Aron Mazel

Newcastle University | NCL · International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa is mainly known from rock shelters and caves. How early modern humans interacted with their landscapes remains comparatively understudied. The site of Jojosi 1, situated north of Nquthu in north central KwaZulu-Natal, is set within erosional badlands, known locally as “dongas.” This locality offers a ra...

Hunter-gatherers were the sole occupants of the southern African landscape for many thousands of years. Khoe-speaking pastoralists and then Bantu-speaking farmers entered the subcontinent around two thousand years ago. They introduced different lifeways, belief systems, and technologies. Archaeological evidence from KwaZulu-Natal reveals interactio...

The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg mountains in the west of KwaZulu-Natal have been home to people for over 25ka years. The primary occupation has, however, been within the last 3ka. Settled primarily by hunter-gatherers, there appears to have been a possible ephemeral pastoralist presence around 2ka and an increasing agriculturist presence during the last...

Neolithic and Early Bronze Age rock carvings in the United Kingdom and Ireland represent an internationally unique rock art tradition as it is, to the best of our knowledge, the only wholly abstract global rock art tradition. This heritage resource is, however, under threat from an array of factors, such as increasing population densities and agric...

The concept of archaeological heritage management (AHM) has been key to wider archaeological research and preservation agendas for some decades. Many universities and other education providers now offer what is best termed heritage management education (HME) in various forms. The emphasis is commonly on archaeological aspects of heritage in a broad...

Purpose Crowdsourcing heritage information has enormous potential to help gather data needed to make decisions over the deployment of resources and heritage conservation funding. Taking advantage of the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, such as phones and tablets, packed with sensors to record data about the real world, and the global growth o...

In 2000, the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park became South Africa’s first mixed, natural and cultural World Heritage Site. The cultural aspect of the designation revolved around its internationally renowned rock art. This chapter addresses the management of the rock art during the last decade. It concludes that progress has been made regarding, for exam...

International Newsletter on Rock Art, #82

Since the turn of the millennium three rock art projects focusing primarily on Northumberland in the United Kingdom (Northumberland Rock Art: Web Access to the Beckensall Archive, Rock Art on Mobile Phones and Heritage and Science: working together in the CARE of rock art) have made information and images widely available to the public via the Inte...

Thousands of Neolithic and Bronze Age open-air rock art panels exist across the countryside in northern England. However, desecration, pollution, and other factors are threatening the survival of these iconic stone monuments. Evidence suggest that rates of panel deterioration may be increasing, although it is not clear whether this is due to local...

Thousands of Neolithic and Bronze Age open-air rock art panels exist across the countryside in northern England. However, desecration, pollution, and other factors are threatening the survival of these iconic stone monuments. Evidence suggest that rates of panel deterioration may be increasing, although it is not clear whether this is due to local...

Mobile applications are presently at the forefront of interpreting outdoor historical and archaeological sites. This chapter discusses the methodological approach adopted in the Rock art mobile project (RAMP) which addresses the challenge of designing and delivering mobile interpretation at three Neolithic and Early Bronze Age rock art areas in Nor...

In the 1950s and 1960s, white National Party (NP) and Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) ideologues and functionaries, who came to power in 1948, recast and realigned South African museums, to strengthen the ideological underpinning of Apartheid. Investigation of an extensive range of documentary sources housed in South African archives has led to the sugg...

Northumberland has a long history of public engagement surrounding its ancient rock-art. Recent advances in digital technologies have enabled archaeologists to enrich this engagement through the provision of open access to substantial rock-art datasets online. Building on these achievements, the Rock Art on Mobile Phones (RAMP) project allows North...

Overview of UDP Rock Art Management Since the 1960sInstitutional ResponsibilitiesInventories, Planning, Implementation, and Indigenous VoicesWorld Heritage, Tourism, and Public InterpretationDiscussionConclusion AcknowledgmentsNotesReferences

This article explores the abundance of rock art in the Didima Gorge where 3,909 paintings were documented in seventeen rock shelters. It is proposed that the richness of the gorge's rock art is associated with its acoustic properties, which may have established the gorge as a significant spiritual place for the San hunter-gatherers. In making this...

Ancient stone monuments (ASMs), such as standing stones and rock art panels, are powerful and iconic expressions of Britain’s rich prehistoric past that have major economic and tourism value. However, ASMs are under pressure due to increasing anthropogenic exposure and changing climatic conditions, which accelerate their rates of disrepair. Althoug...

New information generated during the last two decades has allowed us to review previous conclusions that the shaded polychrome paintings of the southeastern mountains were done during the last few hundred years. This new data derives from the relative and absolute dating of rock art in KwaZulu-Natal and the excavation of rock shelters. It is suppor...

The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (UDP) was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 on the basis of its magnificent scenery, biodiversity, and archaeological richness, comprising a rich corpus of rock paintings and occupation deposits relating to the San hunter-gatherers. The desire to encourage heritage tourism to the UDP following the declaration, a...

As Rosenfeld & Smith report in this number of ANTIQUITY, the reconciliation of conventional chronologies for rock-art with the emergent radiocarbon-based dates is not proving an easy affair. Here are the first steps for the classic area of San hunter-gatherer art, on the South Africa/Lesotho border.

A further contribution on art, history and archaeological attitude in South Africa.

In this paper I argue that it is imperative for archaeologists to incorporate a gender focus in their research. Coupled with this however, must be the notion that both women and men were active participants in the making of history. It is submitted that adopting this approach will enable archaeologists to develop a deeper understanding of human his...

In this paper I assess the data for early pre-agriculturalist pottery in the eastern part of southern Africa. I conclude that there was pottery in this area between 2100 and 2200 years ago and perhaps slightly earlier. Comparison of these early pottery dates with others from elsewhere in the subcontinent, shows that those in the east are as old, an...

Examination of a sample of 25 South African school history textbooks published since 1972 shows that there has been an inadequate response to allegations of bias and inaccuracies in the treatment of San hunter-gatherers and the origins of South Africa's Black population. Although some attempt has been made to avoid overly racist statements, almost...

In March 1981 the author completed a three-year archaeological recording project in the Natal Drakensberg. Conservation of the archaeological resources ranked as the primary aim of the project and ca. 400 sites and 20,000 paintings were recorded. This paper outlines the aims and scope of the project, the field survey and recording methodologies, an...

This paper examines the possibility that certain paintings of eland, rhebuck and cranes in the Natal Drakensberg indicate the season in which they were painted. The evidence points to these animals having been painted in spring and summer, and so supports previous arguments for this conclusion. It is further argued that these findings should not be...

In March 1981 the author completed a three year archaeological recording project in the Natal Drakensberg. Conservation of the archaeological resources ranked as the primary aim and approximately 400 sites and 20 000 paintings were recorded during the project. Two thirds of the Final Project Report (Mazel 1981) to the Department of Water Affairs, F...

Taking the Clanwilliam District in the south‐western Cape as a case study, this paper examines the implications of differences in the composition of contemporary tool assemblages from a restricted area. A breakdown of the assemblages from eleven sites is presented, with analyses of the occurrences of adzes, bored stones, scrapers, and backed pieces...

A set of observations on stone tool assemblage variability from the western Cape is presented and interpreted as a reflection of activity differences from place to place. From this it is argued that much of the observed temporal patterning in assemblage composition might reflect changing activities through time. This in turn raises the possibility...