~_o THE DIGGING STICK - The South African Archaeological Society

PROFESSOR TOBIAS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL
Professor Phillip V. Tobias
has been unanimously
elected President of the International
Association of Human
Biologists. This
worldwide body has some
7 000 members. Professor
Tobias succeeds Professor N.
Fujiki of Japan, to become the
fifth president of the Association.
Previous presidents
were the Nobel laureate, Sir
Macfarlane Burnett of Australia,
Joseph Weiner of
Oxford and London, and Paul
Baker of the U.S.A.
From 16-23 June 1967, Tobias
was among eighteen human
biologists who met, under
the auspices of the Wenner­
Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, at Burg
Wartenstein in Austria to
plan and organise the International
Association. When
the Association was formally
founded under a Belgian
royal decree in 1969, Tobias
was a founder member and
for many years was one of
the two representatives of
Africa on the Council of the
Association. At present the
representative of the African
subcontinent is Professor
Noel Cameron, who is Head of
the Department of Anatomy
and Human Biology at the
ASSOCIATION OF HUMAN BIOLOGISTS
University of the Witwatersrand
Medical School.
Human Biology is a relatively
new discipline which embraces
the study of past and
present human populations
from a biological point of
view. Thus, it covers the fossil
evidence for human evolution,
the coming of humankind,
the principles of human
genetics as applied to both
family and population studies,
human variation, the nature
of human growth and the factors
which control it, varieties
of human physique, and
the ecology of human populations,
especially in terms
of climate, nutrition and
disease.
In the April issue of Optima,
Professor Tobias expressed
confidence, at that 'exciting
and hopeful moment' in
our history, about continued
researches in human evolution
in South Africa. Less funding
was likely to be
forthcoming from state
coffers, but the private sector
had been munificent in its
support. In addition, Professor
Tobias believes an already
burgeoning 'archaeo-tourism'
will help ensure that the
'fossils do have a future'.
'There is, I believe, a cast-iron
* * * * *
case for South Africa's palaeo-anthropological
impetus
to be continued and fostered,
and even to flourish as never
before.'
Professor Tobias retired
from the full-time staff of
the Wits University at the end
of 1993, after serving on the
full-time and previously the
part-time staff of the University,
for 48 years. In 1959
he succeeded R.A. Dart as
Head of the Department of
Anatomy, being at the time the
youngest professor on the
staff of the University. He remained
head of the department
for 32 years. Later,
when he was appointed to
honorary professorships of
zoology and of palaeo-anthropology,
he became the
first person at Wits to hold
simultaneously three professorships.
On 19 May this year he received
an honorary d eg ree
of Doctor of Science from
the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia. This is
his 10th honorary degree
and the 12th university to
garland him, thus making
him one of the most highly
honoured scientists in the
history of South Africa.
PHOENICIANS AT THE CAPE ... THE END OF A LEGEND ?*
Reports of finds of fragments
of ancient shipwrecks on the
Cape Flats have manifested
themselves with near regularity
over the last 200 years. In
1827 George Thompson proposed
that unidentified wood
on the Cape Flats may have
been the remains of an ancient
The Digging Stick 11(2)
TIM HART & DAVE HALKETT
Phoenician galley. This was
one of the first recorded observations
of enigmatic sightings
of ancient wood along the
Hardekraaltjie stream and
Cape Flats, which gave rise to
enthusiastic speculation by a
number of travel writers at
the Cape during the nine-
3
teenth century. Andrew Geddes
Bain failed to quash permanently
the idea with his
observation that finds shown
to him in 1857, then popularly
thought to be the remains of
an ancient shipwreck, were
nothing more than deposits of
lignite.
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The origin of the controversy
is almost certainly an account
in the writings of the Greek historian
Herodotus (c. 484-424
BC), who briefly described a
journey made by Phoenician
sailors around Libya (Africa),
a tale that he himself thought
was unlikely. This widely read
legend is certainly provocative
and not entirely impossible.
The 1920s - 1930s was a period
of 'Phoenician frenzy' in
terms of explaining the prehistory
of southern Africa. Debates
raged over the exotic versus
indigenous origins of Great
Zimbabwe, and well known personalities
like Raymond Dart
were attributing aspects of
Bushman rock paintings to an
exotic Phoenician influence.
It was in this context that Dart
interviewed some railway
workmen who reported seeing
what they thought were the
remains of a 'shipwreck' in
clay pits at Ndabeni on the
Cape Flats. Although speculation
was further fuelled by this
report, no formal investigation
of the sighting was undertaken
until in 1990 Mr Bemard O'Sullivan,
an enthusiastic amateur
historian, raised funds to locate
the site described by the
railway workers.
O'Sullivan identified the place,
a cricket field in Ndabeni (which
had been the site of a clay and
sand quarry before being levelled).
The area was subjected
to a drilling programme followed
up by mechanical excavation.
Two fragments of exotic
wood (Abies sp. and Pinus
sp.) were recovered from
poorly provenanced contexts
in boreholes and trenches.
These were analysed by experts
and dated by radiocarbon
to being just under 2000,
and 400 years old respectively.
At this point professional archaeologists
were asked to become
involved as there was
general agreement that the
finds required systematic archaeological
investigation.
The latest excavations began
The Digging Stick 11 (2)
in 1993, supported again by
funding raised by MrO'Sullivan.
A multi-disciplinary team
consisting of archaeologists,
surveyors and geologists
was assembled to subject
the site to a rigorous investigation.
The Archaeology Contracts
Office at the University
of Cape Town was appointed
to conduct a large scale, carefully
controlled excavation on
the area where the wood samples
had previously been recovered
on the Police Cricket
Field in Ndabeni. Word of the
investigation soon spread,
and progress was enthusiastically
covered by the press
with reports filtering through to
media world-wide.
Excavations penetrated
through a mundane landfill of
demolition rubble and oily industrial
waste only to discover
that virtually no in situ deposits
had survived a land-filling operation
that took place in the
1950s. Eventually, however,
some in situ silts were discovered
in the vicinity of the buried
clay pits. These produced
some large fragments of
wood, samples of which were
submitted to Or John Vogel at
the Quatemary Dating Research
Unit at EMATEK (CSIR)
for dating, and to Stephanie
Dyer at FORESTEK for identification.
The wood samples
were identified as fragments of
indigenous species
(Widringtonia sp.). Radiocarbon
dating showed that the
same samples were of infinite
age, in excess of 44 000 years
(i.e. beyond the limits of C-14
dating).
The balance of the evidence
from this latest excavation has
led to the conclusion that the
wood species (Abies sp. and
Pinus sp.) recovered during the
original investigation had their
origin in the modern landfill,
and had probably been contaminated
in some way, leading
to the anomalous initial
dates. It is the belief of the
Archaeology Contracts Office
4
that the large fragments of
wood resembling the remains
of a shipwreck reported to
Dart in 1925 were most likely
a pile of indigenous wood that
had been stacked alongside
the clay pits on the site. The
wood had probably been exposed
while the sediments were
being 'mined' for building purposes
in the latter half of the
nineteenth century. It was the
removal of the sands which led
to the exposure of the deeper
clay deposits which were also
subsequently exploited. The
presence of fairly substantial
pieces of wood in the surviving
in situ silts would seem to
strengthen this assumption.
The press interest has waned
for now, and enthusiastic
enquiries to the Department of
Archaeology have ceased.
In spite of the lack of material
evidence, the legend of ancient
mariners rounding the Cape of
Good Hope is extraordinarily
resilient in that there are
people in South Africa who
will always look outside the
continent for the origins of
'lost civilizations'. Others are
genuinely captivated by the
romance of epic voyages of
biblical period aliens who are
rumoured to have called in
at the southernmost tip of
Africa. There is now an alternative
explanation to Raymond
Dart's informants'
'wreck find' in Ndabeni, but
Herodotus's account remains
and may well be remembered
long after the
potency of the latest findings
dissipates with time ...
SUGGESTED READING:
Bain, A.G. 1857. Geology of South
Africa. The Eastern Province
Monthly Magazine 1 (8):403-406.
Dart, R.A. 1925. The historical succession
of cultural impacts upon
South Africa. Nature 115:425-429.
Herodotus. 1954. The histories. Edited
by A. de Selincourt. Middlesex:
Penguin Books.
ISSN 1013-7521

O'Sullivan, B. 1990. A report on drilling
and trenching on the Woltemade
Flats, Cape Town. South African Journal
of Science 86:486-487.
Thompson, G. 1827. Travels and adventures
in southern Africa. Facsimile
reprint 1962, Cape Town: Africana
Connoisseurs Press.
Wilson, M.L. 1993. Phoenician
ship(s) on the Cape Flats? The Digging
Stick 10(2):4-5.
* * * * *
* An earlier version of this article
appeared in the UCT Historical Archaeology
Research G roup's newsletter
CrossmendVol 4(1).
Archaeology Contracts Office, University
of Cape Town, P/Bag, 7700 Rondebosch.
AN INTRODUCTION TO GENDER THEORY IN ARCHAEOLOGY*
NATASHA ERLANK
Over the last few years sive femininity. Most of what
archaeologists have begun to we might today define as
show an interest in the theo- sexual, or natural, differences
retical underpinnings of their between men and women are
research, and one of these in fact differences created
theoretical perspectives cen- th rough ou r socialization.
tres on a concern for sexual Gender appears to be such a
equality - something known natural category of differas
gender theory. This con- ences (compared to class, for
cern arises out of a desire to instance) that one seldom
find ways of investigating questions the resuns - like the
the past that combine sensitiv- sexual division of labour -
ity to such issues with scientific that follow such a c1assificarigour.
A concern for gender tion.
draws attention to the way in ,----------------,
which records of the past "Gender theory leads arhave
systematically ignored chaeologists to focus, not on
women's ach ievements, as the things people made in the
well as the present practice of past, but on the people them-
archaeology, much of which selves"
is still quite explicitly sexist Because gender hinges on so­
(popular representations of cial difference, the criteria definarchaeologists
a re a I most ing 'gender' at different points
always men !). in time and space will vary.
WHAT IS GENDER?
As a concept 'gender' refers
to the socially constructed state
of being man or woman. 'Sex'
is a description of biological difference,
'gender' is a description
of social difference,
arising out of perceived differences
between the sexes and
shaped in relationships between
men and women.
One's gendered identity results,
among other things,
from contemporary social
prescriptions of what it means
to be male and what it means to
be female. In western culture,
male identity is closely
linked to concepts of macho
masculinity; female identity is
linked to a concept of submis-
The Digging Stick 11(2)
This point is important because
it means that gender
differences are never fixed,
and can change. This has implications
for archaeologists,
who often attempt to recreate
social relations in the past
via studies of material culture.
HOW DOES GENDER RE­
LATE TO THE FEMINIST
MOVEMENT?
The concepts involved in
gender theory originate out
of developments in the field
of feminist studies during the
last twenty years. Du ring the
1960's, the renewal of the
feminist movement had repercussions
in academia
with feminists challenging the
5
hidebound social and intellectual
practices of academic
institutions. Not only was the
male dominance of these institutions
challenged but the
content of academic research
also received attention.
I n particular, the social
sciences and hum ani tie s
were shown to be taught
from biased perspectives (despite
claims- to objectivity),
and to include many sexist
ideas, not the least of which
was the elimination of women
from all events of importance
in the past. Women's efforts
were not considered
important by historians, and
so they were not written
about.
The impetus of the feminist
movement gradually carried
over into academic research,
and women began to be the
subjects of historical enquiry.
As this sort of research became
more widespread it
was realised that the
methods and theories being
used to discover the 'presence'
of women in the past
were themselves deficient.
This realisation led to the
development of new methods
and theories to study and
account for the relationships
between men and women in
the past. One of the theories
that developed has been
called gender theory. Gender
theory emphasises not just
women, but relationships between
men and women. Its
goals are feminist, but it is
much more than just a feminist
theory.
ISSN 1013-7521

GENDER IN ARCHAEO·
LOGICAL PRACTICE
Gender theory has not only
focused attention on the
exclusion of women in the
past, but it has also shown
how women in academic
situations are still discriminated
against because of their
sex. Studies in Europe and
America have shown how
women seldom reach the
uppermost levels of their
profession in academic situations,
despite sometimes
having better academic qualifications
than their male counterparts.
No research of this
kind has been conducted in
South Africa, although some
preliminary work is being
done by the Archaeology
Workshop at the University of
Cape Town. It is quite likely
that any breakdown of figures
would show the existence of
similar biases.
Not only are women marginalised
in archaeology (this also
happens in other disciplines),
but women's archaeology is
marginalised. Because it is
mostly women who practise
gendered archaeology, it
remains a marginalised field
within the discipline as a
whole. Archaeology not about
women, by implication, must
be about men. If this is not
stated explicitly, it is because
men are assumed to be
an unproblematic subject not
requiring explanation. In this
way, gendered archaeology
can be viewed as a subbranch
of archaeology, not
requiring attention of 'proper'
archaeologists. This situation
probably has as much to do
with an imprecise understanding
of gender theory as
anything else. Gender theory
emphasises social relations
between men and women;
its focus is often, but not exclusively,
women because of
the systematic bias women
have suffered in the past.
Gender theory does not
advocate the establishment
The Digging Stick 11 (2)
of a separate branch of
archaeology dealing merely
with women's efforts in
the past, but rather the integration
of gender as a
method of analysis into all
archaeology.
GENDER THEORY IN
SOUTH AFRICAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Studies that incorporate
gender theory vary greatly
within the spectrum of
South African archaeology.
There are practitioners in
almost every area of research
- from stone age
and iron age archaeology to
studies in rock art and historical
archaeology. Some of
the people who have used
gender theory are Anne Solomon,
Aron Mazel, Lynne
Wadley and Martin Hall. They
adopt different approaches
(some do not include gender
theory per se) and examples
of their work may be found in
the reading list. By and large
though, gender theory is
underutilised in South African
archaeology, and much
work still includes sexist concepts.
It is to be hoped that
this situation will change in
the near future as more
archaeologists realise the
value of a gendered approach.
The 'Gender in Archaeology'
conference held
in Cape Town in 1991 was
perhaps the first step in this
direction. Today there are
more archaeologists, and
Drawing of an archaeologist
by Ann, age 15: from Judge,
C. 1988. "Archaeology and
Grade School Children".
South Carolina Antiquities
20:49-58.
Judge's survey of childrens'
drawings of archaeologists
revealed a nearly equal gender
ratio - 'a refresh ing su rprise
... although only girls
drew pictures with women
depicted as archaeologists'.
Ed.
7
many post-graduate students
in particular, who are working
widely with gender theory.
SUGGESTED READING
General:
Gero, J.M. and Conkey,
M . W. (e d s) . 1 991. Engendering
Archaeology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Gilchrist, R. 1991. Women's archaeology?
Political feminism, gender
theory and historical revision.
Antiquity 65:495-501.
South Africa:
Mazel, A. 1989. Changing relations
in the Thukela Basin, Natal,
7000-2000 B. P. South African Archaeological
Society Goodwin Series
6:33-41.
Solomon, A. Gender, Representation
and Power in San Ethnography
and Rock art. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology
11 :291-329.
Wadley, L. 1989. Legacies from the
Later Stone Age. South African Archaeological
Society Goodwin Series
6:42-53.
* This paper was originally written as
a class exercise in producing an article
for The Digging Stick, at UCT,
and was submitted at the suggestion
of Professor Judy Sealy, who set the
exercise.
Natasha Erlank, Archaeology Workshop,
University of Cape Town,
P/Bag, 7700 Rondebosch.
ISSN 1013-7521

APPLIED ARCHAEOLOGY? POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO
Over the past ten years there
has been a more or less
constant cry from archaeologists
that research budgets
are shrinking. In response we
sh 0 u I d be atte mpting to
make our work more relevant
to a broader audience. An
illustration of how this could
be achieved comes from my
own research involving microscopic
and isotopic charcoal
analysis.
For many years now archaeologists
have been using the
charcoal from archaeological
sites to reconstruct aspects of
the environment. The basic
principle of this method is determined
by the characteristic
arrangement of vessels, tracheids,
parenchyma, fibres and
rays which make it possible
to identify wood to genus or
eve n species level. Wood
when charred retains its
anatomical structure so that
wood charcoal can also be
identified by the characteristic
arrangement of the different
cell types. Charcoal from archaeological
sites represents
the remains of firewood
collected by people who made
specific choices among types
of fuel-wood they would use.
The a rchaeological record
will therefore always be
skewed in the direction of the
favou red fuel- wood although
environmental conditions
would influence the species
and abundance available
for collection. Despite human
selection in fuel-wood procurement,
archaeological charcoal
samples do provide a direct
method for determining which
woody species were present
before people had an appreciable
effect on the environment.
This method of research
has led to a better understanding
of past environments
The Digging Stick 11(2)
ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT*
ED C. FEBRUARY
in the vicinity of a number of
archaeological sites including
Elands Bay Cave (Western
Cape), Rose Cottage (eastern
Free State), Mhlwazini Cave
(Natal), Collingham Shelter
(Natal), Sehonghong (Lesotho),
Colwinton, Ravenscraig and
Bonawe (Eastern Cape).
The results for those sites
on the Clarens formation of the
Drakensberg suggest a higher
percentage of Protea veld in
the Drakensberg foothills than
is evident today. A possible
reason for the discrepancy
between the archaeological
record and the modem environment
is current veld management
practice. Much of the
Drakensberg foothills is managed
for grazing. As such,
regular burning programmes
are necessary to encourage
the regeneration of fresh grass
on an annual basis. Although
Protea roupelliae (the most
common Protea species in the
archaeological record) is fi re
adapted, the short fire cycle
inherent in present management
policy results in a low
regeneration of Proteas with
ultimate decimation and
finally local extinction. This
process is evident in the work
done by Mandy Esterhuysen
near Sehonghong in Lesotho
and in my own work in Natal
at Mhlwazini Cave and
Co"ingham Shelter.
Much of the eastern half of
South Africa had been subjected
to agricultural management
for up to 1500 years prior
to colonization by European
farmers. The combined impact
of this was such that by
the late 1890's it was necessary
to establish the first
South African national parks.
Conservation management at
8
these parks is probably
largely unaware of the impact
of close to 2000 years of agriculture.
At Sehonghong and
Collingham there are no Proteas
in the contemporary environment,
and at Mhlwazini
Cave there are very few, yet in
the archaeological record up to
80% of the charcoal examined
can be assigned to the
genus Protea. If these areas
were to be managed as reserves
today there is a good
chance the vegetation mosaic
would be skewed against Proteas.
Veld management would
be designed to exclude
these plants when in reality
thereshouldbeamuch higher
representation of the species
than is evident in the area today.
Biological diversity in South
Africa is now to a large extent
a n a nth ropogen ic artefact.
Archaeologists, and co 1leagues
such as palynologists
(who study ancient pollen residues),
can clearly play an
important role in providing
conservation management with
a time dimension, together
with palaeoenvironmental assessments
(eg. how fauna and
flora have changed through
time). These data are simply
not otherwise available. Making
conservation authorities aware
of this potential contribution to
more integrated environment
management is a direction that
should be pursued. It would be
of benefit to both nature conservation
and archaeology.
* Based on a paper delivered at the
Southern African Association of Archaeologists
Conference, Pietermaritzburg,
July 1994.
South African Museum, p.a. Box
61, Cape Town 8000.
ISSN 1013-7521

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF AFRICANS IN AMERICA -
The archaeological record of
Africans in America is sparse.
Fleeting and fragile as the early
images were that they left on
the landscape, this heritage
has nevertheless come to be
recognized for what it is: the
most complete and unbiased
archive of African American
history. It is in many cases 'the
only direct historical statement
African Americans have left for
posterity,' writes Patrick H.
Garrow, excavator of plantation
slave quarters in South
Carolina. 'Historical documents
help,' Leland Ferguson
remarks, 'but are heavily
skewed toward the white side
of plantation life. The archaeological
record is more
democratic' .
The Digging Stick 11 (2)
SOME RECENT LITERATURE*
modern African American
archaeology, but met with
limited success in detecting
surviving African traits, artefactual
or other, in their focus
on plantation sites in Georgia.
A m aj 0 r breakthrough
occurred in 1980, writes
Garrow, with Leland Ferguson's
seminal article "Looking
for the 'Afro' in
Colono-I ndian pottery". It
came at a time when historical
archaeologists were
starting to look at sites on
the South Carolina coast.
Amongst these were plantations
at Yaughan and Curriboo
where a series of slave
quarters were found to span
the period 1740 to 1826, and
to reflect the lives of slaves
before and after the Revolu­
9
In the Caribbean - 'the most
important area for African­
American culture in the New
World' (Posnansky) - research
reported by E. Kofi Agorsah
and Candice L. Goucher is as
yet less conclusive. Its potential
to document the history of
early African Caribbeans is
borne out by the limited investigations
undertaken thus far.
However, considerable complexity
in the transfer and interdigitation
of culture and
technologies from Africa
and Europe is becoming apparent.
Plantation economies supported
by slave labou r were to
a very large degree dependent
also on the technical, especially
metallurgical, expertise of the
The Spring 94 issue of the tionary War (1775-1781). slaves. Corresponding to their
American Federal Archeology r-,-, H-j s-t-o-r-j-c-a-I -d-o-c-u-m-e-n-t-s--' high demand, African black­
Report highlights a number of
smiths could negotiate posi­
projects and issues conceming help ... The archaeological tions of relative strength and
'the hidden heritage of Africa's record is more democratic" leadership in plantation hier­
descendants'. This followed
closely the publication of papers
in honour of Merrick Posnansky,
in the 1993 African
Archaeological Review. They
include two articles on the
transfer of African technology,
particularly metallurgy,
and other aspects of cultural life
carried to the Caribbean by
slaves, in the 'Atlantic era'.
Posnansky's own interest in
this field as an Africanist who
has worked for many years in
East and West Africa, dates
back at least a decade to
when he published a paper
entitled "Towards an archaeology
of the Black Diaspora" in
1984.
Until the 1970s one of the very
few African American sites studied
by archaeologists was
'Black Lucy's Garden' in New
England, encountered by accident
in the early 1940s. Charles
Fairbanks and his students,
in the seventies, pioneered
Prior to the war the slaves
made most of their own pot­
tery - 'colonoware', which in
terms of form and manufacture
was not only identical
to pottery made in the Carib­
bean in the same period,
according to Garrow, but also
appeared to be a direct link
with West Africa. Afterwards,
ironware and English-made
ceramics, as well as some
Native American pottery, were
adopted. Before the war they
lived in mud-walled houses,
presumed to have been
thatched, and either identical
to, orinspired by, West African
architecture, whereas frame
houses were built afterwards.
The near total loss of these
aspects of African and African-Caribbean
culture coincided
with the large-scale
post-war influx of Euro- Americans
and probably took place
o v era single generation,
Garrow suggests.
archies. Kane and Keeton
document that the blacksmith
in particular was a more
valuable slave than the house
servants and field hands -
the latter including women
and children, and occupying
the lowest rung. When European
planters moved from
island to island, 'blacksmith
jobbers' were invariably
amongst the skilled slaves
taken along. Goucher cites
C. Furtado's view that the development
of steelmaking in
Brazil could be attributed to
'the technical skills of a few
African slaves'. The demand for
agricultural implements for the
plantations made the British
West Indies the largest market
for wrought iron throughout
much of the eighteenth century,
writes Goucher. With African
input, tools modelled on imported
European implements
gave way in due course to
West African styles - the shorthandled
hoe and cutlass.
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Communities of escaped
slaves in Jamaica and elsewhere
in the Caribbean,
known as Maroons, actively
resisted European domination
through the eighteenth century.
Resultant conflict,
Goucher argues, encouraged
the persistence of African metallurgical
skills for the production
of weapons and
implements of subsistence:
'the political basis of power
and resistance often depended
upon the support of armies of
blacksmiths on both sides of
the Atlantic'.
Agorsah's excavations at the
early eighteenth century Maroon
stronghold of Accompong
in Jamaica yielded th ree
cowrie shells. While ultimately
of Indian Ocean origin, such
shells, traded across the
continent, served as currency
in West Africa. They must in
tu rn have been carried across
the Atlantic, perhaps as parts
of ornaments, in the hands
either of slaves or their
masters. A dozen or so
cowries had been found
previously in excavations
at Seville, the first Spanish
settlement on the island.
In view of their prominence in
plantation hierarchies, it is
suggested that African blacksmiths
were instrumental also
in perpetuating elements in
the slave communities' ritual
and spiritual lives. The Yoruba
deity, Ogun, associated with
iron, in particular, has been
documented in Haiti, Cuba,
Brazil and Trinidad. In the
Caribbean today, African
roots are acknowledged in
many cultural manifestations:
religious beliefs and festivals,
dance, music, folk stories, language,
kinship and family,
and even resistance history.
Whereas in sites in the southern
United States reported
by Garrow, many of the more
conspicuously African elements
appeared to have been
vi rtually replaced th rough
stricter Euro-American control
The Digging Stick 11 (2)
from the end of the eighteenth
century, Goucher points to 'a
diverse range of dynamic
interactions' in the Caribbean,
'rather than [an] inevitable
decline of African-derived systems'.
While most published African
American archaeology in the
U.S. has been focused on
slavery and the pre-Civil War
period, two articles in the
Federal Archeology Report
describe research at sites of
much more recent date. In
Missouri many small hamlets
were established from the
1840s by escaped slaves and
free blacks and were occupied
for several generations
until they began to be aban-
"The popular vision of archaeology,
as an arcane and
esoteric pursuit, is still reinforced
in the U.S. by the fact
that it is not taught systematically
in schools"
doned in the early decades of
this century. A church, a
cemetery and sometimes a
school were pri"ncipal elements
in these communities
which varied from five to fifty
households in size. In a few
cases living links exist today
in the maintenance of
churches, and where some
people regularly drive long
distances to attend services.
These hamlets kept a low
profile in often hostile surroundings,
and some were
destroyed in racial conflict in
the late nineteenth century.
The project led by Craig M.
Sturdevant is as yet in its
infancy, but is addressing a
range of questions over the
rise and decline of these small
hamlets and generally about
this little known chapter in
Missouri history. Bastian and
Rutter, in another of the articles,
describe the study of a
1920s settlement of African
Americans in Iron County,
Michigan, where the archaeologists
found their dig
was contradicting other
sources of information, par-
10
ticularly contemporary newspaper
reports. These various
new perspectives on African
American history are forging
links between archaeology,
archival research and oral history
- and, especially for the
earlier periods, with many researchers
calling for the closer
archaeological investigation
of trans-Atlantic ties.
These projects have been instrumental
in increasing the
awareness and interest of
African Americans in archaeology.
Indeed the lack of
such interest in an historically
black college situation was
Sturdevant's raison d'etre for
getting his students out of the
classroom and into the field.
Warren Barbour, the first
African American archaeologist
in the United States,
explains how his family was
aghast at his becoming an archaeologist:
it was not one of
the traditional middle class
black professions that he was
expected to enter. The popular
vision of archaeology,
Barbour argues, as an arcane
and esoteric pursuit, is still
reinforced in the U.S. by the
fact that it is not taught systematically
in schools.
This very dearth of appreciation
by the public contributed
to the complex and at times
stormy confrontation that
arose in 1991-2 in Manhattan,
between government
agencies, archaeologists,
New York's African American
community - and ultimately
concerned citizens across the
States. The context was the
discovery of an eighteenth
century African burial ground
on a plot of land being prepared
for an office block.
Plans to proceed with its
excavation enraged the city's
African American community,
and it led to Congressional
hearings on the project. Many
in the community were
'adamant about not having
"research" performed on the
skeletal remains'. But the
ISSN 1013-7521

appointment of two black
researchers - Or Michael
Blakey, a physical anthropologist,
and Barbour himself -
turned the situation around.
By communicating the impo
rtance of letting these black
ancestors 'speak', as Barbour
puts it, 'research became not
a cold scientific word, but
rather a tool for those whose
death went largely unrecorded
to tell how they lived.' Now
the project has the potential
to become not only 'an icon
for the struggle of African
Americans, but [also] a symbol
of their direct involve-
CEIDE, MAYO: STONE WAUS
5000 YEARS OLD?
Dear Editor,
The thesis of Or Raymond
Crotty's article on 'The Ceide
fields of Ireland' (The Digging
Stick 11 (1) April 1994) is that,
owing to mean temperatures 2
degrees higher than at present,
the grassfields of Mayo
in NW Ireland were in their
heyday 5000 years ago - long
before the pyramids of Egypt,
the Great Wall of China and
Stonehenge were built. In fact
they were better than anywhere
in northern and central
Europe. Scenting the advantage,
unknown farmers, who
were just developing lactosetolerance,
moved in with their cattle
and sheep and proceeded
to build the most extensive
ment in the recovery and
preservation of their past'.
Ultimately, as the Federal
Archeology Report concludes,
the rise of an archaeology
of Africans in America
has raised questions that
transcend the concerns of
any given group: 'What is
sacred? Who defines it ? Do
the remains of past cultures
merit protection by law ?
Which ones? The issues are
universal, whether one's ancestry
is Asian, European,
or African'.
* * * * *
LETTERS
stone fences that divided
2500 acres of the Mayo coastline
into 160 15-acre fields.
Soon, Ceide was the most
populated part of Europe.
Then, however, the mean
temperatures dropped and the
Celts who arrived 2000 years
later found the monumental
walls abandoned and covered
by peat. Their function, argues
Crotty, had been 'equivalent of
the latter-day electric fence':
to ration scarce and valuable
grass in the spring. In this
respect, agricultural science
has not made much progress
in the last 5000 years.
How Or Crotty arrived at his
magical date of 5000 years ago
is not explained. Without such
an explanation, his theory is
simply a projection of a modern
SUGGESTED READING:
Federal Archeology Report Vol 7(1)
(1994). The hidden heritage of Africa's
descendants'. With articles by
Warren T.D. Barbour; Beverly E.
Bastian & William E. Rutter; Patrick
H. Garrow; Sharyn Kane & Richard
Keeton; and Craig M. Sturdevant.
Posnansky, M. 1984. Towards an
archaeology of the Black Diaspora.
Journal of Black Studies 15: 195-205.
The African Archaeological Review
Vol 11 (1993). Especially articles by
E. Kofi Agorsah; and Candice L.
Goucher.
* A review by the editor.
agricultural concept to the distant
past, which is totally unwarranted.
Neither Stonehenge
nor Newgrange are elucidated
by this game. There are other,
more historical, ways of explaining
the emergence and use
of the stone-walled Ceide
fields of Mayo, and peat grows
much faster than one would
imagine.
Ceide is an ancient non-Celtic
name often applied to a special
type of hills or raised
grounds with identifiable religious
meaning. As such, Ceide
can scarcely be as old as 5000
years.
Sincerely,
Or Cyril A. Hromnick
26 Sawkins Road,
7700 Mowbray
Editor's comment: An article by Or Seamas Caulfield (Archaeology Department, University
College, Dublin) on Irish Neolithic fields, to which the term Ceide (pronounced "Kay-ge") was
first applied in 1988, has been received. Reference is made to excavations of two of the north
Mayo coastal "pre-bog" field system sites that the late Or Raymond Crotty described in his
article. Analysis yielded eleven radiocarbon datings. Those pertaining to the stone walling
establish their construction and initial occupation at 3000 BC. The artefacts found there -
Neolithic pottery, flint and chert scrapers, stone axes and a leaf-shaped arrowhead - and
the association of these sites with Neolithic tombs, together support this interpretation of the
dates. Three of the radiocarbon readings fix the age of the basal layer of peat at around
2000 BC. Similar "pre-bog" stone walling has been noted in Scotland, Shetland and Orkney.
Caulfield suggests that the land allotment system that these sites represent may have been
The Digging Stick 11 (2) 11 ISSN 1013-7521

far more widespread in Neolithic times: their preservation in western Ireland is due in part to being
buried in peat, and in part to the raw materials (stone rather than, say, hedgerows) used in their
development. Excavations continue, and the fields are proving to be more extensive than previously
thought and not grouped in discrete clusters.
PHOENICIAN SHIP ON THE
WOL TEMADE FLATS?
Dear Editor,
It is an interesting thought that
the remains of an ancient
vessel from the Mediterranean
may lie here at the
Cape, but it will need more
than radiocarbon dating and
a survey of local history to
arouse interest among the
general, non-political, public
[Wilson, The Digging Stick
August 1993; Hromnick, The
Digging Stick April 1994].
Firstly, has the species of
wood from which the finds
were made been positively
identified? I know that this
can be done at the Jodrell
Laboratory in Kew Gardens;
and expert opinion may also
be available in South Africa.
If the wood is found to be exotic,
such as Cedar of Lebanon
(Cedrus libani), then we are
getting somewhere, because
this was an item of trade as
early as the Egyptian Old Kingdom,
and certainly used fo r
oars in the boat buried near
the Pyramid of Cheops about
2600 BC. * Very much secondly
(for this would only
show the timber to be old, and
from a ship) are the pieces
worked into recognisable
shapes for ship construction,
and by the correct tools? I
mean fragments of strakes,
thwarts, trenails, etc., shaped
by adze and with holes bored
by an auger. A marine archaeologist
could check out these
factors by sight and touch.
Yours sincerely,
Captain Steven Banks RN
FRSA
* Johnstone, P. 1980. The seacraft
of history. Routledge and Kegan
Paul. pp 72, 81.
Editor's comment: See article by Tim Hart and Oave Halkett (this issue). Readers might be
interested in an article by Oavid Gibbins in the Illustrated London News (Christmas 1993:
Vol281 (7116):72-73) on the excavation of a Bronze Age wreck off the coast of Turkey. Dating
from the late 14th/early 13th century BC, when the Mycenaean Greek civilization was
flourishing, its study is demonstrating unexpectedly early foundations of a Mediterranean maritime
tradition. 'The techniques of ship construction, the hull size, the types of cargo goods and
receptacles, and the merchaot's weighing equipment would all have been familiar to Roman and
Byzantine traders almost 2000 years later.' The 12 tonnes of cargo and stone ballast being
excavated provide unique insights into Bronze Age trade pattems. Of interest to Africanists is that
amongst these items are logs of African blackwood ebony, probably from upper Egypt, while
other exotic raw materials include whole sections of elephant and hippopotamus tusk, several hippo
teeth, and five ostrich eggshells, 'perhaps intended as the bowls of cups to be reinforced
with silver or gold'.
FROM THE EDITOR
To Or Margaret Avery we owe enormous gratitude for the way she has shaped this newsletter
and brought it to new heights during her five and a half year spell as editor.
At the recent Southern African Association of Archaeologists' Conference, emphasis was g i v en to
the need for popularizing the methods and findings of archaeology in South Africa. As
museums continue to integrate archaeology into their education programmes (see Lita
Webley's article, this issue), some exciting new ventures, such as comic-strip archaeology, were
outlined. The Digging Stick, for its part, aims to keep you ever informed of local
developments in archaeology.
We continue to rely on your support by way of contributions and suggestions. Please send
material to: Oavid Morris, McGregor Museum, P.O. Box 316,8300 Kimberley, South Africa. Fax:
0531-29311.
Membership enquiries: The Assistant Secretary, P.O. Box 15700, 8018 Vlaeberg.
Editor: David Morris. Published by the South African Archaeological Society, P .0. Box 15700, 8018 Vlaeberg, South
Africa. Word-processed by D. Morris and S. Mngqolo and typeset by D. Coetzee, courtesy of the McGregor Museum.
Printed by Swift Print, Kimberley.
The Dififiinr; Stick 11 (2) 12 ISSN 1013-7521