Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: Expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites

Stefano Biagetti; Jonas Alcaina-Mateos; Abel Ruiz-Giralt; Carla Lancelotti; Patricia Groenewald; Jordi Ibañez-Insa; Shira Gur-Arie; Fred Morton; Stefania Merlo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0250776

Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: Expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites

PLoS One. 2021 May 12;16(5):e0250776. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250776. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Stefano Biagetti^{1

2}, Jonas Alcaina-Mateos¹, Abel Ruiz-Giralt¹, Carla Lancelotti^{1

3}, Patricia Groenewald⁴, Jordi Ibañez-Insa⁵, Shira Gur-Arie^{1

6}, Fred Morton⁷, Stefania Merlo⁸

Affiliations

¹ CaSEs Research Group, Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, IMF-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain.
² School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies (GAES), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
³ ICREA, Passeig Lluís Companys 23, Barcelona, Spain.
⁴ Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
⁵ Geosciences Barcelona (GEO3BCN), CSIC, Barcelona, Spain.
⁶ Department of Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
⁷ Department of History, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana.
⁸ McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Numerous and extensive 'Stone Walled Sites' have been identified in southern African Iron Age landscapes. Appearing from around 1200 CE, and showing considerable variability in size and form, these settlements are named after the dry-stone wall structures that characterize them. Stone Walled Sites were occupied by various Bantu-speaking agropastoral communities. In this paper we test the use of pXRF (portable X-ray fluorescence analysis) to generate a 'supplementary' archaeological record where evident stratigraphy is lacking, survey conditions may be uneven, and excavations limited, due to the overall site size. We propose herein the application of portable X-ray fluorescence analysis (pXRF) coupled with multivariate exploratory analysis and geostatistical modelling at Seoke, a southern African SWS of historical age (18th century CE). The aim of the paper is twofold: to explore the potential of the application of a low cost, quick, and minimally invasive technique to detect chemical markers in anthropogenic sediments from a Stone Walled Site, and to propose a way to analyse the results in order to improve our understanding of the use of space at non-generalized scales in such sites.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Archaeology / instrumentation*
Botswana
Costs and Cost Analysis
Humans
Spectrometry, X-Ray Emission / instrumentation*
Time Factors

Grants and funding

This research is funded by Fundación Palarq, calls 2019 and 2020, project ”Geo-EtnoArqueologia y uso del espacio (GEA)” entrusted to SB. SM and FM received financial support from the Office of Research and Development at the University of Botswana. The work of SGA was funded by the European Union’s MapDung project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No H2020-MSCA-IF-2017-794823. SB, JAM, ARG, CL and SGA are members of CaSEs Research Group of the Catalan Research Agency (AGAUR SGR-212), which is an associated unit (Unidad Asociada) to the Institucion Mila Y Fontanals of the Spanish Research National Council (CSIC). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.