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Catchment Survey in the Karonga District: a Landscape-Scale Analysis of Provisioning and Core Reduction Strategies During the Middle Stone Age of Northern Malawi

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Abstract

The landscape of northern Malawi is defined by several river catchments that drain from the highlands in the west into Lake Malawi in the east. Many thousands of Middle Stone Age (MSA) artefacts are present on the surface, in particular, in areas where sedimentary units assigned to the Chitimwe Beds are exposed. The unique configuration of the region and its exposures makes it possible to address landscape-scale questions about MSA behaviour that augment information derived from excavated assemblages. In this study, data are derived from initial results of surveys conducted in 2012 which focussed on how lithic raw materials (in the form of cobbles) and core technology (in the form of mapped and analysed cores) are distributed across the landscape relative to different landforms, geologies and one another. These data are used to examine if differences in core reduction technology occur in different catchment areas with different raw material quantities and qualities, and to test hypotheses about lithic provisioning scenarios. This allows for examination of core reduction technologies in relation to raw material sources via surface finds, on a larger regional scale than is usually possible from excavations. Different catchments show differences in the type and quality of the raw material, with higher-quality quartzites occurring in the North Rukuru catchment and declining to the south. This is reflected in the types of materials that MSA people chose to use for the production of stone tools. However, differences in raw material selection and distance from cobbles did not influence preferred core reduction strategies, and most cores cluster together near cobble sources. This suggests that throughout the MSA in the study area, core reduction strategies were highly conserved even while raw material use remained flexible, and cores were not regularly transported as part of a provisioning strategy.

Resumé

Le paysage du nord du Malawi est caractérisé par la présence de divers bassins hydrographiques des rivières qui s’écoulent des régions montagneuses de l’ouest vers le Lake Malawi, à l’est. Des milliers d’artefacts de l’Âge de la pierre moyen (MSA) sont dispersés dans ce paysage, en particulier dans les zones où les sédiments de Chitimwe Beds sont exposés. La richesse et le caractère unique de ce paysage, permettent de soulever de nouvelles questions concernant le mode de vie des hommes de MSA. Ces nouvelles questions enrichissent les informations apportées par les fouilles. Dans cette recherche, des données, sur lesquelles celle-ci a été basée, proviennent de ‘surveys’ effectuées en 2012 qui avaient pour objectif de découvrir la manière dont la matière première lithique (sous forme de pavés) et les industries lithiques (sous la forme de nucléus) sont réparties à travers le paysage. Ces données ont été tout d’abord utilisées pour examiner s’il existe des différences dans le débitage sur nucléus dans diverses zones à bassins hydrographiques ayant des quantités et des qualités de matière première diverses et ensuite pour vérifier les hypothèses concernant les différentes options d’approvisionnement lithique. Les résultats mettent en lumière que différents bassins hydrographiques laissent entrevoir des différences dans la qualité et la quantité de matière première. Les quartzites de meilleure qualité sont présents dans le bassin hydrographique de la rivière North Rukuru mais cette présence diminue en allant vers le sud. Ceci est reflété dans le choix du type de matière première fait par les hommes MSA pour la production de leurs outils. Néanmoins, les différences dans la sélection de matière première et la distance des pavés n’ont pas eu d’influences sur le débitage sur nucléus qu’ils préféraient. Cela suggère de ce fait que tout au long de MSA, les techniques de débitage du nord du Malawi étaient hautement conservatives et cela en dépit de la diversité de matière première présente et les nucléus n’étaient pas régulièrement transportés comme faisant partie d’une stratégie d’approvisionnement.

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Acknowledgments

This article could not have been written without the help of many people. Permits from the Department of Antiquity of Malawi were provided by Dr. Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu as Director of Culture and Potiphar Kaliba and Chrissy Chiumia as subsequent Directors of Antiquities. We are grateful to Davie Simengwa, James Flittner and Kingsley Pamanda, for assistance on the surveys. We are also grateful to Sheila Nightingale for the regular exchange of ideas about lithic analysis. We owe a special word of thanks to Menno Welling and Andrew Zipkin, who assisted in many ways with developing the survey methods. Preliminary age estimates summarised and informally reported here were from Dr. Jeong-Heon Choi and Prof. Steven Forman. Dr. David Wright, Prof. Ramón Arrowsmith, Marina Bravo Foster, Flora Schilt, and Scott Robinson were always ready to give us advice on many geomorphologic and geologic issues. The chi-squared trend value formula was kindly provided by Dr. Tyler Faith. This manuscript benefited greatly from comments by two anonymous reviewers. Topographic data were from ASTER GDEM, a product of METI and NASA. Funding for this part of MEMSAP work was provided by the Australian Research Council DP110101305, the National Geographic-Waitt Foundation W115-10, a charitable donation by Thomas Jones, and The University of Queensland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Science, Archaeology Program, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia

    Jessica C. Thompson

  2. Centre for Archaeological Science, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia

    Alex Mackay

  3. African Heritage Ltd.—Research & Consultancy, P.O. Box 622, Zomba, Malawi

    Victor de Moor

  4. Malawi Department of Culture, Tourism House, Private Bag 326, Lilongwe 3, Malawi

    Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu

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Thompson, J.C., Mackay, A., de Moor, V. et al. Catchment Survey in the Karonga District: a Landscape-Scale Analysis of Provisioning and Core Reduction Strategies During the Middle Stone Age of Northern Malawi. Afr Archaeol Rev 31, 447–478 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-014-9167-2

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