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Beyond the drip-line: a high-resolution open-air Holocene hunter-gatherer sequence from highland Lesotho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2011

Peter Mitchell ,
Ina Plug ,
Geoff Bailey ,
Ruth Charles ,
Amanda Esterhuysen ,
Julia Lee Thorp ,
Adrian Parker  and
Stephan Woodborne
Peter Mitchell
Affiliation:
1School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, St Hugh's College, Oxford OX2 6LE, UK; School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits 2050, South Africa (Email: peter.mitchell@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk)
Ina Plug
Affiliation:
2Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa, Box 392, UNISA 0003, South Africa
Geoff Bailey
Affiliation:
3Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK
Ruth Charles
Affiliation:
4University Computing Service, Pembroke Street, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3QH, UK
Amanda Esterhuysen
Affiliation:
5School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits 2050, South Africa
Julia Lee Thorp
Affiliation:
6Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Adrian Parker
Affiliation:
7Department of Anthropology and Geography, School of Social Sciences & Law, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
Stephan Woodborne
Affiliation:
8CSIR Natural Resources and the Environment, Box 395, Pretoria 0001, South Africa
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Extract

The activities of hunter-gatherers are often captured in rockshelters, but here the authors present a study of a riverside settlement outside one, with a rich sequence from 1300 BC to AD 800. Thanks to frequent flooding, periods of occupation were sealed and could be examined in situ. The phytolith and faunal record, especially fish, chronicle changing climate and patterns of subsistence, emphasising that the story here is no predictable one-way journey from hunter-gatherer to farmer. Right up to the period of the famous nineteenth-century rock paintings in the surrounding Maloti-Drakensberg region, adaptation was dynamic and historically contingent.

Keywords

southern Africalate HoloceneNeoglacialhunter-gatherersfishingspaceintensificationnondirectionalityphytoliths

Information

Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 330 , December 2011 , pp. 1225 - 1242
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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