exchange and evidence of consumption at Shankare provided an important platform to assess producers in the context of the domestic and regional economy. Research at Shankare and surrounding sites revealed that production was characterised by a community of homestead based producers located in proximity to the ore source. Metal production took place in domestic contexts in conjunction with other activities, and with clear evidence of scheduling and cross-crafting overlaps. Producers acted independently and were well connected within a regional exchange system that facilitated the flow of local products and imported items such as glass beads and cowrie shells (Cypraea annulus). The study of producers at Shankare indicates the presence of a decentralised political economy resulting in a high degree of autonomy of producers and consumers in the region. Comparisons between the organisation of metal production at Shankare through time indicate that in both occupational periods, AD 900-1300 and AD 1700-1900, production strategies were contextually negotiated, with no clear correlation between political centralisation and specialised production. This research challenges existing models of control and the enactment of power in the political economy of the Iron Age. It has further potential implications for reconsidering the parameters for identifying power relations utilised in global archaeological theory. I would like to acknowledge a number of individuals and institutions that have made this research possible. Funding for my studies was provided through a grant-holder linked National Research Foundation (NRF) bursary facilitated by Associate Professor Shadreck Chirikure. Additional funding from the Erasmus-Mundus Association allowed me to spend five months at K.U. Leuven in Belgium from which I greatly benefited. Access to Shankare for fieldwork was granted by the Palabora Mining Company. Special thanks to Tim Paxton and the heritage officers Johannes Malatji, Adam Mhlongo, Thembani and Mandla who facilitated our research at Shankare and also contributed towards our understanding of the site. Guy Thomas,

New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe

“…And yet, the Njanja developed a very successful specialized and intensified iron production industry that supplied iron hoes within a 200-km radius (Chirikure 2006). Comparative evidence from Phalaborwa in South Africa shows that copper deposits at Lolwe, worked between AD 700 and 1900, were not under the control of kings in the 19th century (Moffett 2017;Thondhlana et al 2016). The Rooiberg tin mines of northern South Africa, which were worked between AD 1300 and 1900, were similarly situated far from known state capitals (Bandama 2013).…”

“…While Square represents the largest known concentration of metal production debris in southern Africa, this is very small compared with the concentrated smelting in West African production regions such as Bassar in Togo that produced an estimated 80,000 metric tons of slag outside state-level organization between AD 1300 and 1700 (De Barros 1988). Similarly, iron production at Square and Phalaborwa was not under the control of a state (Moffett 2017;Van der Merwe and Scully 1971). These examples demonstrate that, in southern Africa, metal production was mostly dispersed on the landscape: in homesteads, away from them near the mines, and even far away from homesteads (see Chirikure 2015).…”

States, agency, and power on the ‘peripheries’: exploring the archaeology of the Later Iron Age societies in precolonial Mberengwa, CE 1300-1600s

“…Despite being incessantly criticised for relegating other aspects of the material culture of agropastoralists (sensu Beach 1980;Hall 1984;Vansina 1995;Pikirayi 2007;Fredriksen & Chirikure, 2015), their approach was credited for refining the settlement histories of Iron Age communities in southern Africa through the establishment of ceramic sequences that were backed by radiocarbon dating (Huffman Pikirayi 1997;Mtetwa et al 2013) . Even today, these typological approaches established in Europe and America (Hall 1984, Pikirayi 2007, are still continually being applied to local ceramics recovered at most Iron Age sites in southern Africa (Pikirayi 1993;Soper 2002;Huffman 2007;Antonites 2012;Moffett 2017;Shenjere-Nyabezi 2017;Chirikure et. al., 2018;.…”

“…In fact, as argued by Antonites (2012), and Chirikure et al (2012Chirikure et al ( , 2013aChirikure et al ( , 2014Chirikure et al ( , 2017a), it appears that Zimbabwe culture societies were so heterarchical (sensu Crumley 1987) hence there is possibility that political power was flexible and networked. Nevertheless, as cautioned by some scholars (see Beach 1980;Antonites 2012;Chirikure et al 2012Chirikure et al , 2017Moffett 2017), there are chances that heterarchy in some contexts co-existed with hierarchies of control for enabling social inequality and domination.…”

Divining Value: Cowries, the Ancestral Realm and the Global in Southern Africa

“…In contrast to other regions, research on cowries in southern Africa has been relatively neglected, compounded in part by the erroneous assumption that cowries were of relatively little importance in southern and eastern Africa until the nineteenth century (Hogendorn & Johnson 1986, 17). This is somewhat surprising, given the evidence for the long and continued use in southern Africa from the seventh century ad until the present (Denbow 1990; Hanisch 1980; Klehm 2017; Maggs 1980; Moffett 2017; Moffett & Chirikure 2016; Plug 2000; Plug & Badenhorst 2006; Raath Antonites 2014; Tiley & Burger 2002; Voigt 1983; Welbourne 1975; Whitelaw 1994). While recent studies of cowrie use from archaeological contexts have begun to provide insight into the valuation of cowries in the deeper past in southern Africa (Moffett 2017, 238–72; Tiley & Burger 2002), this paper focuses on cowrie usage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which provide rich, and thus far unexplored material, on how the cowrie was valued in the southern African context.…”