Research in Botswana: 1982-1997Author(s): Paul ShawSource: Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 29 (1997), pp. 144-145Published by: Botswana SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40980193 .

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Botswana Notes and Records, Vol 29

The Naro Choir of D'Kar (K3) - price £5-00 + p&p (Obviously postage and packing would be costly for single cassettes, probably £1-50 - £2-00. I think a package of 10 would cost about £8-00, and a box of 70 recently cost £24-40).

by John Brearley

Research in Botswana: 1982-1997

Since 1982 I have carried out research in the Kalahari of Botswana and neighbouring countries with the aim of establishing the rates and processes of environmental change on a range of time scales, of which the Geological (200 million years), Quaternary (50 000 years) and Historical (200 years) are probably the most important. From 1982 to 1992 the research was conducted whilst in the employ of the University of Botswana. Now based at the University of Luton in England, I tend to work in short field seasons in the company of scientists from the University of Botswana, and from universities in UK and South Africa.

In the first instance, I mapped the geomorphological features of Lake Ngami with the intention of dating, by historical reference or by radiocarbon techniques, the desiccation of the lake. This work expanded to incorporate the Mababe Depression, the Boteti River and the Zambezi-Chobe confluence. By combining the results with the work of Professor John Cooke on the Makgadikgadi it was possible to reconstruct the history of the entire Okavango- Makgadikgadi system, and to separate out the climatic signal in the processes of change.

The search for the climatic signal, or more specifically, for episodes when the climate of the Kalahari was wetter than present, then spread to other landforms, such as the pans and massive dry valleys of southern Botswana. This, in turn, has required more detailed information on the origin and genesis of calcretes and silcretes, two types of duricrust, a weathering alteration product, which are a very common but poorly understood component in the stratigraphy of the Kalahari Group sediments. It has also involved research on cave speleothems, an excellent and readily dateable palaeoclimatic data source. Work conducted in Lobatse II Cave with Karin Holmgren of the University of Stockholm complements the findings of John Cooke, George Brook and others in Drotsky's Cave and adjacent sites in northwest Botswana.

By 1986 it was possible to outline the palaeoclimatic history of the Kalahari over the past 20 000 years, and this evidence, somewhat controversial in that it did not fit existing palaeoclimatic models, has been gradually refined in successive publications. By 1992, however, it was becoming apparent that further progress would be dependent on the use of high resolution, long term site records, the development of dating techniques applicable to non-carbonate materials and the identification of episodes which may have been drier, rather than wetter, than present. To this end, a programme with David Thomas (Sheffield) and Steve Stokes (Oxford) was started to study the past activity of sand dunes throughout the 'mega-Kalahari, using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) of quartz grains as a dating technique. So far different types of sand dunes have been sampled throughout the area bounded by Upington, Grootfontein, Chavuma Falls

(upper Zambezi) and Hwange, representing a spread of fifteen degrees of latitude and nine

degrees of longitude. The first results of this programme are now appearing in press. The OSL technique is also being applied to the dating of fluvio-lacustrine sediments, particularly those containing diatoms, which record water conditions at the time of deposition.

High resolution site records are now being sought in a number of environments. In 1994

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Botswana Notes and Records, Vol 29

a coring programme (partners: the Universities of Botswana, Brighton and Cape Town) was undertaken in the lower Ncamsere valley to investigate the relationship between the Okavango Panhandle and its dryland inflows during the Holocene. In 1996 research commenced on the comparison of cave spaleothem records from Lobatse II Cave in Botswana and a number of geologically similar caves in the Northern Transvaal and Gauteng Provinces (partners: the Universities of Stockholm and Witwatersrand). On the basis of these projects, it will, hopefully be possible to demonstrate a consistent palaeoclimatic record for the Kalahari and surrounding regions of southern Africa by the turn of the century.

by Paul Shaw

Snakes & Crocodiles, Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe

TN Huffman (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press) ISBN 9 781868 142910, 228pp.

This book is a welcome synthesis of ideas which have been developed by Professor Huffman since the early 1980s. In fact, several of his articles published regionally and internationally have used similar titles such as his 1981 article "Snakes and birds: Expressive space at Great Zimbabwe" published in the Journal African Studies. The book is welcome as it also presents, for the first time, the first comprehensive discussion of the Great Zimbabwe (GZ) tradition stone- walled sites with impressive illustrations and photographic data. Great Zimbabwe has been the subject of much interest since it was first romanticised by early travellers in the 17th century. It has been politicised, brutalised, mystified and 'saved' by a number of people and scholars and even to date, when its origins should be fairly obvious, it is still the subject of contentious writings. Professor Huffman's book is the latest in a crusade of writings which unravel the mysteries of GZ, but hopefully not the final story to be told.

The book is enjoyable both as a readable text and a teaching resource. Southern African archaeology can only benefit from books such as "Snakes & Crocodiles" which introduce the relatively new discipline of archaeology to regional historiography and scholarship. The graphic photographs provide an important visual context for understanding the discussion of the GZ culture and also for making available pictures of sites which most people are not in a position to visit. The colour photographs especially help us to appreciate the artistic quality of the GZ tradition.

The book attempts to use a vast range of data to explain the settlement form and architecture of GZ tradition settlements. Like other publications by Professor Huffman on the same subject, the focus of the discussion in "Snakes & Crocodiles" is on the use of space and the meaning of the different aspects of the GZ tradition settlements particularly the stone built features and decorative designs. To explain these features, Huffman uses the relationship between the archaeological record and the ethnographic record to show that there is a continuity in some aspects of the cultures of some contemporary societies and the communities who inhabited GZ tradition settlements. In some ways, this also makes the book more interesting for the general reader because it gives people a sense of relevance of the past to the present. In using the archaeology and the ethnography, Huffman enables readers to appreciate the cultural richness of southern African farming peoples in the last two millennia. As a result, the myths which have

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