Archaeological Excavations at Bosutswe: Trade, Cattle and Transformations in the Political Economy of the Eastern Kalahari between 700 and 1700 CE

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With National Science Foundation support, Dr. James Denbow and collaborators will conduct two field seasons of archaeological excavation at the site of Bosutswe on the eastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. The site of Bosutswe has one of the longest Iron Age sequences in southern Africa, comparable in scale to only two other contemporary centers south of the Zambezi: Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe. The excavations thus provide an almost unique opportunity to measure social, cultural, economic, and ecological change over a thousand year period from 700 to 1700 CE. The project brings together an international team of specialists in archaeology, metallurgy, stable isotope analysis, osteology, and archeo-zoology from the United States, Botswana, and South Africa. New and innovative methods that include stable isotope and trace element source-tracking of metals, slags and alloys, lithics, ceramics, and even hunted and domestic game, will be used to examine questions related to the operation of exchange networks beyond the site. The excavations will focus on three major issues: 1) an investigation of one of the earliest incidences of bronze manufacture and trade in southern Africa; 2) an analysis of how transformations in early state development occurred as cattle, and then long distance trade in precious metals, led to major restructurings in the political economy of the region; and 3) an examination of the ways in which these changes affected not only the internal dynamics of agro-pastoralist societies, but also created new sets of relations with neighboring hunters and gatherers. This research is important because it will shed new light on the development of complex societies in southern Africa, and on the historical trajectories that have led to contemporary social formations in the region.