Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Botswana Iron Age Dynamics

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. James Denbow, Carla Klehm will conduct archaeological excavations and analyses at the Iron Age sites of Bosutswe and Khubu la Dintsa, Botswana. Her project investigates how the local political economy at Khubu la Dintsa shaped and was shaped by the broader political, economic, and social transformations at Bosutswe during the height of its participation in the Indian Ocean trade network. The importance of the research rests on the insight it will provide into how regional networks are established between power centers and outlying regions in traditional societies. Archaeology has the potential to place this process in deep chronological context. Such issues are relevant in many regions of the world today. Bosutswe (CE 700-1700) was a major regional hub for local and long-distance exchange that extended across the Kalahari Desert and ultimately linked southern Africa to East Africa, the Middle East, India, China, and Indonesia. Long-distance glass trade beads and local ostrich eggshell beads at Bosutswe attest to a strong local economy supported by cattle herding, subsistence farming, and iron and bronze manufacture. This trade peaked in the Middle Lose period, CE 1300-1450, when class divisions sharply increased at Bosutswe. Cattle herding strategies shifted to cope with long-term overgrazing around permanent settlements, and may have included trade relationships to dispersed hubs such as Khubu la Dintsa to maintain quality grazing. Khubu la Dintsa, twelve kilometers from Bosutswe, fits into this slice of the Bosutswe sequence. This research design considers the production, use, and exchange of material goods to compare the social and economic relationships that developed between Khubu and Bosutswe. Moreover, it emphasizes the regional mosaic's crucial contribution to the rise of complex societies and state formation in the region. Power is the capacity for collective action, and a focus on local social and economic power relationships allows smaller-scale settlements to play a more direct role in cultural construction. Broad-scale horizontal excavations at Khubu la Dintsa investigate its function vis-à-vis Bosutswe and variation within and between sites. The data is compared, using spatial and quantitative analyses, to the results of previous archaeological research conducted at Bosutswe. The material connections between the sites - diet, access to cattle versus smaller stock, housing styles, luxury and utilitarian goods like beads, metals, and ceramics - is used to construct and maintain power strategies that underlay social life in an increasingly interconnected world. Outside the academic community, this project has great potential for improving local education in archaeology, preserving cultural heritage, mitigating disputes over cultural ownership of sites, contributing to political debates on minority representation, and enhancing peoples' understanding of their nation's past and its role in southern Africa. This project coincides with a new government campaign in Botswana to emphasize monuments as cultural heritage. Plans to build a prehistory exhibit between the researcher and the nearby Khama Museum should deepen pride in Botswana's history.