Forgotten World: The Stone-walled Settlements of the Mpumalanga Escarpment

We have much to learn from the Bakoni. For one, they taught us that political centralisation does not necessarily equate economic development. They also debunk colonial perceptions that prior to the arrival of settler farming, African agriculture was rudimentary, subsistence oriented, transient and barely capitalised.

The Bakoni

This is what recent archaeological and historical research in the area known as Bokoni in Mpumalanga has revealed. The Bakoni, the Koni people who first emerged in this area around the 1500s and lived here until around the 1820s, were advanced farming communities that created stone-walled sites – the remnants of which still cover vast areas in Mpumalanga today.

According to The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg researchers, historian Professor Peter Delius and archaeologist Dr Alex Schoeman, it is now clear that the Bakoni practised advanced technological and agricultural innovation and techniques long before Africa was colonised.

Their book, Forgotten World – The Stone-walled Settlements of the Mpumalanga Escarpment, as well as an hour-long documentary, aim to create awareness and to inform on a “forgotten” part of South Africa’s history and heritage that has for too long been ignored.

Delius and Schoeman elaborated on their research project during the National Research Foundation Science for Society Lecture held at Wits University on 11 June 2015.

Unique systems

“This intensive farming system was unique in South Africa and was the largest intensive farming system in southern and eastern Africa. It included massive investment in stone terracing, cattle kraals and which allowed for the cultivation of rich, volcanic soils on the hill sides of the escarpment,” Delius said.

Crop cultivation was combined with closely managed livestock production in which cattle were kept at the heart of the settlements at night and during the day were able to feed on the diverse grasslands.

“It is also connected to systems of long distance trade which span the interior that linked to the east coast and to the vast and ancient Indian Ocean trading system. So this was not an isolated society, an isolated world, it was part of a much bigger regional system,” Delius said.
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Reference:

Past Horizons. 2015. “Forgotten World: The Stone-walled Settlements of the Mpumalanga Escarpment”. Past Horizons. Posted: July 1, 2015. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/07/2015/forgotten-world-the-stone-walled-settlements-of-the-mpumalanga-escarpment