Alexander Antonites- PhD
- Senior Lecturer at University of Pretoria
Alexander Antonites
- PhD
- Senior Lecturer at University of Pretoria
About
24
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Introduction
Current institution
Publications
Publications (24)
The K2-Mapungubwe settlement complex is widely regarded as the centre for the development of class-based society out of earlier ranked communities between c. AD 900 and AD 1300 in northern South Africa, southern Zimbabwe, and easter Botswana. Beads made from ostrich eggs, the shells of Achatinidae snails, and freshwater bivalves formed an important...
The rise and spread of ancient Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) trade networks profoundly impacted southern Africa. Control over this trade played a critical role in the rise and maintenance of complex societies of the second millennium CE such as Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe. While the African origins of this trade lie in the first millennium CE, understan...
We present the results of a macro-botanical analysis of carbonised seeds from Schroda, considered the earliest Limpopo Valley settlement of socio-economic and political prominence in the Mapungubwe sequence. Although not systematically collected during excavation, the identified Cenchrus americanus (pearl millet), Sorghum sp. (sorghum), Vigna ungui...
Archaeological research carried out in the Kruger National Park has identified several settlements of early African farmers that date to the Early Iron Age (EIA) – c. AD 200 – AD 1000. Two large EIA settlements, Le6 and Le7, were identified in 1977 on the southern bank of the Letaba River, opposite its confluence with the Tsende. Intermittent excav...
Vryheid (MNR04) is a small, isolated Late Iron Age homestead dated between the 18th and 19th centuries, located in northern South Africa. During excavations in 2014, a carved ivory artefact was exposed on the floor of a burnt-down hut. Because the item was extremely fragmented and fragile, but also a rare local example of carved ivory, directed con...
Narratives about South African industrialisation, especially regarding the mining sector, have not paid adequate attention to small scale (artisanal) mining operations and the communities who worked them. This article reports on the archaeology of the artisanal copper mining site Berkenrode, also known as MNR211, located on the farm Berkenrode 45 M...
and Keywords Salt was an important commodity throughout the human past. Although salt (sodium chloride) is essential to human health, the desire for salt in humans cannot be explained by physiological need alone. Instead, both biology and culture drive the taste for salt. The re sult is that salt was frequently highly valued, with its production an...
Mutamba is a thirteenth-century settlement located on the Soutpansberg Mountains in northern South Africa with links to the regionally important Mapungubwe polity. This paper provides a detailed report of the range and utilisation of archaeobotanical taxa found at Mutamba. This research provides base-line evidence on the little understood, but sign...
The Middle Iron Age (MIA) of southern Africa is a period characterized by increased social complexity centered on the polity of Mapungubwe. This article considers the role that fiber spinning played in the regional political economy of the period. At Mutamba and other sites in the southern hinterland of Mapungubwe, spinning was a significant econom...
Mutamba is a 13th-century Iron Age settlement located in the Soutpansberg of South Africa and is contemporary with Mapungubwe, southern Africa's earliest socially complex polity. This article presents information on excavations conducted in 2010 and 2011. The ceramic assemblage is considered in detail since it has implications for understanding the...
Twenty-eight representative beads found at the thirteenth-fourteenth century AD site of Mutamba (North of South Africa) were classified morphologically and then analysed with pXRF. Eighteen beads were selected from four identified series of K2-IP, EC-IP, Mapungubwe Oblate and European for Raman spectroscopy. The results show corrosion has a great e...
This paper applies insights from the ‘mobilities turn’ (Hannam et al.2006) or ‘new mobilities paradigm’ (Sheller and Urry 2006) to the archaeology of social complexity in thirteenth-century southern Africa. To date, research on this topic has typically tended to emphasise the role of mooring and place, with movement only regarded parenthetically. I...
ANTONITES, A. R., UYS, S. and ANTONITES, A., 2016.Faunal remains from MNR 74, a Mapungubwe period settlement in the Limpopo Valley. Annals of the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History 6: 26–38.
This research presents an interpretation of the faunal remains from MNR 74, a small 13th century AD settlement located in the Limpopo Valley, east of...
Penge is an Early Iron Age farming settlement in the Sekhukhuneland region of Limpopo Province. Excavations were conducted in 2005 as part of a mitigation process for the expansion of the Penge town waterworks. Ceramic analysis suggests that the site is part of the Doornkop facies of northeastern South Africa. Radiocarbon results place occupation a...
Mutamba is a settlement located on the northern slopes of the Soutpansberg in South Africa. Radiocarbon and material culture suggest contemporaneity with regional developments of social complexity primarily concentrated in the Shashe-Limpopo Confluence Area around the important site of Mapungubwe. The spatial location of Mutamba on the apparent pol...
Archer and Hastorf ’s (2000, p. 33) statement that ‘there appears to be a conceptual gap between the role that plants and plant knowledge played in the past and the level of research interest and commitment
to the study of archaeobotanical data within archaeology’ rings especially true for the archaeology of South Africa’s farming communities. Alth...
Baleni is a mineral spring in the South African Lowveld where radiocarbon and ceramic evidence indicates a 2000-year salt-production record. Excavations have found that episodic production during this period closely mirrored that of more recent ethnographic accounts. Use-alteration of ceramics clearly indicates the important role these vessels play...
Thesis (MA. (Archaeology))-University of Pretoria, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-126). Adobe Acrobat Reader needed to open files.
