Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2012
This paper is intended as the first of a biennial series summarizing for the benefit of historians the latest developments in radiocarbon dating for the later prehistory of eastern and southern Africa. Ninety new dates have been released during the past year and these are discussed and evaluated in comparison with dates obtained previously. It should be emphasized that many of the dates included in this paper are here published in advance of fully detailed reports, which are in preparation by the archaeologists concerned, and that some of the conclusions reached are provisional pending a fuller examination and evaluation of the archaeological data.
1 This method of quoting dates has already been used in Phillipson, D. V., ‘Early iron using peoples of southern Africa’ in African Societies in Southern Africa, ed. Thompson, L. (London, 1969), 24–49.Google Scholar
2 See below, pp. 13–15. New dates which have not appeared in B. M. Fagan's previous lists of radiocarbon dates in this Journal are indicated in the appendix by an asterisk.
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6 I am most grateful to all those who have provided me with information, often unpublished, on their latest work. I have attempted to make reference to the sources of all communications in the appropriate passages.
7 D. W. Phillipson, ‘The prehistoric sequence at Nakapapula rockshelter, Zambia’ (in the Press).
8 Phillipson, D. W., ‘The Early Iron Age in Zambia’, J. Afr. Hist. IX (1968), 191–211. D. W. Phillipson, ‘Early iron-using peoples’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 The sample submitted from this horizon was too small to allow complete pretreatment for the removal of possible contaminants and gave an age in the mid-fourth millennium B.C. (GX-1552) which is inconsistent with the rest of the series.
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11 For references and discussion see D. W. Phillipson, ‘Early iron-using peoples’.
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16 Robbins, L. H., ‘A recent archaeological discovery in the Turkana district of northern Kenya’, Azania, II (1967), 69–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBerger, R. and Libby, W. F., ‘UCLA radiocarbon dates, VIII’, Radiocarbon, x (1968), 402–66. Berger notes that the date is uncorrected and may not represent the best obtainable age. More data are needed on the C-14 content of Lake Rudolph.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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19 R. Soper in litt.
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34 See above, p. 2.
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36 The occupation of Kangonga appears to have been short and GX-1328 is considered to be the less reliable of the two dates quoted because of the sample size available.
37 Phillipson, D. W., ‘The Eary Iron Age in Zambia’, J. Afr. Hist. IX (1968), 191–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 The Early Iron Age occupation of Twickenham Road has given two dates between the early ninth and the mid-twelfth Centuries A.D. (GX-662 and GX-1329). On the other hand an occupation of the same site which must typologically be regarded as later has been dated to between the early seventh and the early ninth centuries (GX-1422, GX-1423). There is some overlap, in the first half of the ninth century A.D., between the two series of dates. When Suess's calculation of the relationship between radiocarbon and true ages is taken into account, the overlap is extended to cover the whole of the eighth and ninth centuries as well as the first decades of the tenth.
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48 See above, p. 5.
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58 See above, p. 7.
59 B.M. Fagan, in litt.
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76 Asterisks denote dates not reported in previous lists in this Journal.