Heritage Cases

Archaeological evidence suggests that prior to AD 850 the Middle Limpopo Valley was almost exclusively occupied by mobile forager groups. Between AD 900-1250, new groups of Iron Age farmers, associated with Zhizo ceramics, settled in the SLCA (Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area). While these groups may have initially occupied the region to exploit elephant herds for ivory hunting (Forssman et al 2014:13), the permanence of their later settlements suggests that the basin provided sufficient resources that could sustain agricultural settlements and support trade networks (Huffman 2007:366; Forssman et al 2014:13). Spatial and temporal variations in the environment directly influence the potential grazing and food abundance during specific seasons. It follows that these environmental fluctuations will have a direct influence on the distribution and aggregation of populations, belief systems, cultural systems and settlement patterns (Monks 1981:179). As a result, understanding seasonality is important because it is a direct reflection of how people respond to spatial and temporal variations. Freshwater mussels found in the archaeological record date back to the Later Stone Age, Iron Age and Historic periods (Badenhorst et al 2002). The Pont Drift and Schroda shells can assist in our understanding of what the seasonal variations during the Middle Iron Age.The two sites Pont Drift and Schroda where occupied between (AD 900-1100) and during the excavation process several freshwater mussels where collected and form part of their fauna collections. Shackleton (1973) suggested the use of sclerochronology to estimate seasonality by using the last growth ring of fresh and marine shells to estimate the season of occupation at archaeological sites. With the use of freshwater mussels we can determine season of occupation. Therefore the sites chosen for this project are both long and short term occupational sites, for the purposes of showing seasonal, spatial and temporal movements during the Middle Iron Age period. Freshwater mussels may provide a line of proxy environmental evidence to further our understanding of past human activity at and between Iron Age sites and the environment they lived in. Mussel shells may serve as a record of past environmental proxy data. As they grow the shells accumulate carbon and oxygen from the river or spring they live in.