Archaeological survey in the Machili Valley, Zambia: a report on the 2019 preliminary field season

ABSTRACT

After c. AD 700 the Machili Valley in Western Province, Zambia, is exemplary of the type of ‘in-between’ places that made up large portions of the African continent where states did not develop, but that were anything but isolated and undifferentiated. Limited archaeological surveys in the 1950s to 1970s situate the Machili Valley into a larger context of Iron Age life in Zambia in particular and in south-central Africa more broadly. This paper details early results from survey work in Machili conducted in 2019 that employed a combination of geophysical and shovel test survey methods to re-survey previously documented sites, identify new ones and study localised variations in iron production practices in the valley. Results suggest geographic and temporal changes in settlement patterns and iron production practices, as well as in the spatial relationships between domestic areas and iron smelting and smithing locations among Early Farming Communities in Zambia.

RÉSUMÉ

Après 700 de notre ère environ, la vallée de Machili dans la Province de l’Ouest de Zambie est exemplaire du type de lieux ‘intermédiaires’ qui constituaient de grandes parties du continent africain : des régions où aucun État ne se développa, mais qui étaient loin d’être isolées et indifférenciées. Des études archéologiques limitées dans les années 1950 à 1970 situent la vallée de Machili dans le contexte plus large de la vie à l'Âge du Fer en Zambie en particulier et dans le centre-sud de l'Afrique en général. Cet article détaille les premiers résultats de travaux de prospection à Machili, menés en 2019. Ces travaux employèrent une combinaison de méthodes d'enquête géophysiques et d'essais à la pelle, afin de ré-évaluer des sites précédemment documentés, en identifier de nouveaux et étudier les variations localisées dans les pratiques de production du fer dans la vallée. Les résultats suggèrent des changements géographiques et temporels dans les modèles d’habitat et les pratiques de production du fer, ainsi que dans les relations spatiales entre zones domestiques et sites de fonte et de forge du fer parmi les premières communautés agricoles de Zambie.

KEYWORDS:

• survey
• magnetometry
• Iron Age
• early farming villages
• Zambia

Acknowledgements

Research in Machili would not have been possible without an extensive list of people. The 2019 team is indebted to the residents of Sichili, especially Father Gregory Mumba for his boundless generosity with his time and advice as we began the project. Our thanks go as well to Nduna Skole, Nduna Nanga and Nduna Bwina for their interest in the project and to the secretary to the Nduna Nanga for his help in locating Nicholas Katanekwa’s original excavation trench. We are grateful to Nicholas Katanekwa for his help and enthusiastic support of the project. We wish to offer special thanks to Joseph Mukuba and his family for their warm hospitality, help and stewardship of the Kanono site, Dr Kathryn de Luna for her ongoing mentorship and advice (and the use of her car), the Bantu Mobility Research Project for use of their excavation equipment, Evin Grody (Columbia U.) for a preliminary analysis of the Kanono faunal remains, Dr Adria LaViolette, Dr Francis Musonda and Dr Dorothy Mwansa (University of Zambia) and George Mudenda and Maggie Katongo (Livingstone Museum). Permission to conduct our 2019 fieldwork was granted through the National Heritage Conservation Commission of Zambia and the Livingstone Museum. Maps throughout this paper were created using ArcGIS® software by Esri and are used here under license. All photographs by ZM, unless noted otherwise. Our fieldwork was supported by the Department of Anthropology of the University of Virginia and through a University of Virginia Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant awarded to ZM.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zach McKeeby

Zachary McKeeby is a teaching assistant and PhD candidate in archaeology at the University of Virginia. His research interests focus on localised variation in craft production practices in Zambia c. AD 1000 and on the ways that smaller-scale and non-centralised ‘hinterland spaces’ in the interior of Africa were active participants in larger regional, continental and global networks.

Lorraine Hu

Lorraine Hu is a PhD candidate at Washington University in St Louis. Her research interests focus on the mortuary landscape of early pastoralists in southern Kenya c. 3000–1000 BP. Her dissertation research there examines variability in the production of cremation burials and aims to reconstruct cremation processes through the integration of geoarchaeological and osteological analyses to explore pyre technology, temporality and body treatment.

William Mundiku

William Mundiku is currently a part-time tutor at Spark College, Zambia. He studied Archaeology and History with Civic Education at the University of Zambia. His research focus lies in economic history, specifically agricultural dynamics.

Richard Mbewe

Richard Mbewe is an archaeologist and Cultural Resource Management specialist with the Zambian National Heritage Conservation Commission (NHCC). He received his MA in archaeology from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and currently works in the NHCC’s Livingstone Branch where he conducts active field research and oversees archaeological work in Zambia’s Southern and Western Provinces.