Faculty of Humanities
School of Basic Social Sciences
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
One of the major highlights of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology was the linking of research on the world heritage cultural landscape of Mapungubwe with the engagement of communities, mainly Venda, in matters to do with the repatriation of material remains excavated from this and other nearby sites by the University. Narratives about Mapungubwe were collected from communities and staged as a performance in collaboration with the University’s departments of Drama and Architecture. The project harvested stories and mythologies that are told about Mapungubwe and presented these as intersecting narratives that floated over the ‘hard’ archaeological evidence of the site. Live performance, archaeological material, visual (still and video) material and sound recordings were presented simultaneously in order to construct a multisensual, multimedia and multinarrative event. The performance was supported by video recordings of storytellers from the region, as well as by photographs, spoken translations and written texts. The exhibition included narratives spoken in various southern African languages. These narratives were based on interviews with self-identified Mapungubwe descendants and were filmed in the Mapungubwe cultural landscape. The performance was staged in the Old Arts Building and entrance was free. This is an extension of a research project entitled Urban Landscape Dynamics that was conducted in partnership with the Department of African and Comparative Archaeology and Ancient History of the University of Uppsala, Sweden. The aim of this project was to understand the rise of complex societies in the middle of the Limpopo Valley during the early first millennium AD
Contact person: Dr MH Schoeman.
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