The Forging of Contemporary Identities: the Proto-Historic Period between 1500 and 1700

The impact of the political restructuring that occurred in the Bosutswe region as Great Zimbabwe and then Khami rose to power is presently poorly known. In the Francistown area south of the Shashi River, the presence of Zimbabwe and Khami stonewalled settlements suggests that political and cultural developments there were closely aligned with southwestern Zimbabwe. Related ruins on the southern and eastern edges of the Makgadikgadi pans, however, suggest a more divergent historical trajectory - one that incorporated Khoe-speaking as well as Bantu peoples into a more complex and multiethnic political matrix (Figure 12). Bosutswe continued to be occupied by households using a cruder form of Lose ceramics. But at the end of its occupation around CE 1700, the remains of seven widely spaced stone-walled ellipses were constructed that probably served as household windbreaks - the hilltop was no longer the preserve of an exclusive elite. Similar stone ellipses are found on hilltops far to the west along the southern margins of the Makgadikgadi, but these are yet to be investigated by archaeologists. Their relationship to the cultural sequence at Bosutswe, and to the Zimbabwe and Khami period ruins in this area is also unknown. In addition, walled-off promontories that dominate the eroded headlands of the sandveld-hardveld boundary between Toutswe, Bosutswe, and the Makgadikgadi suggest that some eighteenth century settlements were sited with defense as a consideration. But the political and economic context of such unrest is uncertain, leaving the historical relationship of these ruins to contemporary constructions of social and cultural identity along the margins the Kalahari tantalizingly close, but unresolved.

See also: Africa, South: Herders, Farmers, and Metallurgists of South Africa; Interaction of Farmers, Herders, and Foragers; Animal Domestication; Political Complexity, Rise of; Social Inequality, Development of.