This study presents the results of the archaeological excavation of an antennae tumulus in Western Sahara, conducted at Wadi Lawash el Telli. While earlier research across the region had established a broad typological and chronological framework for prehistoric stone funerary monuments, the function and chronology of antennae tumuli had remained undocumented. Two AMS radiocarbon dates place the burial between 4417 and 4100 cal BP, providing the first absolute chronology for this type of monument in the Atlantic Sahara. These results position antennae tumuli at the end of the Late Neolithic sequence of stone funerary constructions, contemporaneous with crescent-shaped tumuli. Beyond confirming their funerary function, this study helps address the scarcity of chronological and cultural data relevant to understanding the development of prehistoric mortuary traditions in the region and offers new perspectives for future comparative studies across the Sahara.
Sensory research on San rock art has often focused on whether acoustic effects influenced the selection of places to be painted or engraved. This article addresses the issue from a different perspective by examining the auditory affordances of Game Pass shelter, one of the most iconic rock art sites in southern Africa. Using impulse-response measurements adapted from room acoustics, we analyzed reverberation, clarity, definition, and sound strength within the shelter. The results show that Game Pass is acoustically “dry,” with low reverberation and local reinforcement of direct sound through early reflections. Rather than producing spectacular sonic effects, the site offers conditions in which sounds involved in performative practices could remain clear while gaining presence at specific listening positions. Although these measurements do not demonstrate that specific performances took place at the shelter, they indicate the kinds of sonic practices Game Pass could have supported. More generally, the study suggests that the acoustic significance of painted shelters may lie less in unusual phenomena than in how their auditory affordances facilitate performances involving sound and contribute to multisensory engagement with rock art.
Bored disc fragments of quartzitic sandstone were excavated from Welgevonden Rock Shelter and collected from the surface of the talus slope of Dwaalhoek 11 Rock Shelter on Kaingo Game Reserve in the Waterberg. The fragments represent stages of manufacture, breakage, and occasional recycling as grinders. Naturally flat slabs were knapped, often bifacially, to shape discs. Then, small, rounded hollows were pecked to thin the center of both disc faces. Finally, a central hole was pecked and/or punched, probably using a short, narrow stone reamer. Large, sharp-edged discs may have been hafted axes. Small bored discs resemble stone spindle whorls used by Iron Age farmers, but they were probably imitations for ritual purposes. Eiland facies ceramic sherds were also excavated. Since farmers did not live in rock shelters, it seems likely that makers of Eiland ceramics used Welgevonden for working with rain. The performance of drilling discs to make spindle whorls may have been part of the ritual. A rock art motif at a nearby site suggests that the area was also used by Bushmen for working with rain. Conceptually, threads are important for Bushmen and for Iron Age farmers, and both groups link them to rain. Threads spun on spindle whorls are woven into fine cotton for Iron Age chiefs, who are charged with producing rain for their subjects. When Bushman rain specialists trance, they climb threads to access the sky. Here, or from water pits, they use threads to lead rain animals to slaughter.
Decades of research on iron production in south-central Africa have emphasized the myriad ways that iron smelting and smithing formed fundamental political, economic, and technological institutions throughout the region. The specific socio-technical decisions ironworkers employed during production, and the ways that iron production practices shaped local and regional political economies, are nonetheless always historically specific and culturally mediated processes. This paper brings together historical, ethnographic, metallurgical, archaeological, and geophysical data from the Machile Valley, Western Zambia. In doing so, we detail dramatic and non-uniform spatial, social, and technical variations in smelting and smithing practices over the past 1000 years. That these variations and innovations in practice occur within a 40-km stretch of the Machile Valley underscores the nuance that can emerge from locally focused research, and hints at the region’s place in broader historical trends in south-central Africa.
This article examines the impact of colonial borders on the interpretation of medieval archaeology in the Horn of Africa, focusing on the region now divided between Ethiopia and Somaliland. The boundary established in the 1930s fragmented what had historically been an integrated cultural and economic landscape, leading to uneven research trajectories and hindering the reconstruction of historical processes whose scope transcended modern political limits. Through an archaeological project conducted between 2022 and 2025 in the Aw Bare and Harawo woredas of Ethiopia’s Somali Region, nineteen sites—fifteen previously unknown for the academic literature—were identified and documented, allowing for a reassessment of medieval Muslim settlement patterns between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. The results reveal a hierarchical sedentary occupation, ranging from major urban centers such as Aw Bare and Aw Boba to medium-sized villages, small hamlets, and isolated dwellings, alongside defensive structures and specialized cemeteries. Excavations at Aiyanle produced a detailed stratigraphic sequence, imported materials, and radiocarbon dates that place the site’s peak during the rule of the Barr Saʿd al-Dīn Sultanate, followed by a decline associated with its collapse in the late sixteenth century. In parallel, substantial evidence of nomadic occupation was recorded, including ritual aggregation sites, cemeteries, and craft-related activity areas. Together, these data reveal a densely occupied and highly complex landscape in which sedentary and nomadic communities interacted dynamically. The findings also challenge interpretations shaped by contemporary borders and offer new insights into territorial organization, economic strategies, and religious practices in the medieval Muslim Horn of Africa.
