Exploring Tswana landscapes of South-eastern Botswana: preliminary steps towards an historical ecology approach

  • Author: Stefania Merlo and Sorcha Diskin
  • Topic: 500 to 1000 BP,Archaeometry,Environmental archaeology,Palaeoanthropology
  • Country: South Africa
  • Related Congress: 13th Congress, Dakar

The late Iron Age sequence and early Tswana history of South-eastern Botswana, and the North West province of South Africa, has been elucidated by a variety of studies that have combined, with different emphasis over the years, archaeological data, oral traditions and documentary evidence. Settlement chronologies based on radiocarbon dates have been constructed and general interpretations of settlement patterns have been provided. Nevertheless a gap remains in the understanding of the relationship between different settlements and, more importantly, of human-environment interactions before, during and after the establishment of these settlements. The use of historical ecology as a practical and theoretical research framework has the potential
to elucidate the interplay between natural and anthropogenic forces in the domestication of landscapes and therefore offer alternative interpretations to the development of southern African landscapes compared to the dominant cultural-historical study of settlement patterns. This paper presents the results of some practical field exercises conducted at the site of Ranaka, in Botswana. Here stone enclosures and features are examined not only in terms of their spatial layout but also in their environmental setting with a particular emphasis on the procurement of raw materials and specific exploitation of the geology and geomorphology of the study area.


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