Google Earth, GIS and stone-walled structures in southern Gauteng, South Africa

摘要

In South Africa, air photos were used in the 1960s and 1970s to plot distribution maps of pre-colonialstone-walled structures in order to study the peopling of this landscape. Different architectural stylesof stone-walled structures were attributed to different cultures, who shared a mixed agricultural andpastoralist economic base and a cattle centered world-view. New technologies such as Google Earthsatellite imagery as well as Geographic Information System software justify revisiting these structures asthey facilitate more complex analyses of larger databases. The spatial analysis of remotely sensedsettlement data from the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve near Johannesburg shows significant changes insettlement patterns from dispersed homesteads to nucleated towns during the last two or threecenturies before colonial times. These changes echo similar patterns reported in the neighboring NorthWest Province, where they have been interpreted as a sequence of evolution in social, political andeconomic complexity. In the Suikerbosrand reserve climate change, conflict and other factors may havehelped bring about the observed changes in settlement patterns.