Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T04:23:41.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Early trade and raw materials in South Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

Three raw materials were essential to Iron Age peoples in South Central Africa: iron, copper and salt. This paper discusses some of the archaeological evidence for the development of regional and long-distance trade in these commodities during the earlier Iron Age. A distinction is drawn between regional trade in items for which there is local demand, and longer distance commerce in raw materials, which may have been conducted with the aid of some standardized units of monetary significance.

The big question for future research is that of assessing the degree to which the more sophisticated centres of metallurgy and trade affected those societies, living outside the immediate area, whose technologies and economies were less highly developed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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

1 Vansina, J., ‘Long distance trade routes in Central Africa’, J. Afr. Hist. 111 (1962), 375–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 This article has benefited from presentations and discussions at the ‘East Africa and the Orient’ conference held in Nairobi in March 1967, and at a seminar on Iron Age Africa held at the State University of New York, Binghamton, in April 1968. I am grateful to the Ford Foundation, the University of Illinois, Urbana, and the State University of New York, Binghamton, for financial support to attend these meetings. Dr Bernard Riley kindly drew Fig. 1.

3 Lee, R. B., ‘The subsistence ecology of the !Kung Bushmen’, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley (1965). I am grateful to Dr Lee for much unpublished information on !Kung economic practices.Google Scholar

4 Clark, J. Desmond, The Prehistory of Southern Africa (London), 219; R. B. Lee, personal communication.Google Scholar

5 Creighton, Gabel, Stone Age Hunters of the Kafue (Boston, 1965);Google ScholarFagan, B. M. and Van Noten, F., The Hunters of Gwisho (Tervuren, in the press).Google Scholar

6 Miracle, M. P., ‘Plateau Tonga entrepreneurs in historical inter-regional trade’, Rhod-Liv. J. XXVI (1959), 3450.Google Scholar

7 Schwellnous, C. M., ‘Short notes on the Palabora smelting ovens’, S. Afr. J. Sci. XXXIII (1937), 904–12.Google Scholar

8 Clark, J. Desmond and Fagan, B. M., ‘Charcoals, sands, and channel-decorated pottery from Northern Rhodesia’, Amer. Anthrop. LXVII (1965), 354–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 David Livingstone records trade between the Toka and Kololo in iron hoes, which were also given as tribute.

10 Fagan, B. M., ‘Pre-European ironworking in Central Africa, with special reference to Northern Rhodesia, J. Afr. Hist. 11 (1961), 199210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Fagan, B. M., Iron Age cultures in Zambia, I (London, 1967), 8891.Google Scholar

12 Fagan, B. M. and Huffman, T. N., ‘Excavations at Gundu and Ndonde, near Batoka’, Archaeologia Zambiana, iii (1967), 34;Google ScholarPhillipson, D. W., ‘The Early Iron Age in Zambia: regional variants and some tentative conclusions’, J. Afr. Hist. ix (1968), 2, 191212.Google Scholar

* On the dating of Ingombe Ilede, see the Author's Note at the end of this article (p. 13).

13 Fagan, B. M., Phillipson, D. W. and Daniels, S. G. H., Iron Age Cultures in Zambia, II (in the Press).Google Scholar

14 Ernest, Gray, ‘Notes on the salt-making industry of the Nyanja people near Lake Shirwa’, S. Afr. J. Sci. XLI (1945), 459 Mrs Beverley Brock, personal communication.Google Scholar

15 Cameron, V., Across Africa (New York, 1877), 228.Google Scholar

16 Fagan, B. M. and Yellen, J. E., ‘Ivuna: ancient salt-working in Southern Tanzania’, Azania, III (1968) (in the press).Google Scholar

17 Vansina, J., op. cit. (1962), 386.Google Scholar

18 The Basanga salt-workings were described by the Rev. Arthur Baldwin in his diaries, and were examined briefly by the writer, Mr T. N. Huffman and Mr Robin Fielder in 1967.

19 Fagan, B. M. and Yellen, J. E., op. cit. (1968).Google Scholar

20 Fagan, B. M., ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa’, V, J. Afr. Hist. VIII (1967), 520.Google Scholar

21 A number of different groups live in the area, including the Namwanga, Siceela, Wanda, and others, whose pottery styles are distinctive enough for us to be able to distinguish them the one from another (B. M. Fagan and J. E. Yellen, ‘The potmakers of Ivuna’, in preparation).

22 Ngeriweri Swamp, Saja (Mr H. Sassoon, personal communication).

23 Perlman, L. and Asaro, F., ‘Deduction of provenience of pottery from trace element analysis, University of California Reprint, no. UCRL-I7937 (1967).Google Scholar

24 Professor J. Desmond Clark, personal communication.

25 Illustrations published by Gray, op. cit. (1945), show pots in use for salt-making in Malawi of a very similar form to those commonly found at Ivuna (our classes I and II).

26 Mrs Beverley Brock, personal communication.

27 Ernest, Gray, op. cit. (1945).Google Scholar

28 The earlier Ivuna wares have no connexion with either modern vessels or the Early Iron Age channel-decorated pottery tradition found at Kalambo Falls.

29 B. M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson and S. G. H. Daniels, op. cit.

30 Fagan, B. M., op. cit. (1967), 123.Google Scholar

31 Nenquin, J., ‘Two radiocarbon dates for the Kisalian’, Antiquity, xxv (1960), 140, 132.Google Scholar

32 Fagan, B. M., ‘The Iron Age peoples of Zambia and Malawi’, in Bishop, W. W. and Clark, J. Desmond, Background to African Evolution (Chicago, 1967), 659–86.Google Scholar

33 Nenquin, J., Excavations at Sanga, 1957 (Tervuren, 1963).Google Scholar

34 James, Walton, ‘Some features of the Monomotapa culture’, Proc. Third Pan-African Congress on Prehistory (1955), PP. 336–56 (Livingstone, 1957).Google Scholar

35 Nenquin, J., op. cit. (1963), 194.Google Scholar

36 Vansina, J., Kingdoms of the Savannah (Madison, 1966), 35.Google Scholar

37 James, Walton, op. cit. (1957).Google Scholar

38 Stayt, H., The BaVenda (Oxford, 1931).Google Scholar

39 Identification by Kew Botanical Gardens, London.

40 B. M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson and S. G. H. Daniels, op. cit.

41 Fagan, B. M., Southern Africa during the Iron Age (London, 1966), 93.Google Scholar

42 Robinson, K. R., ‘A preliminary report on the recent archaeology of Ngonde, Northern Malawi’, J. Afr. Hist. vii (1965), 169–88.Google Scholar

43 Fagan, B. M., ‘Radiocarbon dates for sub-Saharan Africa, VI’. J. Afr. Hist. x, i, (1969), 162.Google Scholar

44 B. M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson and S. G. H. Daniels, op. cit.

45 A few fragments of imported cotton cloth were found with one of the burials; the remaining fabric is thought to be of local manufacture (B. M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson, and S. G. H. Daniels, op. cit.).

46 Joan, R. Harding, ‘Conus shell ornaments (Vibangwa) in Africa’, J. R. Anthrop. Inst. XCI (1961), 91, 5266.Google Scholar

47 Schofield, J. F., ‘Southern African beads and their relation to the beads of Inyanga’, in Summers, R., Inyanga (Cambridge, 1958), 180229.Google Scholar

48 Roger, Summers, ‘Iron Age industries of Southern Africa, with notes on their chronology, terminology, and economic status’, in Bishop, W. W. and Clark, J. D. (eds.), Background to African Evolution (Chicago, 1967), 687700.Google Scholar

49 Fouché, L., Mapungubwe (Cambridge, 1937).Google Scholar

50 E. Frey, ‘Goldworking at Ingombe Ilede’, in B. M. Fagan, D. W. Phillipson and S. G. H. Daniels, op. cit.

51 Theal, G. M., Records of South Eastern Africa, IV (London, 1898), 43.Google Scholar

52 Fagan, B. M., op. cit. (1966), 91.Google Scholar

53 C., and Livingstone, D., Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and Its Tributaries (London, 1865), 225.Google Scholar

54 Eric, Axelson, Portuguese in South-East Africa, 1600–1700 (Johannesburg, 1960).Google Scholar