Macro use-wear identifiers on lithic scrapers and behavioural shifts at Little Muck Shelter, SLCA

Abstract

The arrival of farmer groups in southern Africa, from the early first millennium CE, is thought to have influenced forager behavioural patterns. Understanding these behavioural shifts are important not only to examine how foragers adjusted their ways of living to accommodate new opportunities, but also their contributions to local economies. In the Shashe-Limpopo confluence area this is of particular interest because it was here that southern Africa’s earliest state-level society appeared, based at Mapungubwe c. 1220 CE. Forager participation is known through trade wealth that appears in their camps during this period, but little more is known. At Little Muck Shelter, a forager site occupied from before contact until the end of the Mapungubwe phase, increases in lithic scrapers has been associated with trade with farmer groups and while it is clear what foragers received, it is not known what they used to obtain these goods. To assess this, experimentation was used to identify macro-use wear on cryptocrystalline scrapers and in turn to determine scraper use at Little Muck. The experimental results and their comparison with the archaeological remains show that scrapers were used on a variety of materials throughout the site’s occupation, however, two general phases of activity were observed. In the pre-contact levels wood and animal hide was worked more often than bone that dominate scraper-related activities after the arrival of farmer groups. There is also an increase in bone points and shafts during this time, which could indicate that Little Muck was a manufacturing site for hunting implements used to obtain wild game that could be traded with farmers. This research shows that forger and farmer interactions were complex and included shifts in behavioural activities as a response to the appearance of new social and economic opportunities. Moreover, our findings demonstrate that foragers were active within the local economy during the rise of state-level society in southern Africa.