More-than-sequence: The early Holocene at Ntloana Tšoana, western Lesotho

Abstract

Intensive stratigraphic work on a horizontally extensive but shallow sample of early Holocene archaeology at Ntloana Tšoana rockshelter in western Lesotho has revealed a complex social history of waxing and waning occupation sandwiched between, and overlapping with, two distinct flood events. Bayesian models of radiocarbon and OSL ages are critical, enabling robust temporal ranges to be assigned to stratigraphic phases despite considerable challenges. This, in turn, means that site-specific happenings can be linked to broader ecological and cultural processes, including early Holocene warming and the emergence of southern Africa's small scraper tradition. By emphasising the duration of human activity, these results also show how specific hide working practices were repeated there by successive generations. Questions arise about the separation of scales that has characterised explanation in Later Stone Age archaeology and the largely overlooked role of persistent places in hunter-gatherer history. It is argued that repeatedly occupied rockshelters and their enduring sedimentary, bone and lithic residues would have been active entities in the past, anchoring people in time and space and may have led to an ontological merging of practice and place. Related ways of thinking about our own practice reveals that archaeologists can also benefit from thinking about sedimentary deposits as active and enduring as well as sequential.