Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-202).

Includes bibliographical references.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-256). / This thesis explores the dietary responses of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) to environmental change by testing the hypothesis that diet switching (from predominantly browse-based to more grass-rich diets) is driven by cyclical patterns of climate and habitat change in a southern African savanna. Elephants are thought to have substantial impacts on their environments, primarily because they consume large amounts of vegetation over sustained periods. However, the woody plant composition of their diet varies considerably across space and through time, so that in some instances they have been found to be almost pure grazers. Tracking these changes by traditional approaches (e.g. field observations) is difficult because of the geographical and temporal constraints inherent to these methods. Stable light isotope tracking of diet allows diet switching to be studied over multiple space/time scales. Here, I use stable isotope data from elephant faeces, tail hair, and ivory to record short- (monthly), medium- (seasonal to annual), and long-term (decadal) ecological variability, respectively, of elephant diets in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Results from faeces collected at monthly resolution for one year confirm findings of a previous study (based on biannually-collected samples over two years) that elephants generally consume more grass in the more wooded habitats of the northern Kruger Park, but that there is a greater degree of seasonal diet switching in southern Kruger Park habitats. Moreover, diet changes also relate to changes in underlying bedrock across Kruger Park. Isotopic time-series produced by serial profiling of tail hairs confirm patterns observed in faeces. Long-term diet histories of individuals are derived from serial isotope sampling of ivory, yielding records that represent several decades of an animal’s life, at sub-annual (seasonal) resolution. Overlaying individual ivory series in time produces the first, to my knowledge, multidecadal record of African elephant diet, dating from 1903 to 1993. Contrary to expectations, stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope records from ivory do not correlate well with cyclical climate trends for the study region. Rather, pronounced diet shifts are observed during extreme climatic events (floods and droughts), and the greatest levels of intra- and inter-annual variability coincide with significant changes in park management policy during the 20th century, i.e. the introduction of water provision programs after the mid 1930s, and the onset of elephant population control in 1967. It is proposed that such direct intervention has played the biggest role in disturbance of elephant-plant equilibria during the 20th century, and further studies to improve our understanding of this phenomenon will be instrumental to development of appropriate management strategies for the 21st century.

Bibliography: leaves 228-243. / This study evaluates the extent of dental pathologies in several ungulate species from the Pelletal Phosphate Member (PPM) at Langebaanweg, and uses this analysis, along with stable isotope analyses, to obtain fresh insight into the local palaeoenvironment during the Early Pliocene.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-208).

In Africa and elsewhere, producers form a critical dimension to archaeological reconstructions of the political economy. However, few studies address the relationship between producers and the political economy from the vantage point of production sites. This study addresses the position of metal producers in the regional political economy of Iron Age (AD 200 – 1900) communities in southern Africa through an in-depth analysis of one production locale, Shankare. Shankare is a production and habitation site located in close proximity to the Lolwe mineral body in Phalaborwa. Studying the organisation of production, identity of producers, mechanisms of exchange and evidence of consumption at Shankare provided an important platform to assess producers in the context of the domestic and regional economy. Research at Shankare and surrounding sites revealed that production was characterised by a community of homestead based producers located in proximity to the ore source. Metal production took place in domestic contexts in conjunction with other activities, and with clear evidence of scheduling and cross-crafting overlaps. Producers acted independently and were well connected within a regional exchange system that facilitated the flow of local products and imported items such as glass beads and cowrie shells (Cypraea annulus). The study of producers at Shankare indicates the presence of a decentralised political economy resulting in a high degree of autonomy of producers and consumers in the region. Comparisons between the organisation of metal production at Shankare through time indicate that in both occupational periods, AD 900-1300 and AD 1700-1900, production strategies were contextually negotiated, with no clear correlation between political centralisation and specialised production. This research challenges existing models of control and the enactment of power in the political economy of the Iron Age. It has further potential implications for reconsidering the parameters for identifying power relations utilised in global archaeological theory.

Includes abstract. / The inception of metallurgy in southern Africa was relatively late, compared to other regions in Africa, and as a result, this part of the sub-continent was mistakenly thought to have been less innovative during the Iron Age. On the contrary, dedicated materials analyses are showing that starting from the terminal first millennium AD, southern Africa is replete with innovations that include the growth of state systems, specialised long-distance trading, the re-melting of glass beads, the working of ivory, and the weaving of cotton using ceramic spindle whorls. Additionally, the appearance of gold and tin production, against a background of on-going iron and copper metallurgy, has been interpreted by some as intimating innovation in metal technology. While some research energy has been invested into these novelties, there has only been incidental concern with the innovation in tin and bronze production. This study investigates the context of this novelty in the metallurgy of the Southern Waterberg, an area that hosts one of the unequivocal cases of pre-colonial tin mining in southern Africa. Recent trace element studies have indicated that bronzes from several elite sites in the region, were produced using tin that was sourced from the Southern Waterberg. The current chronology from the Southern Waterberg does not capture the full tin sequence that is implicated by the trace-element analyses of tin and bronze from dated contexts elsewhere and falls short by at two centuries. To bridge this gap, the present study sought, to explore the visibility of tin production in the Southern Waterberg at sites that are contemporary with the appearance of tin and bronze in southern Africa, and to investigate how this innovation was integrated into on-going iron and copper production. Rigorous methodological and theoretical approaches that include ethno-historical, archaeological and archaeometallurgical studies were employed in order to glean relevant information required to address these issues. Ceramic typological and settlement pattern studies were used to establish the culture-historical context, while Optical Microscopy, X-ray Fluorescence Analysis and Scanning Electron Microscopy of metallurgical remains were used to identify the metals and techniques that were employed. Ceramic technological studies were used to establish relationships between the metallurgy and the ceramic typological identities. The results suggest that the Southern Waterberg may have participated in the innovation of tin production in southern Africa. More research may strengthen this observation but it is entirely appropriate, in view of several metallurgical and non-metallurgical innovations that were on-going in societies throughout the region at large. Researchers now need to engage more with innovations and actively explore the various novelties that southern Africa exhibited during the Iron Age.

No description available.

abstract: Two of the defining behaviors associated with the hominin lineage are an increased reliance on tool use and the routine incorporation of animal tissue in the diet. These adaptations have been linked to numerous downstream consequences including key physiological adaptations as well as social and cognitive effects associated with modern humans. Thus, a critical issue in human evolution is how to determine when hominins began incorporating significant amounts of meat into their diets. Bone surface modifications (BSM) have long been recognized as a powerful inferential tool in identifying the differential involvement of actors responsible for altering assemblages of bone recovered from both archaeological and paleontological contexts and remain a primary source of direct evidence for butchery activities. Thus, determining the spatiotemporal context of increased carnivory in the hominin lineage relies on the accurate identification of fossil BSM. Multidecade-long debates over the agents responsible for individual BSM indicate systemic flaws in historical approaches to identification. These debates are in part due to the extreme morphological overlap between BSM produced by certain agents of modification. The primary goal of this dissertation project therefore, is to construct probability models of BSM capable of identifying individual marks with an associated probability of assignment. Using a multivariate Bayesian approach to analyze experimentally-generated BSM data, this dissertation uses two different models, one incorporating both two and three-dimensional (3D) metric and attribute data associated with individual BSM and a second model comparing 3D geometric morphometric (GM) shape data associated with BSM. The 2D/3D attribute model of BSM is used evaluate an assemblage of fossil BSM recovered from the Ledi-Geraru research area, Ethiopia (2.82 Ma) in spatiotemporal association with early Homo. The results of the analysis reveal compelling evidence for early butchery activities, suggesting hominins may have been using both modified and unmodified stone implements to process carcasses. The second model, based upon 3D GM data, was used to evaluate the earliest purported evidence for stone-mediated butchery at Dikika, Ethiopia (3.39 Ma). The Dikika marks have been argued to be the result of crocodile feeding, trampling, and butchery by three different research groups. The 3D GM model evaluates the likelihood of each of these actors in the production of the controversial Dikika marks. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2019

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / The major objective of this thesis was to record, document and describe the corbelled buildings of the Great Karoo, a form of 19th century vernacular architecture. The thesis builds on the pioneering descriptive work of James Walton in the 1960s. Description of these structures lays the foundation for a more contextual interpretation of them. This focuses on the 19th century trekboer small stock farmers who occupied these buildings, and whose cultural history dates back to their 18th century movement onto the VOC Cape frontier that resulted in ongoing interaction with indigenous people and the Karoo habitat. The thesis specifically suggests that these corbelled buildings were an outcome of these cultural exchanges and interactions with Khoe and southern Sotho-speaking farmers. The research examines evidence for the chronology of these structures between the 1820s and 1870s, reasons for their discrete distribution in the Karoo and the engineering of construction.