the rock art of the hunter-gatherers in southern africa
Diversity in Late Stone Age Art in Zimbabwe An Elemental and Mineralogical Study of Pigments (Ochre) from Pomongwe Cave, Matobo Hills, Western Zimbabwe
Jonathan Nhunzvi, Ancila Nhamo, Laure Dayet Stéphanie Touron & Millena Frouin Jonathan Nhunzvi is a holder of a master’s degree in Archaeology from the University of Zimbabwe. He is interested in rock art, Stone Age and archaeological management. Ancila Nhamo is currently a Research Specialist in Humanities and Social Sciences in the Research and Innovation Directorate at the University of Zimbabwe. She is also a senior lecturer of Archaeology and Heritage Studies in the Department of History. Her interests are in rock art and archaeological management, conservation and sustainable usage. Laure Dayet, associate researcher, UMR 5608TRACES Stéphanie Touron, holder of a PhD in Geology, is the head of the Rock Art Conservation Department at the Laboratory of Research for Historical Monuments in France. Her research is focussed on environmental conditions for conservation, identication of constitutive materials of art and its medium, and sanitary assessments of rock art. Millena Frouin, holder of a PhD in Earth Sciences and working as a geoarchaeologist for more than 10 years, is now involved in Rock art and Megalith conservation at the Research Laboratory for Historical Monuments. Ochre is a common archaeological artefact that is widespread discovered in Iron Age, Late Stone Age (LSA) and Middle Stone Age (MSA) contexts throughout Africa (Watts, 2002). According to Watts (2002), a considerable ochre record exists for both the MSA (250 000-40 000 BP) and LSA (40 000-2 000 BP) of southern Africa. The exploitation of ochre had become common place and continues into the MSA, the LSA, historical and ethnographic periods. Despite this, little work has been done on these assemblages and ochre variability and sourcing patterns are not well understood for any of the periods. This study analysed ochre samples from Pomongwe Trench V excavated by Walker in 1979. These are housed at the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Science in Harare. Geological samples from surrounding sources were also studied in order to analyse the sourcing patterns by ancient communities residing at Pomongwe in different periods of the site’s occupational history as evidenced
from other researches (Dayet et al, 2015; Porraz et al, 2013). At Pomongwe Cave, ochre occurs in all the 14 levels of Walker’s Trench V. Cooke (1963) also reported the presence of ochre in his excavations of Trench 1-3. There is evidence that ochre was used for various purposes such as making pigment for rock art, colouring objects such as beads, bone tools and body painting (Walker, 1995). But little is known of the elemental, mineralogical composition of the ochre as well as where it was sourced. There was also little information on variation of utilization of this resource over time and patterns of preference for different types of ochre, especially for the different purposes. For example, was ochre used for rock art the same way that for colouring beads and body painting? Thus, the meaning of this variability in types of ochre to the socio-economic and technological practices of the LSA at Pomongwe Cave is not known (Dayet et al, 2013; Hughes and Solomon 2000).
Lesedi #23 | Carnets de terrain | IFAS-Recherche | Novembre 2020
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