Gender in African Prehistory by Susan Kent

Author:Susan Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Published: 1998-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 10.1. Spatial characateristics of the Central Cattle Pattern.

(a) Key spatial dimensions (after Huffman 1982); (b) Idealised village layout and house plan (after Huffman 1989).

Whereas the use of the Central Cattle Pattern model has greatly enhanced our understanding of southern African Iron Age societies in general, a number of concerns have been leveled at its more recent application to interpret the very earliest agropastoral settlements in the region. It has been noted, for instance, that whereas elements of the Central Cattle Pattern model are present in many Early Iron Age settlements, others appear to have been organized differently. These include the 7th to 8th century AD site of Ntsitsana in northern Transkei (Prins and Granger 1993:170), and the late 10th to early 11th century AD site of Pitse in southern Botswana (Campbell et al. 1996:10) (see Figure 10.2 for the location of these sites and others mentioned in the text). In addition, it has been noted that even where livestock byres appear to have been centrally located and encircled by residential structures, other aspects of the evidence from Early Iron Age settlements point to the existence of practices that diverge from those predicted by the ethnographic model of settlement organization (see also Segobye, Chapter 12).

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