John Kinahan

University of the Witwatersrand | wits · School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences

Climatic amelioration during the mid-Holocene Optimum is associated with hunter-gatherer occupation of remote sites in the Namib Desert. Subsequent changes in late Holocene site distribution suggest there were alternative responses to increasing aridity during this period. Abandonment or episodic occupation is evident in some areas, while others sh...

A unique assemblage of ritual objects is described from Falls Rock Shelter in the Dâures massif of Namibia, a major concentration of rock art sites linked to hunter-gatherer shamanic traditions. Occupation of the sites commenced about five thousand years ago and, although there is no direct dating for the rock art itself, it is thought to have been...

New evidence of ritual seclusion and sensory deprivation, from the eastern margins of the Namib Desert suggests that specialized shamans may have operated alone, and possibly as itinerants, performing ritual services at widely scattered sites. This behaviour has its origins in hunter-gatherer responses to the introduction of pastoralism, and to the...

The Dancing Kudu: women's initiation in the Namib Desert during the second millennium AD - Volume 91 Issue 358 - John Kinahan

Bones of domestic sheep dated to the early first millennium AD are described from the Dâures massif in the Namib Desert. The remains confirm earlier investigations which inferred the acquisition of livestock from indirect evidence in the rock art, suggesting a fundamental shift in ritual practice at this time. Dating of the sheep remains is in broa...

Radiocarbon dates for camelthorn trees in the Namib Desert reflect marked variation in rainfall during the last 1,000 years. These records and other proxy climate data indicate a loose teleconnection with the southern African climatic record, especially for regionwide episodes of dry conditions resulting from extreme El Niño events. However, archae...

Cattle paths preserved in hardened lagoon sediment at Walvis Bay provide important new evidence of late pre-colonial trade practices on the Namib Desert coast. The paths show that cattle were assembled some distance from the pastoral villages where trade negotiations took place. Cattle were brought to such assembly points from grazing camps one or...

An archaeological survey of the Linyanti and Liambezi marshlands in north-eastern Namibia revealed a number of hunting and fishing sites with first millennium AD farming community ceramics as well as evidence suggesting the adoption of ceramic technology by hunter-gatherers in this area during the second millennium AD. These finds have implications...

A complex of stele palisades surrounding a burial site in southern Ethiopia is linked to the Janjero, an independent polity described in 1613 by the Jesuit traveller, Antonio Fernandez. The site layout recalls that of the royal compound, as does its isolated hilltop location, apparently chosen for its visibility over a large area of fertile farming...

INTRODUCTION Archaeological estimates of human stature are principally reliant on skeletal evidence, and assessment of past population stature is therefore limited by available sample size. Pre-colonial southern African hunter-gatherer and nomadic pastoralist populations are difficult to characterise in this way, due to the general scarcity of skel...

We determine the burial dose in three known-age incompletely bleached fluvial samples using single grains of quartz. Estimation of burial dose in incompletely bleached samples requires that the characteristics of the well-bleached part of the distribution are known in order to distinguish between well-bleached and poorly bleached grains. It is espe...

Excavation results from a 13th century AD site in eastern Botswana confirm that the symbolic dimensions of southern Bantu settlement organization are archaeologically visible at the village level. The influence of this spatial patterning is illustrated by the archaeology of the major site components and the structured distribution of features, arte...

Well preserved tracks of people, livestock and domestic dog are described from a lagoon saltpan deposit at Walvis Bay, on the coast of Namibia. Archaeological, historical and geomorphological evidence suggest that the tracks relate to coastal livestock trading activity in the last two centuries.

The remains of a complex stone- walled encampment at //Khauxa!nas in Namibia provide new insights into the social consequences of European contact with the pastoral Khoi. The Namibian evidence contradicts the general view that the eighteenth- century Khoi were little more than a colonial underclass. Details of layout and construction from //Khauxa!...

Il est generalement accepte que le pastoralisme nomade est apparu dans le sud-ouest de l'Afrique au moment du developpement de l'agriculture et de la metallurgie dans le sud, durant le Ier mill. apr. J.-C. Les donnees archeologiques montrent qu'au contraire de l'economie agricole limitee a des zones determinees liees aux precipitations d'ete, la di...

Eight copper beads from three central Namibian sites and one possible ore specimen were subjected to metallographic and chemical analysis. The cylindrical beads were found to consist of indigenously produced copper with characteristic cuprite inclusions. The method of fabrication was reconstructed from description of the microstructure, with initia...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of the Witwatersrand, 1989.

Archaeological remains including thirty-seven rock aart sites indicate the pattern of hunter gatherer settlement and subsistence which existed at the Spitzkoppe at least until the introduction of livestock in the last millenium. Thereafter, pastoral settlement apparently predominated until some time before the establishment of a short-lived German...

The social relations of pastoral production have direct and informative archaeological consequences. Correspondences between the relations of production and the structural characteristics of pastoral sites in the central Namib Desert reveal the varying levels of social integration that are required for the effective functioning of the nomadic econo...

In those parts of the world where cetacean populations migrate close to the land an important resource is available for coastal exploitation. Stranded whales probably played an important, if archaeologically invisible, role in the diet of coastal dwellers. Energy budgets for such people would have to consider the variability in stranding potential...

Radiocarbon dates are presented for the production of copper artefacts in the ǀ Khomas highlands of Namibia during the last four centuries and significant associations are briefly described.

The paper draws on data attending the etho-ecology of four species of cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae) in support of an hypothesis for the adaptive significance of the predominantly dark plumage of these birds. It is suggested that a dark plumage, primarily by being most receptive to solar radiation, assists cormorants in supplementing metabolic heat...

This paper reports flocking, communal feeding and other aspects of sea-based social behaviour in the jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus). Penguins tend to occur within about 15 km of the mainland, but range farther afield from the islands used for breeding and/or roosting. Relatively large groups of 50 and more birds occur more than 50 km from th...