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Schroda, the Zhizo capital from AD 900 to 1000. 

Schroda, the Zhizo capital from AD 900 to 1000. 

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Class distinction and sacred leadership characterised the Zimbabwe culture, the most complex society in precolonial southern Africa. This complex society evolved between AD 1000 and 1300 at the sites of K2 and Mapungubwe in the Shashe-Limpopo Valley. Tremendous wealth from long distance trade and an increased population stimulated a series of inter...

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Schroda, a Zhizo/Leokwe settlement in the Limpopo Valley, is well known among archaeologists who study the rise of complex societies in southern Africa. Previous research placed the site at the centre of early East Coast trade networks with the southern African interior, elevating it to economic and socio-political prominence in the region during t...

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... This perspective has been extrapolated in the Shashi-Limpopo Basin to distinguish access to the Mapungubwe Oblates made of high-quality glass (i.e., Huffman, 2007, p. 80), primarily recovered within the gold burial graves on the hilltop (Wood, 2005, p. 139;2011, p. 76). In contrast, the presence of few Mapungubwe oblates in commoner areas, mostly being uniform and large-sized cylinders, is highlighted as an indication of the limited access commoner people had to the range of glass beads within the Mapungubwe polity (Huffman, 2000(Huffman, , 2007. While it is true that the majority of oblate beads from Mapungubwe were recovered from elite spaces compared to commoner areas, it is essential not to overlook that only a limited area was excavated in the commoner residences at Mapungubwe, except for the Southern Terrace (Meyer, 1998). ...
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Glass beads first appear in the archaeological record of southern Africa around the mid-first millennium CE, marking the earliest signatures of extensive connections between the southern African region, the East African coast, and the broader Indian Ocean rim. Key research focused on glass beads, particularly from notable southern African polities, like the renowned Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe sites, has laid the groundwork for a regional taxonomic series of these beads, emphasizing their role as indicators of wealth and social status. This paper introduces new data on 59 glass beads from a recently excavated and lesser-known Zimbabwe culture site in the Mberengwa region of south-central Zimbabwe. The analysis employs non-invasive techniques, including typological classification and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The investigation identifies six glass bead series from Chumnungwa, composed of plant ash-lime (v-Na-Ca), vegetable soda-high alumina (v-Na-Al), and soda-based glasses with high-alumina concentrations (m-Na-Al). These beads, widely distributed in Asia and Africa between the eight and seventeenth centuries, shed new light on the geochemistry, provenance, and circulation patterns of glass beads in southern Africa, particularly within a community situated beyond the well-known Iron Age polities. Notably, Chumnungwa emerges as the first known Zimbabwe culture site in southern Africa to yield m-Na-Al 6 glass beads. However, as recently demonstrated at the Toutswe sites in Botswana, it is probable that other Zimbabwe culture sites in the region also possessed m-Na-Al 6 glass beads. These beads may have been misclassified as m-Na-Al 2 glass since this group was only recently unveiled on the East African coast, after the bulk of the currently available literature had been published. Insights drawn from contextual recovery data and Shona anthropology form the basis for an extended discussion on the consumption and sociality of glass beads in Iron Age southern Africa. Ultimately, the study underscores the challenge of typologically categorizing beads into established series without the application of LA-ICP-MS and other scientific approaches.
... The SLRB spans the present-day South Africa-Zimbabwe-Botswana border region, and was South Africa's most important pre-colonial farming region. Populations in the SLRB increased from~1900 to at least~9000 people between AD 880 and AD 1290 (Huffman, 2000). Farming in the SLRB is also thought to have intensified over this period, which coincides with the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) when soils, wetlands and floodplains are likely to have been more suitable for sustaining larger populations (Vogel, 1995;Smith et al., 2007). ...
Article
Soil erosion across South Africa's drylands occurs widely in the form of gullies and badlands (locally termed dongas) that have developed in colluvium and in valley fills along incised rivers. This erosion has commonly been attributed to land mismanagement, particularly since European settlement, but natural factors such as soil properties, local base level fall and climate change have also been invoked. To disentangle human and natural factors, we use optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, supported by documentary and archaeological evidence, to constrain the timing and causes of donga formation at three widely spaced sites across interior South Africa. At all three sites, the exposed stratigraphy indicates that hillslopes and floodplains underwent net sediment accumulation during most of the late Quaternary, and that present‐day deep erosion is of a magnitude unprecedented probably within at least the past 100 ka. OSL ages indicate that the onset of erosion at each site significantly pre‐dates European incursion and instead was broadly coincident with abrupt climatic changes that occurred during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA, ~ ad 900–1300) and Little Ice Age (LIA, ~ ad 1300–1800). Based on correlation with palaeoclimate proxy records, we propose that erosion was triggered by abrupt hydroclimatic oscillations during the MCA, and continued during the LIA in response to climate‐driven, large floods. At these sites, soil type and local base level falls exert secondary controls on the specific locations, processes, rates and depths of erosion. In other areas of South Africa, clear links between land mismanagement and soil erosion have been demonstrated, but for sites where detailed investigations have yet to be undertaken, these findings challenge an often default assumption that soil erosion is necessarily attributable to human factors. Our findings have significant implications for soil erosion control strategies and assessment of South African dryland landscape response to future climate changes.
... Mapungubwe (AD 1237-1697) is one such locality where socio-political and cultural developments are thought to have been established by a farming community near the confluence of Shashe-Limpopo Rivers (Huffman 1996(Huffman , 2007Manyanga 2000;Meyer 2000;Nxumalo 2019Nxumalo , 2021. Mapungubwe is regarded, among many farming sites in southern Africa, as among the most prominent and significant pre-colonial farming sites (Huffman 1996(Huffman , 2000Maggs & O'Connor 2000;Meyer 2000;Nxumalo 2019;Sadr 2008). ...
... This was the period during which early Zhizo farming communities moved into the Shashe-Limpopo Basin and engaged in smelting iron, cultivating crops and exploiting long-distance trade which bolstered a bureaucratic government system (Huffman 1996(Huffman , 2007Manyanga 2006;Wood 2000). Huffman (1996Huffman ( , 2000 has argued that these developments were enabled by a wetter climate. In turn, the decline of Mapungubwe State has been linked to climate changes associated with the Little Ice Age (long-term drying) and large-scale migration out of the middle Limpopo Valley to more favourable regions in Zimbabwe (Huffman 1996(Huffman , 2007Smith et al. 2007). ...
... In turn, the decline of Mapungubwe State has been linked to climate changes associated with the Little Ice Age (long-term drying) and large-scale migration out of the middle Limpopo Valley to more favourable regions in Zimbabwe (Huffman 1996(Huffman , 2007Smith et al. 2007). This, it has been suggested, gave rise to the Zimbabwean culture around the 13th century AD (Huffman 2000). However, the climate hypothesis does not explain the archaeological and historical data, which suggests that some communities may have remained in the middle Limpopo Valley even after the environment deteriorated (Manyanga 2003(Manyanga , 2007O'Connor & Kiker 2004;Smith 1970). ...
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Research projects in the Shashe-Limpopo Basin have witnessed significant developments in the use of conceptual frameworks and multidisciplinary approaches such as electrochemical and geochemical sequencing. Accordingly, there is now data to question the widely accepted model for the evolution of Mapungubwe State (AD 1200–1300) which argues that favourable and unfavourable regional climatic weather conditions (wet and dry) lead to the rise and decline of the State. Floodplain agropastoral activities in the middle Limpopo Valley are a widely assumed hypothesis, despite the general absence of relevant chemical signatures and archaeobotanical data. This article discusses soil sequences and chemical analyses (Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy and Redox Potential) to provide a palaeoenvironmental record of water regimes in relation to Mapungubwe. Findings confirm that geochemical techniques can be used to model or predict aquifer behaviour and the occurrence of groundwater. And, as such, highlighting the need for conservation planners to carefully consider integrative scientific tools to improve conservation practices of archaeological heritage and overexploitation of groundwater resources. Although more data is required, the results obtained allows researchers to begin reframing questions concerned with the links between changing water regimes and social changes, in this case relating to the decline of Mapungubwe. The understanding is important for the management and conservation of the Mapungubwe World Heritage site and surrounding landscape.
... Studies have also considered broader social and economic dynamics over a larger area. This includes the initial settlement of the middle Limpopo Valley by Zhizo-using farmers (Du Piesanie 2008), and the influence that the local abundance of elephant and ivory had on migrations (Huffman 2000(Huffman , 2009). Linked to this latter point is trade, and debates have ensued regarding the influence of local wealth items on society and its timing with the appearance of trade entering from the east African coastline (e.g., Chirikure 2014; Denbow, Klehm & Dussubieux 2015;Denbow 1984Denbow , 1990Huffman 1984Huffman , 2009Huffman , 2015Matshetshe 2001;Pikirayi 2001Pikirayi , 2017Robbins et al. 1998). ...
... Linked to this latter point is trade, and debates have ensued regarding the influence of local wealth items on society and its timing with the appearance of trade entering from the east African coastline (e.g., Chirikure 2014; Denbow, Klehm & Dussubieux 2015;Denbow 1984Denbow , 1990Huffman 1984Huffman , 2009Huffman , 2015Matshetshe 2001;Pikirayi 2001Pikirayi , 2017Robbins et al. 1998). Following this, there have been several contributions and subsequent debates around changes to settlement and social structures that led to the appearance of state-level society (Calabrese 2007;Chirikure et al. 2013Chirikure et al. , 2014Huffman 2000Huffman , 2009Huffman , 2015Huffman & Woodborne 2021;Pikirayi 2001). ...
Article
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The middle Limpopo Valley is best known because it was here that Mapungubwe arose, southern Africa’s first state-level society, appearing around AD 1220. The Mapungubwe state was the culmination of a series of changes and events that date back to about 300 years prior when Zhizo farmers began settling in the region. However, these changes have their roots somewhat earlier when the first farmer groups settled the valley in the early first millennium AD. For nearly a century, Iron Age research has dominated archaeological studies in the valley. Hardly any attention has been paid towards Stone Age foragers, commonly known as hunter-gathers. This article reviews research in the region and presents evidence that depicts foragers as active participants in the rise of Mapungubwe. Through contact with farmers, foragers were able to obtain wealth, participate in the craft economy and develop local status in society. Moreover, during these periods, they were able to maintain their Stone Age lifeways and use their technologies and innovations to contribute to broader social patterns. The article ultimately attempts to more concertedly place foragers into the larger sequence of the Mapungubwe region and recognises their role in local socio-political and economic systems.
... Interdisciplinary research has shown that the Shashi-Limpopo area and its wider landscape experienced variability in temperature and rainfall patterns (Smith, 2005;Ekblom et al., 2011;Woodborne et al., 2015). Some models associate wetter conditions with thriving societies while drier conditions are linked with their collapse (Huffman, 2000(Huffman, , 2008. For example, some climatic reconstructions suggest that between CE 900 and 1300, the region experienced warmer and wetter conditions than today (Woodborne et al., 2015). ...
... Around CE 900, the area was inhabited by people known as Zhizo who engaged in crafting, pastoralism, farming, and long distance trade. Around CE 1000, Leopard's Kopje groups settled in the area displacing, and or absorbing the Zhizo first comers (Huffman, 2000). The wet and warm environment was associated with high productivity such that Leopard's Kopje groups thrived, and established centres of states systems at Mapela Hill and K2/Mapungubwe. ...
... Before our work, what was known about Mapela was based on interpretation of Garlake's report. For example, works by Huffman (2000) placed Mapela as a provincial centre under the state based at Mapungubwe. However, this was based on a poor understanding of the size of Mapela relative to Mapungubwe and the scale of stone walling. ...
Article
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In Africa south of the Zambezi River, archaeologists and other experts have long explored the impact of climate and environmental changes to the development of ancient civilizations during the Iron Age (CE 200–1900). Some of the prevailing thought is however still rooted in environmental deterministic models informed by selected ethnographies, stable isotopes and archaeological evidence. For instance, the drought brought by the medieval Little Ice Age is assumed to have collapsed the civilization at Mapungubwe in the Shashi-Limpopo valley around1300 CE. And yet, within the wider region, and in similar ecological settings, upstream (Shashi and Upper Limpopo) and downstream civilizations (Lower Limpopo), persisted and thrived through the same climatic challenges. We draw on African cosmologies, resilience theory and archaeological evidence from Mapela and Little Mapela to spotlight adaptation strategies utilized by their inhabitants to build resilience through time. The main conclusion is that even in cases of climatic extremes, humans responded to opportunities and constraints in context specific ways.
... The Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area (SLCA) is a biodiverse landscape that has played host to people since the Earlier Stone Age (Kuman et al. 2005;Pollarolo & Kuman 2009). Hunter-gatherers have occupied the broader area since at least ca. 10 890 BC (at Balerno Main Shelter; van Doornum 2008) and continued to do so after the first farmers moved into the SLCA at around AD 350 (Hall & Smith 2000;Huffman 2000;van Doornum 2008;Forssman 2013Forssman , 2014. In the Limpopo River Valley, there was also a succession of large, complex societies, beginning with the 10 th century village of Schroda, followed by K2 (aka Bambandyanalo) and ending with Mapungubwe (Fouché 1937;Gardner 1963;Eloff & Meyer 1981;Hanisch 1981Hanisch , 2002Voigt 1981aVoigt , 1983Calabrese 2000Calabrese , 2007Huffman 2000Huffman , 2009Huffman , 2015Hanisch & Maumela 2002;Nettleton 2002;van Schalkwyk 2002;Antonites AR et al. 2016). ...
... Hunter-gatherers have occupied the broader area since at least ca. 10 890 BC (at Balerno Main Shelter; van Doornum 2008) and continued to do so after the first farmers moved into the SLCA at around AD 350 (Hall & Smith 2000;Huffman 2000;van Doornum 2008;Forssman 2013Forssman , 2014. In the Limpopo River Valley, there was also a succession of large, complex societies, beginning with the 10 th century village of Schroda, followed by K2 (aka Bambandyanalo) and ending with Mapungubwe (Fouché 1937;Gardner 1963;Eloff & Meyer 1981;Hanisch 1981Hanisch , 2002Voigt 1981aVoigt , 1983Calabrese 2000Calabrese , 2007Huffman 2000Huffman , 2009Huffman , 2015Hanisch & Maumela 2002;Nettleton 2002;van Schalkwyk 2002;Antonites AR et al. 2016). The SLCA is an area of archaeological importance because, on both sides of the Limpopo River, it is a landscape within which hunter-gatherers interacted with farming communities, and it is where farming communities developed societal complexity and extensive trade links (e.g., Manyanga 2006;Huffman 2007;Chirikure et al. 2016;Manyanga & Chirikure 2019). ...
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Rain-control in the Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area (SLCA) is one sphere in which hunter-gatherer and farmer interaction is archaeologically visible. One avenue of examining this interaction is through faunal analysis. This paper presents an updated taxa list for one of the identified rain-control sites in the SLCA-Ratho Kroonkop. By identifying the taxa accumulated at Ratho Kroonkop and contextualising them using radiocarbon dates and relevant ethnographies, we were able to determine that particular animals were significant to the people who utilised the location as a rain-control site. Additionally, we were able to establish that this significance continued from the K2 period (AD 1000-1220) to the historic period.
... The Mapungubwe Complex is formed primarily by three main stages of occupation found in the archaeological record. These are the Middle Iron Age sites of Schroda (CE 900-1020), K2 (CE 1020-1220) and Mapungubwe Hill (CE 1220-1295) (Huffman, 2000;Antonites, 2016;Tiley-Nel, 2017). ...
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This book is a outcome of the proceedings the Modern Heritage of Africa Research Collective's (MoHoA) first symposium that took place in September 2021 hosted by the University of Cape Town. The goal of MoHoA is to support the sustainable agenda in Africa through the research, protection, utilization and reinterpretation its modern heritage and to contribute to improving the implementation of the World Heritage Convention on the African continent. The Programme aims to: • examine the meanings of Modern Heritage of Africa and to understand the role this heritage can play in promoting sustainability, notably SDG 11, of the human settlement in Africa; • develop skills among heritage practitioners and other public and private sector stakeholders in associated fields, including research, training, conservation, advocacy and management; • raise awareness about the significance of Modern Heritage of Africa amongst different stakeholders, including academics, heritage practitioners, developers, policy makers and civil society, especially amongst women and youth; • address the underrepresentation of the Modern Heritage of Africa in the World Heritage List by building capacity amongst heritage practitioners in the identification and presentation of properties to be inscribed on Tentative Lists and potential future World Heritage nominations. The proceedings of the conference papers address these objectives revealing a transdisciplinary approach to generate circular knowledge and undertake critical research on the definition, identification and sustainable conservation of Africa’s modern heritage
... AD 1220, called Mapungubwe (Huffman, 2015). The growth of this kingdom, which spanned some 30,000 km 2 and comprised 10,700 people (Huffman & Woodborne, 2021), included developments that began at least 300 years before and even earlier if one includes the settlement of this landscape by migrating Iron Age farmer groups (Huffman, 2000). Close to a century of research has now been carried out examining this sequence, which began when the site of Mapungubwe was introduced to the western world in the 1930s (Carruthers, 2006). ...
... The middle Limpopo Valley has entertained many archaeological endeavours since the site of Mapungubwe was examined by scholars after being reported to the University of Pretoria by the van Graan family (Eloff & Meyer, 1981;Fagan, 1964;van Riet Lowe, 1936) (see Fig. 2 for site locations). The subsequent finding of golden items in royal burials on the site's hilltop (Steyn, 2007) and the associated studies into urbanism (Huffman, 2000(Huffman, , 2009(Huffman, , 2015, a topic of particular interest in the western world (Manyanga et al., 2010), has elevated the region's status to a key archaeological landscape. As a direct result, research has been primarily interested in the local Iron Age, or farmer, sequence, whose prehistory includes Mapungubwe (Chirikure, 2014;Chirikure et al., 2014;Eloff & Meyer, 1981;Fagan, 1964;Huffman, 2000Huffman, , 2009Huffman, , 2015Manyanga et al., 2000;Pikirayi, 2007Pikirayi, , 2017. ...
... The subsequent finding of golden items in royal burials on the site's hilltop (Steyn, 2007) and the associated studies into urbanism (Huffman, 2000(Huffman, , 2009(Huffman, , 2015, a topic of particular interest in the western world (Manyanga et al., 2010), has elevated the region's status to a key archaeological landscape. As a direct result, research has been primarily interested in the local Iron Age, or farmer, sequence, whose prehistory includes Mapungubwe (Chirikure, 2014;Chirikure et al., 2014;Eloff & Meyer, 1981;Fagan, 1964;Huffman, 2000Huffman, , 2009Huffman, , 2015Manyanga et al., 2000;Pikirayi, 2007Pikirayi, , 2017. However, the rise of Mapungubwe has its roots in the early first millennium AD when farmers began settling the region (Huffman, 2009). ...
Article
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Later Stone Age industries are often applied pan-regionally despite having been defined in specific environments that possess their own set of underlying conditions. Archaeologists have expressed concern with this approach as it may generate an appearance of homogeneity when in fact technological industries are variable. This study examines the middle Limpopo Valley’s mid- to late Holocene Later Stone Age cultural sequence and compares its various attributes to more broadly defined Later Stone Age industries from that period. Specific attention is given to the formal tool and core components as these are typically used to ascribe industries to assemblages along with chronology. Contrasting the valley’s Later Stone Age sequence with stone tool industries brings into question the influence that socio-economic systems had over stone tool producers and whether stone tool forms and preferences reflect social change. The middle Limpopo Valley is ideally suited for such an assessment as it was here that southern Africa’s earliest state-level society arose, Mapungubwe at c. AD 1220, several centuries after farmer groups settled the region. During these developments, stone tool-producing foragers were present, and they interacted with farmer groups in several ways. However, the analysis presented here fails to identify confidently regular change in forager stone tool assemblages linked to social developments and shows reasonable alignment with stone tool industry definitions. Examining change in late Holocene society of this landscape, and perhaps others, may need to consider a variety of cultural indicators in combination with stone tools.
... Many archaeological sources claim that the climatic episodes experienced in southern Africa from the end of the first millennium to the second millennium ad presented different scenarios to different societies and the impression is that societies developed or declined due to climatic shifts, hence this probe for clarity and convincing explanations for that coincidence. The construction of the chronology of early states in southern Africa has been dominated by the linear notion that Mapungubwe state (ad 1220-1290) was the first, followed by Great Zimbabwe state (ad 1300-1450) and Khami state in ad 1450-1830 (Huffman, 1982(Huffman, , 1996(Huffman, , 2000. However, this idea has been challenged by new views which accommodate the peer-polity development idea (Chirikure et al, 2013: 76;Manyanga et al, 2000). ...
Article
The history of past civilisations in southern Africa from AD 700 to AD 1450 has engendered unresolved debates on the social complexities and ultimate decline of these powerful states. The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe state systems in southern Africa through an environmental perspective by taking into consideration human responses to persistent droughts and dry spells. The theories underpinning this study are derived from contemporary societal responses to similar environmental hardships in the Bikita and Chivi districts of southern Zimbabwe. Using rainfall data, and interviews with chiefs, villagers, farmers and experts, this study notes that the occurrence of droughts and dry-spell experiences interfere with sociopolitical organisation. The concepts of sustainability, resilience and transformation are used to explain what could have transpired in societies in southern Africa in the second millennium AD in the face of persistent droughts and dry spells.
... This period, which nurtured some of the earliest recognizable chiefdoms in southern Africa, did not develop during favorable climatic conditions. Proponents of the environment and climate model suggest that these 8th-and 9th-century social formations built their economies on intensive hunting of elephants and trade in ivory (Hanisch 1980;Huffman 2000Huffman , 2007. It is unlikely that a whole civilization, covering expansive regions in eastern Botswana, western Zimbabwe, and the Shashi-Limpopo basin, could subsist on ivory trade and trinkets, and this assumption clearly demonstrates a misunderstanding of precolonial Africa's economic base. ...
... The agricultural and industrial base had to be functional to sustain the civilizations and these Zhizo settlements had to adapt to the inherent climatic shifts typical of southern Africa. By 900 CE, a new ceramic tradition, that of Leopard's Kopje, appeared in the Shashi-Limpopo basin; this prompted scholars to suggest a migration into the area and a replacement of the Zhizo elites (see Huffman 2000). Calabrese (2007) suggests, however, that Zhizo communities interacted with Leopard's Kopje communities, creating a cosmopolitan community, especially near the Shashi-Limpopo confluence area. ...
... Some of these states may have had standing armies to protect or acquire more territory (see Kim and Kusimba 2008). Initially, large chiefdoms sprouted from the cattle-keeping societies in western Zimbabwe (Huffman 2000(Huffman , 2007, the Kgalagadi (Denbow 1983;Wilmsen 2017), and the Shashi-Limpopo valley (Manyanga 2007;Chirikure et al. 2014;Nyamushosho et al. 2018). A significant growth in settlement and population is associated with the K2, Toutswemogala, Mapela, and Mapungubwe periods, times when the climate is thought to have been more favorable and supportive of agricultural activities. ...
Chapter
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Several states developed in southern Africa between the 9th and the 18th century ce . Some of these states include Mapela, Great Zimbabwe, Mapungubwe, Toutswe, and Khami. The foundation of these states was agriculture and other local branches of the economy, like mining, local and regional trade, hunting, and crafts production. Because of the agricultural foundation of these states, environmental and climatic variables are always considered important in their development and collapse. Despite repeated episodes of climate change and variability, environmental deterioration, and even political upheaval, these early states of southern Africa demonstrate longevity and spatial growth through time in various regions. The oversimplistic correlation of favorable climatic and environmental conditions with growth of states and adverse climatic conditions and environmental deterioration with their demise has been questioned. Rather, it has been suggested that precolonial sociopolitical systems adapted to environmental and climatic changes. This process created new forms that archaeologists often interpret as denoting collapse. Changes in material culture, new spatial configurations, expansion into new territories, changing livelihood strategies, and new innovations in food production, processing, and storage, among other things, all point to the adaptive strategies that mitigated against adverse conditions. The resilience of the socioecological system allowed societies to absorb changes, adapt, and reorganize. Thus, what has been perceived as collapse is rather a transition to a different way of life.