Bibliography: leaves 183-201. / The coastline of South Africa is used by diverse groups of people for a wide variety of reasons ranging from economic, scientific, social, and recreational. For the users to obtain optimum utility it is imperative that ways and means of developing the coast and its potential are put in place, in the face of rapid urban, industrial, and rural development. In the past the coast was an important place for human settlement, as it still is today. Past human settlement left traces that are now threatened by development. The fragile nature of these past settlements means that there is an urgent need to preserve these archaeological sites. Archaeologists and other conservationists recognise that development is a fact of life. Therefore in order to realise fully the potential of the coast a proper management plan for archaeological resources is needed. The management plan should be drafted with input from natural and social scientists, economists, technical experts, and communities that depend on the coastline for their livelihood. This will ensure that development is well planned, user conflicts resolved, and ecological damage minimised. The management plan for coastal archaeological resources will take into consideration the sensitiveness of the area and the potential for development. This project will be undertaken in consultation with professional archaeologists, the Department of Environmental Affairs, the National Monuments Council, biologists, geologists, local communities, town planners, architects, and other stakeholders. The objective here is to formulate a "red flagging" system that will alert the appropriate regulatory institution and therefore enable the institution to encourage development where it will do least harm to archaeological resources. The broad aim above is addressed by first documenting existing information on archaeological resources and current patterns of distribution which are then entered as overlays in a Geographical Information System model. The distribution maps of archaeological resources together with geological, geomorphological and vegetational GIS overlays are used to predict site distribution in unsearched areas in order to produce an Archaeological Sensitivity Model.

An analysis of the spatial patterning present in the arrangement of material and features at the site of Dunefield Midden, is presented in this thesis. All items from the site are analysed, except the remains of large fauna. The site of Dunefield Midden is situated about two kilometres north of Eland's Bay on the Cape West coast, South Africa. Radiocarbon dates indicate that the site was occupied about 670 years B.P. The nature of the food remains and artefacts from this site suggests a single occupation, for a limited period, by a group of hunter-gatherers. Features from the site examined in detail include ash features (such as hearths, roasting pits and ash dumps) and dumps (in particular, a feature called the 'main dump'). Comparisons with ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological material are made to aid the process of interpretation. Other features common to ethnographic hunter-gatherer campsites, but for which there is no evidence at Dunefield Midden (such as structures), are discussed. The type of site, possible length of occupation and number of people are discussed from the analysis of features and other material. Suggestions are made that the site was a base camp occupied by between ten and twenty-five people for a month to a month and a half. Finally, conclusions are made about the nature of the behaviours which caused the spatial patterning evident on the site. The level of detail reached in the interpretations of patterning and behaviour is far greater than that possible from more complex, deeply stratified sites. Thus, the value of researching different kinds of sites is shown. The use of a Geographic Information System to analyse information and create distribution maps is unique in spatial archaeological studies. The use of this system shows its value as a new technology of great potential use to all archaeologists. The spatial autocorrelation test of randomness of distributions is also introduced and is compared to other statistical tests used by archaeologists previously. This test is applied to distributions of items from the site, produced with the aid of the Geographic Information System. The use of site indices describes a method of normalising distributions, with the possibility of using satellite technology to analyse these distributions. This thesis, therefore, reaches a deeper level of interpretation of human behaviour at one particular site, than generally has been achieved previously. It also introduces new techniques and technologies particularly suited to this analysis and potentially of use to other archaeologists, even in different fields of study.

The 19th century corbelled houses of the Karoo are an architectural type conventionally attributed to Trek Boer pastoralism. Consequently, mid-20th century scholarship tends to view them as an architecture type that embodies the ideology of whiteness on the frontier. However, recent research emphasises that Cape frontiers in the early stages of development were zones of interaction rather than simply boundaries that defined racial and cultural binaries. Consequently, research on corbelled houses of the Karoo has explored that they are a creole architectural type that came about through the frontier processes of the Cape, particularly between people with mixed Khoe and settler ancestry. Specifically, it has been suggested that the domed ‘igloo' form reproduces the basic indigenous architecture of the pastoralist matjieshuis. Kramer (2012) established a timeline for the building of these structures and estimated that they emerged from the 1830s and were built up until the mid-tolate 19th century. Furthermore, Kramer (2012) and Lupuwana (2017) have linked these structures as the dwellings of pastoralists of Baster descent. This thesis broadens the discussion of these corbelled houses and argues that with the closing of the Northern Cape frontier later in the 19th century, this architectural type straddled multiple social and class identities. In order to explore this issue, archaeological and documentary evidence are combined to interrogate the biographies of three corbelled structures built in the 1860/70s on the farm Gorras in the Carnarvon district of the Karoo, during a period of agricultural, pastoralist and mercantile intensification. Architectural additions, spatial change or inertia, combined with household debris indicates different scales of consumption, degrees of material indulgence and the purchasing power of different households.

Southern Africa's San people have embodied the sub-human other in colonial and Apartheid historiography and has lived fractured, often traumatised lives as a result. The aftermath of dispossession, genocide and war has echoed down the generations and still manifests itself in visible and intangible ways. Previous research has not addressed the personal stories of the immigrant !xun community living on the San farm, Platfontein, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province. My thesis works towards filling this gap. The focus of my research was to open up a space in which the !xun leader and storyteller, Kapilolo Mario Mahongo, could actively engage the energy of storytelling in representing his personal history and for the first time, record an Indigenous !xun perspective of the regional wars during the latter part of the 20th century - and its aftermath. By focusing on his personal stories, I demonstrate how anti-colonial narratives are embodied in specific and multiple histories and cannot be collapsed into homogenized narratives. Kapilolo Mahongo died at the age of 68, on May 12th 2018 while working with me on curating his own and his community's stories. My thesis thus evolved to question his place in the San corpus, asking how his memoirs, and the ways in which we produced it over a period of more than twenty years, may contribute toward our knowledge – not only of his personal life, but of the !xun community's history and southern Africa's San people as a whole. With our colonial and apartheid background of discrimination, my role as fellow storyteller and researcher assumes a compelling resonance. I address this directly by engaging an autoethnographic voice to tell my story parallel to the stories by Mahongo and other !xun storytellers, with the intention of creating a record of coming together against the background of our otherness, showing how we lived our difference (through the methodology of storytelling), to create new narratives of truth. My findings report on how storytelling in indigenous epistemologies are knowledge producing and disruptive of colonial narratives, while supporting recovery from the posttraumatic effects of dispossession and war among indigenous communities.

Word processed copy. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-157). / Three sympatric, contemporaneous fossil cercopithecoid genera (Cercopithecoides, Parapapio and Theropithecus) are represented in assemblages from the Makapansgat Limeworks hominin locality in South Africa. The presence of such a variety of primate taxa in a single ecosystem at the same time suggests a certain degree of ecological and/or dietary differentiation between taxa. This research explores the possibility of dietary niche separation within this sample. Stable isotope (13C/12C, 180/160 ) and trace-element (Sr, Ba, Ca) techniques for palaeodietary analysis are employed to investigate papionin dietary ecology, and especially to search for evidence of subtle niche separation between the more closely related, morphologically similar taxa of the genus Parapapio. Previous studies of fossil cercopithecoid dietary ecology report disjunctions between dietary and taxonomic groupings, possibly as a result of the use of fragmentary specimens or isolated teeth and ensuing taxonomic uncertainty, or perhaps because of problems in the taxonomy itself. Because such taxonomic uncertainties impede the interpretation of dietary data, craniometric analyses were also performed to ground the dietary interpretations in a morphological context. Only complete or partially complete cranial specimens from which morphological craniometric measurements could also be taken were sampled. Dietary analyses indicated two widely differing dietary ecologies within the Cercopithecoides williamsi sample, consistent with published results for this taxon from Swartkrans and Sterkfontein. Results for Theropithecus darti indicated a predominantly C4 diet. Two overlapping dietary ecologies, loosely correlated to taxonomic groupings, were found within the genus Parapapio; specimens attributed to Pp. broomi tended to have C3-dominated diets with a larger rootstock component than Pp. whitei and Pp. jonesi, which included more C4 grasses in their diet. The morphological analyses found no clear taxonomic signal in the craniometric data for Parapapio, suggesting that the current taxonomic assignments of Parapapio specimens are problematic. Additionally, for all of the analysed anatomical regions, the Parapapio sample was no more variable than the single geographically circumscribed extant chacma baboon sample. To sum, while biogeochemical dietary indicators indicate distinct dietary ecologies within and between genera, disjunctions exist between the dietary categories and the taxonomic assignment of specimens. Given these results, and in light of the taxonomic concerns highlighted by the craniometric investigation, reinvestigation of papionin taxonomy at Makapansgat may be warranted.

This dissertation investigates the socioeconomic relationships that comprised Classic Maya economies (c. AD 250–900), focusing on labor relations and the artisanal production of limestone. A ubiquitous material in Mesoamerica, limestone was used for many purposes, though most notably for monumental art and architecture. Stelae, altars, temple stairways, and other elements of architecture began as limestone quarried from the landscape. Most existing scholarship considers the individuals engaged in these early stages of limestone production in general terms, identifying those who worked in quarries as laborers or non-skilled producers. This study assesses the identities and socioeconomic organization of limestone producers by investigating both limestone quarries and their neighboring residential groups at the site of Xultun, Guatemala. Archaeological survey of Xultun’s quarries identified several abandoned quarry workshops where monuments were left unfinished alongside the tools used to produce them. Combined with lithic classification and the results of use wear analyses from other Classic Maya sites, these finds were included in a limestone production toolkit used to determine site-wide distributions of quarry related work. While quarry related tools have been recovered in other areas of Xultun, these results illustrate that 51% of the analyzed sample of limestone production tools correspond with populations living next to the limestone quarry workshops. These findings suggest that some households specialized in limestone production. In the Stone Production District, the notion of state sponsorship of limestone production was tested using a multi-proxy analysis of household consumption patterns and provisioning strategies. Comparing obsidian, chert, granite, quartzite, limestone, and pottery resource consumption by households engaged in limestone production, as well as those located outside of the district, this study identified provisioning strategies consistent with the operation of marketplace exchange. A pattern of surplus wealth conversion through marketplace exchange was observed, whereas vertical exchange networks suggestive of sponsorship were not significant in the sample. This study concludes that Xultun’s state institutions did not sponsor the work of specialist limestone producers. Households that quarried and shaped limestone directly profited from their work. This evidence indicates that the limestone resources utilized for monumental purposes by state institutions were also integrated into the economy. These findings offer new insights into the organization of labor and resources for monumental art and architecture, particularly as it concerns the participation of a supportive public and their collaborative investment in symbolic expression.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-272). / This thesis investigates the validity of oxygen isotope analysis for the gastropod Turbo sarmaticus (operculum and shell) and the bivalve Donax serra to reconstruct sea surface temperatures. These are the species most commonly retrieved from archaeological assemblages of the South Coast of South Africa. The material analysed for this thesis includes modern and archaeological shells from Pinnacle Point, Mossel Bay. Evidence of human occupation of coastal caves here dates as far back as 164 kya. Specimens analysed for this study date between 114 and 91 ky. Analysis of edge increments shows that all the archaeological specimens were collected in winter and/or in spring and autumn, pointing to seasonal exploitation; the first documentation of this kind of seasonal scheduling of activities in Middle Stone Age sites in South Africa.

Includes bibliographical references / I take my lead from a paper by Bruce Trigger (1984) in which he divides the disciplinary field into three modes or forms of archaeology: a colonialist archaeology, a nationalist archaeology and an imperialist archaeology. He goes on to suggest (1990) that South African archaeology is the most colonialist archaeology of all. Trigger was writing at a point before the current political transformation in South Africa had emerged over the horizon of visibility. Writing somewhat later, and from the point of view of a Third World archaeologist, I ask: What would a post-colonial archaeology look like? In particular, what would it look like from the point of view of South Africa in the late 1990s?

Summary in English. / Bibliography: pages 140-163. / This thesis describes the construction of a Holocene history of sea surface temperatures in coastal regions of the southern Benguela and eastern Agulhas Bank of South Africa, using marine mollusc shells preserved in archaeological middens. Two independent palaeothermometers were employed: the traditional oxygen isotope technique and a new, alternative technique based on temperature-dependent changes in structure and mineralogy of the shell of a South African limpet species, Patella granularis. The relationship between the isotopic and structural aspects of shell composition, and habitat temperature was confirmed through examination of living populations.

This thesis examines the networked industrial landscapes of Cape Town's nineteenth century gas supply industry, and South Africa's twentieth century grain elevator system. The thesis takes the view that, although created in very differing circumstances, both networks were explicitly constructed with the purpose of social and economic development, albeit for narrowly defined constituencies. In both cases, important component sites of these networks came to the end of their working lives during the course of this research. The Woodstock gas works has since been demolished, and the Cape Town grain elevator stands derelict. The principle question of this thesis asks whether the networks of which these sites formed an integral part, can be conserved with the purpose of future social and economic development within the broad framework of Agenda 21. Working within a methodological framework informed by the Kerr's Conservation Plan work, research was conducted which would provide a thorough understanding of the networks, allowing for an assessment of cultural significance, an awareness of issues that might affect that significance, and the formulation of policies for retention. Extensive desk-based study, archival research, and fieldwork was carried out at the Woodstock gas works, the Cape Town grain elevator, and the surviving country grain elevators that comprise the respective networks. Both the key sites were recorded during their final days of operation, with a detailed site inventory being created for the Cape Town grain elevator, together with an inventory of sites for the country elevators. It was found that the attitude to industrial heritage is changing rapidly, but that it is heavily influenced by aesthetic and economic considerations. The Woodstock gas works was demolished, and the site cleared, with very little active consideration being given to its conservation. By way of contrast, the Cape Town grain elevator, now derelict, has been the subject of a draft Conservation Plan, albeit one prepared without public participation. The process has stalled as the developer attempts to reconcile aesthetic and economic drivers with a publicly held commitment to the conservation, and marketing, of 'heritage'. The thesis concludes by proposing a new approach to dealing with networked industrial landscapes. It suggests that the surviving country elevators can not only be put to good use for the purpose of sustainable development in terms of Agenda 21, but that the network which historically links them to the Cape Town elevator could itself be re-established in the cause of social transformation.