Global commodities in precolonial Southern Africa: local concepts and global conversations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research on Southern Africa between ca. 500 CE and ca. 1500 CE has been dominated by tracing the connection of the subcontinent to the maritime trade across the Indian Ocean. But until recently, the lack of effective tools to reconstruct precolonial movements of commodities made it appear as if Africa, despite its vast size, lacked internal long-distance exchange. We challenge this assumption by combining oral historical with archaeological and scientific data to identify long-distance internal African commodity exchange and associated variable networks of distribution. We identify long-distance exchange of commodities, such as iron hoes, copper ingots and ostrich eggshell beads that are fulfilled, as mediated by different cosmologies, quotidian and luxury desires in ancient southern and Central Africa. We conclude that precolonial Southern Africa was deeply interconnected through networks of production and exchange and that entanglements with the Indian Ocean provided optional commodities to complement the pre-existing and the locally available.