Stone kraal settlements in South Africa

SYNOPSIS

During recent years several expeditions have searched for the “lost city” which was mentioned by G. A. Farini. The author is of the opinion that there is only one type of ruin in the Southern Bechuanaland Protectorate, the Western Transvaal and in the Northern Cape Province of the Union, namely certain stone’ kraal villages on the hill tops and near present and former watercourses. He has located about 110 sites of such villages. Several ancient travellers of the last ‘century suspected that the builders of these stone structures belonged to some higher developed race, while more recent ideas tend to attribute the origin of the ruins to South African Bantu tribes. In this article the relation between the sites of ruins and Bantu historical places and migrations is discussed. The comparison of the history, ancient places of residence, estimated numbers of ancient populations, the use of neolithic stone implements, etc., proves that these stone structures are older than the earliest Bantu immigration which took place about 1300 A.D. The general cultural pattern of the stone builders is typical of the late neolithic, with mining activities, stock breeding, agricultural terracing and irrigation, monoliths, thick pottery and small stone implements, type of graves, the building of long, fairly straight walls, animal sacrifices, etc. This culture appears to be contemporary with the late megalithic in Eastern Africa (about 600–1000 A.D.), and it may have existed even up to 1300 A.D. In the author's opinion a distinction should be made between three historical layers which have their original historical and cultural connections in North‐East Africa and Southern Arabia, vis.

1.	The Bantu immigrations of the Shoko‐Mbire (1450 A.D.), Roswi and Venda into Southern Rhodesia, having certain traditions linking up with the stone builders and miners;
2.	The late megalithic in Abyssinia and Rhodesia, with large stone structures (600–1000 A.D.); and
3.	Stone structures under discussion in this article, being a late neolithic with strong megalithic influence (beginning about 900 B.C. in East Africa, and lasting up to 900 or 1300 A.D. in South, Africa).