Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T23:16:24.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pottery abrasion and the preparation of African grains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Andrew Reid  and
Ruth Young
Andrew Reid
Affiliation:
(previously University of Botswana), Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, England, [email protected]
Ruth Young
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The lack of botanical remains from farming sites in Africa remains a serious archaeological problem. This paper discusses how the indirect evidence of pottery may help to evaluate grain farming in African archaeology.

Keywords

Africapotteryabrasiongrainplant remainscrop processingfood preparationNtusi
Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 74 , Issue 283 , March 2000 , pp. 101 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chittick, H.N. 1974. Kilwa: an Islamic trading city on the East African coast. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa. Memoir 5.Google Scholar
Cooke, C.K. 1953. Examination of ash-filled pits in the Magosian deposit at Khami, Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia 2: 529–31.Google Scholar
Collett, D.P. 1982. Excavation of stone-walled ruins in the Badfontein valley, eastern Transvaal, South Africa, South African Archaeological Bulletin 37(135): 34–43.Google Scholar
Davies, O. 1975. Excavations at Shongweni South Cave: the oldest evidence to date for cultigens in southern Africa, Annals of the Natal Museum 22: 627–62.Google Scholar
Denbow, J.R. 1983. Iron Age Economics: herding wealth and politics along the fringes of the Kalahari Desert during the early iron age. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Denbow, J.R. 1986. A new look at the later prehistory of the Kalahari, Journal of African History 27: 3–28.Google Scholar
Denbow, J.R. 1990. Congo to Kalahari: data and hypotheses about the political economy of the western stream of the Early Iron Age, African Archaeological Review 8: 139–76.Google Scholar
Fagan, B.M. 1978. Basanga and Mwanamaimpa, Azania 13: 127–34.Google Scholar
Fagan, B.M., Phillipson, D.W. & Daniels, S.G.H.. 1969. Iron Age cultures in Zambia 2. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Haaland, R. 1995. Sedentism, cultivation and plant domestication in the Holocene Middle Nile region, Journal of Field Archaeology 22: 157–74.Google Scholar
Hanisch, E.O.M. 1980. An archaeological interpretation of certain Iron Age sites in the Limpopo/Shashi Valley. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Pretoria.Google Scholar
Hall, M. & Maggs., T.O’C. 1979. Nqabeni, a Late Iron Age site in Zululand, South African Archaeological Society, Goodwin Series 3: 159–76.Google Scholar
Huffman, T.N. 1974. The Leopard’s Kopje Tradition. Salisbury: Memoirs of the National Museum. Memoir 6.Google Scholar
Jonsson, J. 1998. Early Plant Economy in Zimbabwe. Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis. Studies in African Archaeology 16.Google Scholar
Klapwijk, M. 1974. A preliminary report on pottery from the North-Eastern Transvaal, South Africa, South African Archaeological Bulletin 29: 19–23.Google Scholar
McIntosh, R.J. 1997. Agricultural beginnings in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Vogel, J.O. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa: 409–17. Walnut Creek (CA): Altamira.Google Scholar
Maggs, T.O’C. 1976. iron Age communities of the Southern Highveld. Pietermaritzburg: Natal Museum.Google Scholar
Maggs, T.O’C. 1980. The Iron Age sequence south of the Vaal and Pongola Rivers: some historical implications, Journal of African History 21: 1–15.Google Scholar
Maggs, T.O’C. 1983. Mgoduyanuka: terminal Iron Age settlement in the Natal grasslands, Annals of the Natal Museum 25(1): 83–113.Google Scholar
Maggs, T.O’C. 1984. Ndondondwane: a preliminary report on an Early Iron Age site on the lower Tugela River, Annals of the Natal Museum 26: 71–93.Google Scholar
Maggs, T.O’C. & Ward, V. 1984. Early Iron Age sites in the Muden area of Natal, Annals of the Natal Museum 26: 105–40.Google Scholar
Maggs, T.O’C. & Whitelaw, G. 1991. A review of recent archaeological research on food-producing communities in southern Africa, Journal of African History 32: 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathew, G. 1953. Recent discoveries in East African archaeology, Antiquity 27: 212–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, A. 1998. The archaeological sites of Greefswald. Pretoria: University of Pretoria Press.Google Scholar
Phillipson, D.W. 1976. The prehistory of Eastern Zambia. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa. Memoir 6.Google Scholar
Phillipson, D.W. 1993. African archaeology. (2nd Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pwiti, C. 1996. Settlement and subsistence of prehistoric farming communities in the mid-Zambezi Valley, northern Zimbabwe, South African Archaeological Bulletin 51: 3–6.Google Scholar
Pwiti, C. & Soper, R. (ed.). 1996. Aspects of African archaeology. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Press.Google Scholar
Reid, D.A.M. 1991. The role of cattle in the later Iron Age communities of Southern Uganda. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Reid, D.A.M. 1996a. Ntusi and the development of social complexity in southern Uganda, in Pwiti, & Soper, (ed.): 621–8.Google Scholar
Reid, D.A.M. 1996b. Cattle herds and the redistribution of cattle resources, World Archaeology 28: 43–57.Google Scholar
Rober’I’Shaw, P.T. 1986. Engaruka revisited: excavations of 1982, Azania 21: 1–26.Google Scholar
Rober’I’Shaw, P.T. 1994. Archaeological survey, ceramic analysis and state formation in western Uganda, African Archaeological Review VI: 105–32.Google Scholar
Robertshaw, P.T., Kamuhangire, E.R. Reid, D.A.M. Young, R. Childs, S.T. & Pearson, N.. 1997. Archaeological research in Bunyoro-Kitara: preliminary results, Nyame Akuma 48: 70–77.Google Scholar
Robinson, K.R. 1961. Excavations on the Acropolis Hill, Occasional Papers of the National Museums of Southern Rhodesia 3(23A): 159–92.Google Scholar
Sassoon, H. 1971. Excavations at Engaruka, an Iron Age archaeological site in Tanzania, National Geographic Society Research Reports, 1965 projects: 221–30.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P.R. 1996. Rhythmed time and its archaeological implications, in Pwiti, & Soper, (ed.): 655–62.Google Scholar
Schoenbrun, D.L. 1993. We are what we eat: ancient agriculture between the Great Lakes, Journal of African History 34: 1–31.Google Scholar
Schoenbrun, D.L. 1998. A green place, a good place: a social history of the Great Lakes region, earliest times to the 15th century. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Sinclair, P.J.J., Morais, J.M.F. Adamowicz, L. & Duarte, R.T.. 1993. A perspective on archaeological research in Mozambique, in Shaw, T. Sinclair, P.J.J. Andah, B. & Okpoko, A. (ed.), The archaeology of Africa: food, metals and towns: 409–31. London: Routledge. One World Archaeology 20.Google Scholar
Summers, R. 1958. Inyanga: prehistoric settlements in Southern Rhodesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sutton, J.E.G. 1973. Hula: excavations of Late Iron Age ‘brick’ sites in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, Azania 8: 141–50.Google Scholar
Sutton, J.E.G. 1993. The antecedents of the interlacustrine kingdoms, Journal of African History 34: 33–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, J.E.G. 1994. Introduction, Azania 29/30 (Special volume on the Growth of Farming Communities from the Equator South wards): 1–14.Google Scholar
Sutton, J.E.G. & Reid, D.A.M.. Forthcoming. Ntusi: a Pastoralist and Agriculturalist Centre of the Mid-Second Millennium AD. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa. Memoir series.Google Scholar
Van Der Veen, M. & Fieller, N. 1982. Sampling seeds, Journal of Archaeological Science 9: 287–98.Google Scholar
Walker, N.J. 1995. Late Pleistocene and Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Matopos. Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis. Studies in African Archaeology 10.Google Scholar
Young, R. In press. Finger millet processing in East Africa, Vegetation History and Archaeohotany.Google Scholar
Young, R. & Thompson, G.. 1999. Missing plant foods? Where is the archaeobotanical evidence for sorghum and finger millet in East Africa, in van der Veen, M. (ed.), The exploitation of plant resources in ancient Africa: 63–72. New York (NY): Plenum.Google Scholar