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Patterning in Recent Radiocarbon Dates from Southern Africa as a Reflection of Prehistoric Settlement and Interaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

John Parkington  and
Martin Hall
John Parkington
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
Martin Hall
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
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Extract

Radiocarbon dates published by southern African archaeologists since the last review in this journal (in 1980) illustrate an increasingly complex record of population movement and interaction. Substantial gaps in the distributions of dates reflect the ebb and flow of people in response to changing environmental and social circumstances. More interesting perhaps is the range of intergroup relations now emerging from the last two millennia with the appearance of pastoralists and agriculturalists. Radiocarbon dates, taken along with spatial and formal patterns in the archaeological record, show clearly that the distributions between hunters, herders and farmers and between Stone Age and Iron Age communities were blurred and flexible.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

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127 We would like to thank Curtis Marean, ‘T’ Farrar, Rob Blumenshine, Preston Miracle and Charles McNutt, all of Berkeley, and Royden Yates, Tony Manhire and Alyson Herlihy in Cape Town.Google Scholar