Meanwhile, what happened in our country? People first started practising agriculture in the present South Africa approximately 2000 years ago. With farming activities spreading from the coastal areas to the river valleys on the central plateau, farmers were obliged to adapt their implements, weapons, and clothing to changing situations. All those living in the small farming communities more or less had equal power and wealth and prosperous towns developed in time, due to the expansion of trading in cattle, ivory, gold, etc.

The earliest farmers south of the Limpopo River lived along the Indian Ocean coastline where the climate was mild, the rainfall adequate and the soil fertile. They cultivated grains and stored their harvests in pots and also gathered seafood. However by 1000 A.D., many settlements had been established in the interior.

We are going to find out more about three interesting settlements, namely those at Mzonjani, Broederstroom and the Boomplaas cave. But first take some time to study the time line and the map.

Connect column A and B by only writing the correct symbol from column B in column A.

Figure 1

Mzonjani

Quite recently a group of road engineers who were busy building a new road north of Durban stopped their work for days on end to allow archaeologists to do archaeological excavations after bulldozers had revealed shards of ancient pottery. The excavation revealed more pottery shards, seashells, stones, animal bones and iron screws.

Figure 2

This was identified as the site of Mzonjani, one of the well-known agricultural villages of Southern Africa. People driving along the N2 highway approximately 20 km north of Durban drive over this site every day without realising that a Southern African village dating from about 280 A.D. was situated here.

(a) Conduct a group discussion based on the following questions:

The Boomplaas cave

People inhabited the Boomplaas cave in the Kango, near Oudtshoorn in the Southern Cape over a long period of time. When archaeologists excavated a cross section of this cave, each layer of soil that they examined told a story about a different period in the history of the cave and the people who had inhabited it.

b) Study the diagram about the Boomplaas cave that follows and answer the following questions:

1. Identify the weapons that were used during the following periods:

2. What are the activities that the people undertook?

3. Which kind of people lived there at about 250 A.D. and what did they do?

4. What can we discover from earthenware and domesticated animals?

Figure 3

Broederstroom

Broederstroom is one of the best-known early agricultural villages situated south of the Limpopo River. It is situated against the southern slopes of the Magalies River valley, in what used to be the south-western Transvaal. The people who lived here about 350 to 600 A.D. were hunters who also kept cattle, as it was a bushy environment with sufficient water and pastures approximately two days’ distance on foot.

After 600 A.D. the village was abandoned, to be discovered again through scrupulous investigation by archaeologists linked to the University of the Witwatersrand. Floors and foundations of the buildings of long ago are all that have remained.

The remains, however, indicate that the houses were mostly round and had floors of hardened plastered clay. The roofs were probably made of reeds supported by wooden beams. The excavation also revealed decorated clay pots of varying shapes and sizes and copper objects, and it was possible to learn that iron was smelted and processed at the site.

c) Study the following map and indicate whether the statements that follow represent facts or opinions:

Figure 4

Map of the terrain

Activity 1

(1) d (3) f (5) g (7) b

(2) f (4) a (6) c

Activity 2

(a) Yes

(b) (1) Sinkers (fishing), arrows and hand axes (stone, wood), arrowheads

of bone

(Middle Stone Age) Materials became more advanced (Late Stone Age)

(c) f, f, f