Social and Political Interaction in the Hinterland of the Mapungubwe polity, AD 900-1300, South Africa

Communities are not closed systems, but interrelated and connected. While highlighting the importance of the interconnectedness of societies is important, it is also essential to keep in mind that interaction takes place between people, and not large scale constructs such as society, culture or state. As a result, archaeologists increasingly use frameworks of agency, practice and social identity to understand how people interact. These approaches have shown that interaction is structured by all participants in a network. In this paper, I discuss preliminary results from excavations on small settlements located on the southern boundary of South Africa’s first state, Mapungubwe. I will explore how communities and households reacted and responded to increased centralization and social reform associated with the rise in political complexity.