Iron Age sites in northern Botswana’s Okavango Delta 1: the southern Delta sites Mat82 and Matlapaneng plus Qogana on the region’s eastern margin

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper, one of three focused on Early Iron Age (EIA) sites of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, provides descriptions and analyses of two sites, Mat82 and Matlapaneng, on the southern margin of the Delta and of a small contemporary hunting-fishing camp at Qogana in its eastern middle reaches. The relationship of these sites to others, particularly in the areas of the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi Rivers and Victoria Falls, is examined in detail. Pottery recovered from the Delta sites is shown to be a western expression of the eastern Kalundu Tradition. Optical petrographic analyses of 26 sherds from Mat82, Matlapaneng and Qogana compared with 60 sherds from Chobe-Victoria Falls sites, plus clays from most lithological exposures in these regions, confirms that most of the Mat82 and Matlapaneng sherds can be associated with local southern Delta clays, while five have fabrics comparable with Chobe-Victoria Falls clays and sherds, documenting that these Matlapaneng sherds are from vessels made in, and imported from, that region. While the distribution of finds at Matlapaneng displayed a higher concentration of lithic artefacts on the site’s outer margins with a corresponding higher pottery concentration in the centre, all areas have the same representation of lithic tools, débitage, pottery fabrics and décor motifs and proportions of wild game to domestic animals, thus providing no evidence for a herder/hunter or inner/outer space dichotomy in residence or subsistence activities. This trio of sites, then, provides a further lesson regarding the archaeological erasure of mistaken isolationist tenets in southern African archaeology in which peoples have been automatically segregated according to the material inventory of the sites at which they lived.