kaokoland 2000 54_ch05

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NYAME AKUMA No. 54 December ZMM

climatic phase (Richter 1991: 66), that mightexplain the scarcity of sites.

Archaeological investigations in th e

Kaokdand: Survey and excavationsin 1999 and 2000

~ a l f ogelsangHeinrich-Barth-lnstitutUniversitat KKdlnJennerstr. 850823 Kdln, Germany

Introduction

The question of the origin and spread of pas-toralism is the central aspec t of the archaeologicalcomponent in a collabora tive research centre "SFB389/ACACIA", which was established by the"Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschafl (DFG)" at theUniversity of Cologne in 1995 (see http://www.uni-koeln.ddsfb389). In some models for the intro-duction of dom esticated anunals to southern Africa,the northern part of Namibia plays an importantrole (Smith 1992: Fig. 3.10, Fig. 3.11, Fig. 10.1),but up to now archaeological evidence is scarce.The only excavations in the Kaokoland were testpits (Kinahan 1981; Smith 1988) and the only com-prehensive work focuses on ethnoarchaeology(Jacobsohn 1988, 1995). Archaeological fieldworkbegan in 1995 (Figure I) .

The most significant results in the Kaokolandwere provided by excavations in a rock shelter,named Oruw anje 9511 (Frank, in prep.). In 1998,comprehensive deposits were excavated in anotherrock shelter, Ovizorombuku 96/1 (Vogelsang1998). At first. the stone artifact assemblage fromthe basal layers of this site seemed to show someMiddle Stone Age attributes. However, radiocar-bon dates point to an Early Holocene to LatePlt~stoceneAge (around 10,000 B.P.). Furtheranalysis will clarify if there is a rnacrolithic stoneartifact industry of this age in north-westemNamibia. This wouldbe of special interest, becauses i t e belonging to this period are extremely rare in

Namibia. Only two small assemblages could beclassifled as Late PleistocendEarly Holocene byRichter (1991) in his comprehensive analysis ofsites in the central and north-westem parts of thecoun try. The sediments of this age point to an arid

Fieldwork in 1999

Due to time restrictions in 1998, a secondtrench at the site Ovizorombuku 9611 was onlyexcavated in the upper part, without reaching therock floor. Of g reat importance was the identifica-tion of a sheep bone, coming from one of the fina lspits. A charcoal sample from this spit was datedabout 2500 B.P. This trench was expanded in 1999,in the hope of getting. more bones from domesti-cates. So far, the analysisof these finds is not fin-

ished. Although the main interest of the fieldworkin 1999 should have been the discovery of open airsites of an early pastoral phase, the work at anotherrock shelter took up most of the time. The siteOmungunda 9911 is situated not far f iom the townOpuwo. It was found by R. Camby in the eightiesand was visited by a group of palaeontologists in1992 (Pickford et al. 1992). With an extension ofapproximately 23 x 4 m, Omungunda 9911 is thelargest rock-shelter in the region. It is the firs t sitewith rock paintings in the Kaokoland. hed om inantare depictions of lines and hand prints (Figure 2).These m otifs and the rough fo rm of representationof two giraffe paintings distinguish these paintingsfrom the Late Stone Age rock art of the moresouthe rly regions in Namibia. A test trench of twom2 was excavated in 1999, down to a depth of 2 mfrom the surface. Due to the small area, the workhad to be stopped, but dnlling proved that thedeposit continues at least for another 1.5 metres.The archaeological sequence covers the whole

Holocene. In the upper part, an indifferent stoneartifact assemblage together with potsherds, someof them decorated,was found. Underneath followeda microlithic LSA assemblage with pottery andthen an LSA assemblage withoutpottery. Finallyrnacrolithic artifacts, comparable to the finds f iomOvizorom buku N9611, were excavated. Firstradio-carbon dates (around 12,000B.P.) rom charcoalassociated with these stone artifacts again point to aLate PleistoceneIEarly Holocene age. There is agood chance that the so far not excavated basaldeposits might contain MSA material. At the endof the fieldwork in 1999, the sought after surfacesites with stone circles were located in Hartmann's(N9913) and Marienfluss valleys (N9915). In bothcases the sites are located on top of hills, giving

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NYAME AKUMA No. 54 December 2000

Figure 2: Rock paintings from Omungunda9911 (Scale 1 5 ) .

Settlement areas in thls and reglon are sites, there seems to be n o pre- o r post-LSA occu-restrtcted by the availability o f water. Whereas largeparts show no signs of human occupation at all. afeature of favorable areas 1s the concentntlon ofsltes. Several clusters of stone circles were locatedat 3 granite h ~ l l lose to the borderof the Skeleton-('uast-Park. Seven of these structures were s~tuatedunder a large rock shelter ( N 2 0 0 0 1 ). a.hrre

rernalns ~f dspus~tswere also pre sen ed. Due to theslow weatherlnp of the rock and perhaps detlatlonof sed ~m ents . he mav mu rn depths of the depnsltsI > cml? 4 0 crn. but agaln the archaecrlog~calsequence ewers the whole t idocent . In add~t~nn,the basal a~ st m bl ag eS w~ thou t oubt lflddle StoneAge w t h blades and polnts.

Only 200 rn away from t h ~ slte. the floor Intiont o f 4 small caves was plastered w ~ t htone artl-fact3 Thrt excavation In one of these caves

( ' \ ;20002 leads one to assu me that they were only~nterm~ttentlyccupled hy LSA huntlng groups.Tht stone tocrls are almost exclus~vc.lymlcrolithrcprqect~lc. nsets. l ike h a t e s and mlcropolnts. Incontrast to most of the other up to now excavated

pation. Finally a test trench in a smaller rock-shel-ter (N98t6) in the vicinity of the site Ov izoro mb uku96i1 co nfirmed the archaeological sequen ce of thatslte.

Discussion

Since 1995 about 100 archaeological sitescould be located in the Kaokoland and8 of thesesites have been excavated. Th e excavated fin ds per-mit a first reconstruction of the settlement historyof the region. Th e extensive material from the LatePleistocene/Early Holocene period found at all larg-er excavations is remarkable. Due to arid climaticconditions, other regions of Namibia seem to benearly unpopulated during that time, the Kaoko landmight have been a retreat. On the other hand, the

younger microlithic Later Stone Age assemblagesare relatively rare in the Kaokoland in comparisonto other parts of the country. Dom esticates andpottery appear for the first time at least around2000 B.P. in the area, but hrther analysis is neces-

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NYAME AKUMA No. 54 December 2000

sary to clarify the process of introduction. Notmuch is known about the younger periods up tocolonial times. There is still no archaeologicalevidence for the beginning of specialized canlepastoralism, that characterizes the economy of thearea today. Therefore, research will be concentratedin the next year on the analysis of the finds from theup to now excavated sites and on the continuation ofthe archaeological survey.

Acknowledgements

The archaeological project in northernNamibia is headed by Rudolph Kuper and Jiirgen

Richter. 1 would like to thank Dr.G. Schneider andE. U. Mombolah and the whole staff of the NationalMuseum and the National Monuments Council fortheir cordial co-operation and assistance. Manythanks to Daniela Holst, Jason Bright, Dirk F ~tzn er ,Allan Hogan, Uhanguatena Kapi, Lutz Kindler.Mathlas Lange. Brian O'Donoghue and AndreasTillmann for their mvaluable assistance.

References

Fmnii.T.

In prep. Archaeolog~cal ev~ den ce rom the earl?pastoral p r r ~ o dn North-west Namlbra.In.\I. R n l l ~ ~nd J . B. Ge\salcF ed~torh.Pcv~plc~.xrr l~ .lntl lutd.

1995 Negotiating meaning and change in spaceand material culture: An ethno-archaeo-logical study among semi-nomadic Himbaand Herero pastoralists in north-westemNamibia. PhD dissertation, University ofCape Town.

Kinahan, J.

1981 An early pottery date from southernKaokoland. Journal of the SWA ScientificSociety 34: 43-45.

Pickford M., B. Senut and P. Mein

1992 Namibia palaeontology expedition.Unpublished field report.

Richter, J.

1991 Studien zur Urgeschichte Nam ibias.Afriku Pruehistoricu 3 . Koln: Heinrich -

Barth - Institut.

Smith,A. B

1988 Excavation of rockshelter at Otjitati in

Kaokoland.Cimhebusiu 10: 101 - 105.

1991 Pu.storuli.snr in .4fricu. Johannesburg:W~twatersrandUniversity Press.

1998 Archaeological survey in the KaokoveldNamibia. h j w w Aklrnlu 50: 22-24.

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