Historical ecology and state formation in the Shashi-Limpopo region of southern Africa: a cross-disciplinary approach

The overall aim of the project is to enhance our knowledge of Mapela Hill in the Shashi-Limpopo region of southern Africa and its role in the rise of socio-political complexity and state formation. The project seeks to integrate data from the disciplines archaeology, archaeometry, history, anthropology, geography and earth sciences to illuminate the relationships between human beings and their landscape between the turn to the second millennium AD and 1900, set within a combined framework of resilience theory and historical ecology. Archaeologically pristine at project-startup in 2014, the Mapela site and surrounding areas serve as a case study set within the wider Shashi-Limpopo region. Comparison and contrast is used as method archaeologically within the Iron Age, notably the concurrent UNESCO World Heritage sites Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Khami, and in the present by relating social dynamics in the Mapela area with a comparable case in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. Data from the project provide lessons that can be adapted to develop resilient copying strategies for communities living in this region, which today is considered marginal for habitation. The tried and tested socio-economic and subsistence activities from the archaeology may offer ways to positively inform policy implementation. By introducing novel theoretical and methodological approaches, the project offers new long-term and multi-scalar insights into the culture-historical development in southern Africa for the last millennium. So far the project has generated 9 publications, 24 conference papers and 3 Master's theses. Highlights of the final project year include 5 peer-reviewed articles in highly ranked journals. Chirikure et al. 2016 in JAA present new data from Mapela, supporting the argument of multilinear pathways to socio-political complexity. Chirikure et al. 2016 in IJHS use fieldwork at Khami and Mapela, arguing that heritage conservation must adapt and improvise to achieve a mix of local and international practices. Fredriksen and Bandama 2016 in Azania is the first instalment of a planned series of 3 papers, presenting the novel approach designed within the project and demonstrating its applicability. Drawing on data from e.g. Mapela and Khami, Chirikure et al. 2017 in CAJ argues for a new model of heterarchy and political succession, while Moffett and Chirikure 2017 in JWP discuss excavated objects from e.g. Mapela in a wider context of prestige goods and transregional trade networks. The project has generated three Master's projects. In February 2016 one South African student graduated with her MSc-thesis on Mapela Hill, and a Zimbabwean student completed his MSc-thesis in August 2016. A Norwegian MA student completed her thesis in January 2017. Our fieldwork in 2014-16 provides insights into the prestige stonewalled terraces, whose initial construction date from the 11th century AD. This is almost two hundred years earlier than Mapungubwe (AD 1220-1280), the UNESCO site that is traditionally assumed to reflect the beginning of the evolution of socio-political complexity in southern Africa around AD 1200-1220. More specifically, this is seen as the ideological transition to crystallised class distinction and sacred leadership. Our results thus far demand not just fresh ways of accounting for the rise of socio-political complexity in southern Africa, but also significant adjustment of existing models. A novel key factor here is our ongoing laboratory analyses of excavated faunal material, ceramics, metal and samples for dating, to be completed by the end of 2017. Our ethnographic fieldwork has centred attention on ceramic craft activities, arenas for knowledge transmission and the acquisition of skills, especially how 'traditional' crafts relate to farming technology and the wider landscape surrounding Mapela Hill. Our results clearly underscores the need for rethinking of how such technologies are carriers of local memory, and thereby also of how we think of heritage. The results from the fieldwork in the Mapela Hill landscape, using our specially designed and novel approach, will be placed in a broader regional and inter-regional perspective. The final months of the project was dedicated to material analysis, seminar and conference participation, write-up and publishing of papers, and to make a 3D-model of Mapela Hill using LiDAR technology. The project group co-organised a synergetic workshop with a French project team (at IFAS Recherche) in Johannesburg in March 2017, and had its own final 'writeshop' in June 2017. Expected publications in 2017-18 are: (1) a special issue of Azania (to appear early in 2018) with papers by all key project members, (2) two papers on the ethnographic fieldwork, to be submitted to high-ranking journals, and (3) a monograph by Chirikure and Fredriksen that discusses the project's main results in a wider geographical, methodological, and theoretical frame.

Using the archaeologically pristine site of Mapela and surrounding areas as a case study, this research project seeks to integrate data from multiple disciplines such as archaeology, archaeometry, history, anthropology, geography and earth sciences to ill uminate the relationships between human beings and their landscape in the Shashi-Limpopo region of southern Africa between c. AD 700 and 1900 within a combined framework of resilience theory and historical ecology. The data flowing from interrogating the se relationships, particularly in domains such as technology and subsistence, will unearth lessons that can be adapted to develop resilient copying strategies for communities living in this region, which today is considered marginal for habitation. The tr ied and tested socio-economic and subsistence activities from the archaeology will offer lessons that can positively inform policy implementation. Furthermore, this research project will enhance our knowledge of Mapela and its role in the beginning of soc io-political complexity and state formation. In this manner, it may transform Mapela into a tourist attraction, thereby enabling the site to become a vital node for development in a highly underdeveloped area. In addition, the research will enhance and de epen our general understanding of the prehistorical development towards urban sites such as the UNESCO World Heritage site of Great Zimbabwe. Contrary to previous isolationist interpretations, our project seeks to integrate archaeological, historical, a nthropological, environmental and palaeoclimatic evidence into a holistic, integrationist framework which to date has not been employed in this type of interdisciplinary research. By introducing a novel theoretical and methodological approach, this resear ch offers new long-term and multi-scalar insights into the culture-historical development in southern Africa for the last two millennia.