Not too long ago I climbed a rather steep hill in the Waterberg with the somewhat charismatic Mark Tennant. We went up there to look at some enormous and rather ancient pots. History is not usually my thing but then again it’s not what we usually associate Mark Tennant with either. Mark is by usual connotation, crawling though the long grass to sneak up on feeding lions or browsing elephants with video camera at the ready but unbeknown to me until then, Mark has been a student of human-prehistory and is passionate about it (and generally anything Africa-related!). His latest escapade is the Animals, Arts and Ancestors experience…same funky hat, different adventure. (See http://www.animalsartsandancestors.com/ for details)
Although the climb required some exertion, it was worth it - the smell of brown hyena pastings and fresh leopard spoor from the night before made it exhilarating. Porcupines left their distinctive cocktail sausage-shaped calling cards and the view was spectacular with tracts of thorny bush stretching for miles and concealing a healthy population of white rhino.
A big snaking river breaks the slightly undulating landscape and its apparent why the late Iron Age people selected this particular mountain to build their grain silos. The area is fertile. Access to water and safety in the form of a mountain for vantage and shelter are the exact ingredients any community requires to settle down and grow crops and raise cattle. Rock overhangs provide the perfect sites for the construction of the most enormous clay pots I have ever seen and their construction 600-700 years before must have been exceptionally skilful since many of them are still mostly intact. In this particular site Mark has apparently tallied 130 of these giant storage ports and he explained to me how the system worked: An opening at the top of the pot would have been an access port to top-up the grain supply. This could have been sealed off later to keep rodents out. As the supply was depleted, a lower opening was chipped into the clay for easier access. This could then be closed up again for the next cycle.
Remarkably, while standing in the shelter of this ancient bastion-like grain depot I turned to look over the landscape one last time before we headed down in time to see a pair of Verreaux’s Eagles land on the boulder-strewn koppie a stone’s throw from where we were standing. What a sight! And an irony to me that they would choose to visually patrol their territory from a similar vantage to the Late Iron-Agers.
Although the climb required some exertion, it was worth it - the smell of brown hyena pastings and fresh leopard spoor from the night before made it exhilarating. Porcupines left their distinctive cocktail sausage-shaped calling cards and the view was spectacular with tracts of thorny bush stretching for miles and concealing a healthy population of white rhino.
A big snaking river breaks the slightly undulating landscape and its apparent why the late Iron Age people selected this particular mountain to build their grain silos. The area is fertile. Access to water and safety in the form of a mountain for vantage and shelter are the exact ingredients any community requires to settle down and grow crops and raise cattle. Rock overhangs provide the perfect sites for the construction of the most enormous clay pots I have ever seen and their construction 600-700 years before must have been exceptionally skilful since many of them are still mostly intact. In this particular site Mark has apparently tallied 130 of these giant storage ports and he explained to me how the system worked: An opening at the top of the pot would have been an access port to top-up the grain supply. This could have been sealed off later to keep rodents out. As the supply was depleted, a lower opening was chipped into the clay for easier access. This could then be closed up again for the next cycle.
Remarkably, while standing in the shelter of this ancient bastion-like grain depot I turned to look over the landscape one last time before we headed down in time to see a pair of Verreaux’s Eagles land on the boulder-strewn koppie a stone’s throw from where we were standing. What a sight! And an irony to me that they would choose to visually patrol their territory from a similar vantage to the Late Iron-Agers.
(pics were taken by another babe Megan Alves)
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