Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RAMEKIN (Residue and Materials analyses of Early Iron Age ceramics, KwaZulu-Natal)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2023-04-30
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.
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.
RAMEKIN analysed over 200 ceramic sherds from 5 archaeological sites that together span the entire KwaZulu-Natal Early Iron Age archaeological sequence, from, c. 300-1000 AD. Lipid residues were extracted using a rapid acid extraction methodology, and then analysed using gas chromatograhy (GC) mass spectrometry for major classes of food lipids. GG isotope ratio mass spectroemtry was applied to a subset of samples to distinguish between dairy and adipose lipids - i.e. to detect milk. Evaluation of lipid residues preserved in ceramic pottery from five archaeological sites found no evidence for marine resource usage. Evidence for dairy was limited to later archaeological contexts, indicating that the earliest pioneer groups did not have cattle. And the data found intriguing evidence for unexpected foods, such as honey and certain medicinal plants, helping to enrich our knowledge of subsistence practices that are otherwise almost entirely invisible in the archaeological record. The study has found no evidence for marine foods in early iron Age dates, suggesting that early farmers did not rely on coastal resources. However, there is also no evidence for dairy amongst the earliest contexts – only later do ceramics indicate a substantial dairy component. This indicates that cattle only became important in farming economies during the latter part of the first millennium.
These results have been presented at three international scientific conferences, and the data form the basis for ongoing grant applications. The results are the focus of a research article in preparation.
These results have been presented at three international scientific conferences, and the data form the basis for ongoing grant applications. The results are the focus of a research article in preparation.
This study is one of only a tiny handful to utilise these methods in this region – consequently, much of the value lies in the establishment of comparative reference data, through a modern study. Further, the size of this study is much more ambitious than the few preceding studies for the region. This dataset enables evaluations of subsistence changes throughout the entire Early Iron Age archaeological sequence and across the coastal/ inland geographic divide which has structured much archaeological interpretation. One major finding is that there is no evidence for dairy (and thus cattle) in the earliest occupational phases, and dairy signatures only appear towards the end of the Early Iron Age. This challenges a major hypothesis about the arrival of cattle in southern Africa.