Maizegrindstones,Madikwepotteryandochreminingin.PDFVIP

Southern African Humanities Vol. 18 (2) Pages 51–70 Pietermaritzburg December, 2006 Maize grindstones, Madikwe pottery and ochre mining in precolonial South Africa Thomas N. Huffman School of Geography, Archaeology Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits, 2050 South Africa; huffmant@geoarc.wits.ac.za ABSTRACT Salvage excavations at a sixteenth to seventeenth century Madikwe village near Thabazimbi, Limpopo yielded maize grindstones associated with burnt house floors. Madikwe villagers also mined red ochre with the same techniques as other Madikwe people used to mine tin at Rooiberg, only 30 km away. Maize probably entered the area from Maputo along trade networks established for the tin. The indications are that maize was cultivated in the region some 150 years earlier than in KwaZulu-Natal. KEY WORDS: Southern Africa, Late Iron Age, Sotho-Tswana, Madikwe pottery, tin, ochre, mining, early Portuguese trade, maize, grindstones. INTRODUCTION Maize is cultivated throughout southern Africa today, and its original introduction is therefore an important question. As a New World crop, it came from Brazil with the Portuguese, and it could have been cultivated in southern Africa as early as the sixteenth century. Conventional wisdom, however, places its introduction at the end of the eighteenth century, in northern KwaZulu-Natal. To recognise the presence of maize, Iron Age archaeologists use a specific set of grindstones; in particular, a large pitted quern that takes a heavy hand-stone (e.g. Huffman 2004: 104). Similar to the mano and metate of the Americas (e.g. Adams 1977: 21), the historic association between these grindstones and maize has been known for several decades (e.g. Walton 1953). Indeed, maize grind