Excavating Ephemeral Remains of Life in a Time of Witchcraft: New Insights into the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Occupations at Leokwe and Nyindi Hills in the Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area, South Africa

Abstract

Scholarly knowledge of the historical settlements in the Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area in northern South Africa is fundamentally entangled with narratives told to N. J. Van Warmelo by two women, Sekgobogobo and Mphengwa. The account based on these stories narrated elements of Sekgobogobo’s life history, and pointed to the at times lethal effects of internal political processes combining with regional instability and an approaching colonial frontier. This paper establishes a recursive relationship between this narrative and archaeological excavations to deepen the understanding of the sociopolitical dynamics in the Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.