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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The social geography of pottery in Botswana as reconstructed by optical petrography
Author:Wilmsen, Edwin N.ISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:Journal of African Archaeology
Volume:7
Issue:1
Pages:3-39
Language:English
Geographic term:Botswana
Subjects:archaeology
pottery
prehistory
mercantile history
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/43135466
Abstract:Over the last 30 years, E. Wilmsen and J.R. Denbow have recovered and studied pottery from 28 sites in Botswana dated between c. cal AD 200 and AD 1885. Some sherds in several of these assemblages appear, on stylistic evidence, to have been made in other subregions of Botswana than where they were found. These inferences are confirmed in this paper by use of an independent archaeometric technique, optical petrography. The authors demonstrate the transport of pots from the Okavango Delta to Bosutswe in the eastern hardveld, some 400-600 km distant, as early as cal AD 900-1100, and of others over equal distances to the Tsodilo Hills probably before that time. They also demonstrate several shorter itineraries at contemporary and later times in the Tsodilo-Delta-Chobe region as well as in the hardveld. Furthermore, the authors show that clays were transported from geological deposits to sites where pots were made from them. They consider some implications of these findings for a deeper appreciation of the movement of peoples and goods at several time periods of the past and present as well as further implications for understanding the participation of the region in the Indian Ocean trade during the 8th-10th centuries. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]
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