Leokwe Hill: crafted goods, economic activities, and forager roles in local markets

The proposed research programme aims to investigate forager (hunter-gather) social relations between Little Muck Shelter, excavated by Forssman, and Leokwe Hill. These sites provide unparalleled potential for understanding local forager-farmer interactions because of trade relations that existed between them. At first, Little Muck Shelter was a trading centre and foragers produced vast amounts of craft goods, but by AD 1000 this declined, whereas at Leokwe Hill they begin to increase. This appears to indicate that a shift in economic activities and access to wealth took place, and this may have included foragers losing access to the local market economy. However, this is assumed and has not been properly assessed. For example, it appears that similar goods were produced at both sites possibly indicating that it was not only activities that moved to Leokwe Hill but also their producers, forager groups. If so, it reveals a much more integrated social and economic landscape in which foragers were more involved than previously credited. It would also show their continued access to wealth items and contributions to the local economy. Demonstrating this would show that foragers moved into farmer spaces during the rise of stratified, hierarchal society and southern Africa’s earliest state-level society, Mapungubwe, and that they participated in these socio-political developments.