Reading the Rocks and Reviewing Red Herrings

Abstract

Stonewalls connect over 10,000 square kilometres of the Mpumalanga highveld into a complex web of homesteads, towns, terraces and roads, that stretches for 150 kilometres in an almost continuous belt. They suggest a substantial population, and speak to the investment of vast amounts of labour in infrastructural development along with extraordinary levels of agricultural innovation and productivity. This network of stone embodies Bokoni, the pre-nineteenth century home of people from a range of origins who practiced distinctive forms of agriculture (Maggs 2008) and participated in regional and international trade (Delius and Schoeman 2008). Yet, the academic gaze seldom rested long on these extraordinary archaeological/historical sites, hence thin archaeological accounts are supplemented by even thinner historical accounts. Whilst archaeologists and historians largely ignored Bokoni, exotic accounts have proliferated. In this article we explore why so little academic research has focused on Bokoni and why exotic accounts became so dominant.