An archaeological investigation into the social structure of a stone-walled site in the North West Province, South Africa

Abstract

This master’s study concerns a Tswana stone-walled site in the North West Province. Within this province, the Zeerust-Rustenburg-Pilanesberg region has been of particular interest to Tswana settlement studies. In this region, the Tswana built stone-walled settlements from the mid 17th to the 19th century CE; altering their settlement style from dispersed to aggregated during this time. The aggregated settlements reflect a centralisation of socio-political authority in the region. However, prior research has focussed predominantly on these aggregated settlements, with little research conducted on small-scaled sites. To further understand the communities inhabiting this region during this time we need to look at varying scaled sites. A more nuanced view of regional interaction, group association, and identity is formed from this perspective. This research utilises historical, ethnographic, and archaeological data to interpret a small scaled site, termed Lebenya. The historical data presents a possible identity of the past community who inhabited the site, the Phiring. However, the archaeological data could not conclusively link the site to this past group. Nonetheless, the archaeological data presents new spatial and excavated data for the region, specifically expanding the range of documented small-scaled sites.