Thembi Russell
Biographic Data
| ID | 87301 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thembi Russell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thembi |
| FAMILY NAME | Russell |
| SIGNATURE | RUSSELL T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0241-216X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 81 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Decolonising archaeology in South Africa: Two decades after the National Heritage Resources Act of 1999
Twenty-four years ago, the National Heritage Resources Act, No. 25 of 1999 (NHRA) was enacted in South Africa. This was a moment of change, when the heritage of those marginalised during the colonial and Apartheid eras would finally be given its rightful place on the national heritage list. There was a sense of optimism amongst politicians that the African past was finally to be recognised in an inclusive and representative future. This was echoe…
Symbolic kraals: Subterranean food stores, hidden wealth and ethnographic errors
Iron Age studies in South Africa are dominated by Huffman’s (1982, 1986, 1993, 2001) ethnographically derived Central Cattle Pattern model, which identifies the cattle-based bridewealth institution of South Eastern Bantu-language speakers by the spatial distribution of specific archaeological features. The idea of the spatial expression ‘on the ground’ of a variety of symbolic codes was Adam Kuper’s (1980, 1982) interpretation of predominantly Sw…
The role of the Cape’s unique climatic boundaries in sustaining specialised pastoralists in southern Africa during the last 2000 years
Genetic analyses show that milch pastoralism existed in southern Africa for at least the last 1300 years. This paper addresses the question of how specialised milch pastoralists would have sustained their herds in the arid western half of southern Africa, where archaeological evidence shows their traces. This might be down to what Jared Diamond terms ‘geographic luck’, i.e. that pastoralists, whom we know moved rapidly to the southern and western…
People will no longer be people but will have markings and be animals: Investigating connections between diet, myth, ritual and rock art in southern African archaeology
This paper was motivated by a mid-twentieth century collection of wooden carvings made by the G/wi Bushmen (San) living in the western Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, in which they represent themselves as part human, part zebra. A reading of relevant ethnographies confirms a close identification of mid-twentieth-century Kalahari G/wi with zebras and their potency. Significantly they are avoided as prey in hunting. It follows that they are not…
Where goats connect people: Cultural diffusion of livestock not food production amongst southern African hunter-gatherers during the Later Stone Age
The frequently stated yet unexamined assumption in the debate surrounding the acquisition of livestock by hunter-gatherers in southern Africa is that this transition was about a subsistence change to food production. This interpretation ignores the archaeological evidence that hunter-gatherers remained hunter-gatherers on acquisition of stock. It also overlooks the ethnographic and historical evidence surrounding the relationships between humans …
The bees are our sheep: The role of honey and fat in the transition to livestock keeping during the last two thousand years in southernmost Africa
In this paper we suggest a model for how some foragers may have become stock-keepers in the past. Forager beekeepers stay in one place and cultivate a storable and exchangeable product, honey. This desired product has been used by the Okiek forager beekeepers of Kenya to obtain livestock from their pastoralist/agropastoralist neighbours. We believe that amongst foragers such as these the transition to livestock-keeping would not have been as diff…
What is consumed is wasted: From foraging to herding in the southern African Later Stone Age
This paper is a reaction to a long and at times stagnated debate about how non-indigenous sheep, cattle and goats spread amongst southern Africa's Later Stone Age communities. Geneticists and linguists increasingly see connections between eastern and southern African pastoralists. East African archaeology can no longer be seen as just an interesting, yet neglected and distant, comparative dataset, but is instead a real piece of southern African h…
Through the skin: Exploring pastoralist marks and their meanings to understand parts of East African rock art
Influenced by Lynch's 1978 hypothesis that the megalithic and geometric engraved Namoratung'a sites in northern Kenya are made by Eastern Cushitic pastoralists, and by the presence in the area today of Nilotic-speaking Turkana pastoralists who mark the skin of their livestock with geometric clan brands, this article uses the ethnography of modern pastoralists in an attempt to understand the meanings of the markings they make. It emphasizes the im…
The Spatial Analysis of Radiocarbon Databases: The spread of the first farmers in Europe and of the fat-tailed sheep in Southern Africa: The spread of the first farmers in Europe and of the fat-tailed…
This work analyses two spatially referenced radiocarbon databases for the spread of Europe's first farmers and for the spread of the first sheep in southern Africa respectively. The methods for visualising large-scale diffusion processes are compared using the European database; these include chronology maps, isochron maps, and a new simulation using the probability distribution of calibrated dates. The patterns in the radiocarbon data are then q…
Neolithic transition in Europe: The Radiocarbon Record Revisited
Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population re…
The Application of the Harris Matrix to San Rock Art at Main Caves North, Kwazulu-Natal
The layers of superimposition of San rock paintings at Main Caves North, Giant's Castle Game Reserve were analysed using the Harris matrix to illustrate the sequence of painted 'styles'. The results of the analysis at Main Caves North are described and compared with the Four Phase sequence proposed by Vinnicombe and the Seven Style sequence proposed by Pager in the 1970s. As techniques to establish absolute dates for rock paintings become more co…
Neolithic transition in Europe: The Radiocarbon Record Revisited
Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population re…
What is consumed is wasted: From foraging to herding in the southern African Later Stone Age
This paper is a reaction to a long and at times stagnated debate about how non-indigenous sheep, cattle and goats spread amongst southern Africa's Later Stone Age communities. Geneticists and linguists increasingly see connections between eastern and southern African pastoralists. East African archaeology can no longer be seen as just an interesting, yet neglected and distant, comparative dataset, but is instead a real piece of southern African h…
Through the skin: Exploring pastoralist marks and their meanings to understand parts of East African rock art
Influenced by Lynch's 1978 hypothesis that the megalithic and geometric engraved Namoratung'a sites in northern Kenya are made by Eastern Cushitic pastoralists, and by the presence in the area today of Nilotic-speaking Turkana pastoralists who mark the skin of their livestock with geometric clan brands, this article uses the ethnography of modern pastoralists in an attempt to understand the meanings of the markings they make. It emphasizes the im…
The Application of the Harris Matrix to San Rock Art at Main Caves North, Kwazulu-Natal
The layers of superimposition of San rock paintings at Main Caves North, Giant's Castle Game Reserve were analysed using the Harris matrix to illustrate the sequence of painted 'styles'. The results of the analysis at Main Caves North are described and compared with the Four Phase sequence proposed by Vinnicombe and the Seven Style sequence proposed by Pager in the 1970s. As techniques to establish absolute dates for rock paintings become more co…
People will no longer be people but will have markings and be animals: Investigating connections between diet, myth, ritual and rock art in southern African archaeology
This paper was motivated by a mid-twentieth century collection of wooden carvings made by the G/wi Bushmen (San) living in the western Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, in which they represent themselves as part human, part zebra. A reading of relevant ethnographies confirms a close identification of mid-twentieth-century Kalahari G/wi with zebras and their potency. Significantly they are avoided as prey in hunting. It follows that they are not…
The bees are our sheep: The role of honey and fat in the transition to livestock keeping during the last two thousand years in southernmost Africa
In this paper we suggest a model for how some foragers may have become stock-keepers in the past. Forager beekeepers stay in one place and cultivate a storable and exchangeable product, honey. This desired product has been used by the Okiek forager beekeepers of Kenya to obtain livestock from their pastoralist/agropastoralist neighbours. We believe that amongst foragers such as these the transition to livestock-keeping would not have been as diff…
Where goats connect people: Cultural diffusion of livestock not food production amongst southern African hunter-gatherers during the Later Stone Age
The frequently stated yet unexamined assumption in the debate surrounding the acquisition of livestock by hunter-gatherers in southern Africa is that this transition was about a subsistence change to food production. This interpretation ignores the archaeological evidence that hunter-gatherers remained hunter-gatherers on acquisition of stock. It also overlooks the ethnographic and historical evidence surrounding the relationships between humans …
Decolonising archaeology in South Africa: Two decades after the National Heritage Resources Act of 1999
Twenty-four years ago, the National Heritage Resources Act, No. 25 of 1999 (NHRA) was enacted in South Africa. This was a moment of change, when the heritage of those marginalised during the colonial and Apartheid eras would finally be given its rightful place on the national heritage list. There was a sense of optimism amongst politicians that the African past was finally to be recognised in an inclusive and representative future. This was echoe…
Symbolic kraals: Subterranean food stores, hidden wealth and ethnographic errors
Iron Age studies in South Africa are dominated by Huffman’s (1982, 1986, 1993, 2001) ethnographically derived Central Cattle Pattern model, which identifies the cattle-based bridewealth institution of South Eastern Bantu-language speakers by the spatial distribution of specific archaeological features. The idea of the spatial expression ‘on the ground’ of a variety of symbolic codes was Adam Kuper’s (1980, 1982) interpretation of predominantly Sw…
The role of the Cape’s unique climatic boundaries in sustaining specialised pastoralists in southern Africa during the last 2000 years
Genetic analyses show that milch pastoralism existed in southern Africa for at least the last 1300 years. This paper addresses the question of how specialised milch pastoralists would have sustained their herds in the arid western half of southern Africa, where archaeological evidence shows their traces. This might be down to what Jared Diamond terms ‘geographic luck’, i.e. that pastoralists, whom we know moved rapidly to the southern and western…
The Application of the Harris Matrix to San Rock Art at Main Caves North, Kwazulu-Natal
The layers of superimposition of San rock paintings at Main Caves North, Giant's Castle Game Reserve were analysed using the Harris matrix to illustrate the sequence of painted 'styles'. The results of the analysis at Main Caves North are described and compared with the Four Phase sequence proposed by Vinnicombe and the Seven Style sequence proposed by Pager in the 1970s. As techniques to establish absolute dates for rock paintings become more co…
Neolithic transition in Europe: The Radiocarbon Record Revisited
Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population re…
The Spatial Analysis of Radiocarbon Databases: The spread of the first farmers in Europe and of the fat-tailed sheep in Southern Africa: The spread of the first farmers in Europe and of the fat-tailed…
This work analyses two spatially referenced radiocarbon databases for the spread of Europe's first farmers and for the spread of the first sheep in southern Africa respectively. The methods for visualising large-scale diffusion processes are compared using the European database; these include chronology maps, isochron maps, and a new simulation using the probability distribution of calibrated dates. The patterns in the radiocarbon data are then q…
Through the skin: Exploring pastoralist marks and their meanings to understand parts of East African rock art
Influenced by Lynch's 1978 hypothesis that the megalithic and geometric engraved Namoratung'a sites in northern Kenya are made by Eastern Cushitic pastoralists, and by the presence in the area today of Nilotic-speaking Turkana pastoralists who mark the skin of their livestock with geometric clan brands, this article uses the ethnography of modern pastoralists in an attempt to understand the meanings of the markings they make. It emphasizes the im…
The bees are our sheep: The role of honey and fat in the transition to livestock keeping during the last two thousand years in southernmost Africa
In this paper we suggest a model for how some foragers may have become stock-keepers in the past. Forager beekeepers stay in one place and cultivate a storable and exchangeable product, honey. This desired product has been used by the Okiek forager beekeepers of Kenya to obtain livestock from their pastoralist/agropastoralist neighbours. We believe that amongst foragers such as these the transition to livestock-keeping would not have been as diff…
What is consumed is wasted: From foraging to herding in the southern African Later Stone Age
This paper is a reaction to a long and at times stagnated debate about how non-indigenous sheep, cattle and goats spread amongst southern Africa's Later Stone Age communities. Geneticists and linguists increasingly see connections between eastern and southern African pastoralists. East African archaeology can no longer be seen as just an interesting, yet neglected and distant, comparative dataset, but is instead a real piece of southern African h…
People will no longer be people but will have markings and be animals: Investigating connections between diet, myth, ritual and rock art in southern African archaeology
This paper was motivated by a mid-twentieth century collection of wooden carvings made by the G/wi Bushmen (San) living in the western Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, in which they represent themselves as part human, part zebra. A reading of relevant ethnographies confirms a close identification of mid-twentieth-century Kalahari G/wi with zebras and their potency. Significantly they are avoided as prey in hunting. It follows that they are not…
Where goats connect people: Cultural diffusion of livestock not food production amongst southern African hunter-gatherers during the Later Stone Age
The frequently stated yet unexamined assumption in the debate surrounding the acquisition of livestock by hunter-gatherers in southern Africa is that this transition was about a subsistence change to food production. This interpretation ignores the archaeological evidence that hunter-gatherers remained hunter-gatherers on acquisition of stock. It also overlooks the ethnographic and historical evidence surrounding the relationships between humans …
The role of the Cape’s unique climatic boundaries in sustaining specialised pastoralists in southern Africa during the last 2000 years
Genetic analyses show that milch pastoralism existed in southern Africa for at least the last 1300 years. This paper addresses the question of how specialised milch pastoralists would have sustained their herds in the arid western half of southern Africa, where archaeological evidence shows their traces. This might be down to what Jared Diamond terms ‘geographic luck’, i.e. that pastoralists, whom we know moved rapidly to the southern and western…
Symbolic kraals: Subterranean food stores, hidden wealth and ethnographic errors
Iron Age studies in South Africa are dominated by Huffman’s (1982, 1986, 1993, 2001) ethnographically derived Central Cattle Pattern model, which identifies the cattle-based bridewealth institution of South Eastern Bantu-language speakers by the spatial distribution of specific archaeological features. The idea of the spatial expression ‘on the ground’ of a variety of symbolic codes was Adam Kuper’s (1980, 1982) interpretation of predominantly Sw…
Decolonising archaeology in South Africa: Two decades after the National Heritage Resources Act of 1999
Twenty-four years ago, the National Heritage Resources Act, No. 25 of 1999 (NHRA) was enacted in South Africa. This was a moment of change, when the heritage of those marginalised during the colonial and Apartheid eras would finally be given its rightful place on the national heritage list. There was a sense of optimism amongst politicians that the African past was finally to be recognised in an inclusive and representative future. This was echoe…
Archaeology (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (9 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (9 works) · History (8 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (6 works) · Ethnology (5 works) · Livestock (5 works) · Pastoralism (5 works) · History (4 works)