AN ARCHAEOZOOLOGY OF THE NDZUNDZA NDEBELE INTHE STEELPOORT RIVER VALLEY, MPUMALANGA,SOUTH AFRICA, c. 1700 AD — 1883 AD

摘要

This paper presents an analysis of the faunal remains fromthree farmer or Late Iron Age sites in the Steelpoort RiverValley, occupied c. AD 1700-1900 by Ndzundza Ndebele. TheNdzundza were forced, successively, to relocate fromKwaMaza and Esikhunjini to KoNomtjarhelo as a result of con-tinual fighting among themselves, other farmer communities,and with the British and the Boers. I examine their subsistencebehaviour during this period through an archaeozoologicalanalysis, identifying what species, sex and age of animals wereutilized by the Ndzundza. This examination of daily lifethrough animal procurement, during a violent and unstablepolitical period in South African history has produced a 200year trajectory that shows people trying to perpetuate culturalnorms in ever more abnormal conditions until they broke withtradition and followed necessity by abandoning cattle, huntingwild game on a larger scale, and exclusively tending smallherds of small stock.