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Vergete Wêreld - Die Klipmuurnedersettings van dieMpumalanga-PlatorandAlex Schoeman, Peter Delius, Tim Maggs, Pedi;Sepedi; Northern Sotho (AFRICANA OUT OF PRINT NEW)
The history of the ruined settlements in Mpumalang known asBokoni, the country of the Koni people.
If you drive through Mpumalanga with an eye on the landscape flashing by, youmay see, near the sides of the road and further away on the hills above and inthe valleys below, fragments of building in stone as well as sections ofstone-walling breaking the grass cover. Endless stone circles, set inbewildering mazes and linked by long stone passages, cover the landscapestretching from Ohrigstad to Carolina, connecting over 10 000 square kilometresof the escarpment into a complex web of stone-walled homesteads, terracedfields and linking roads.
Oral traditions recorded in the early twentieth centurynamed the area Bokoni the country of the Koni people. Few South Africans orvisitors to the country know much about these settlements, and why today theyare deserted and largely ignored. A long tradition of archaeological work whichmight provide some of the answers remains cloistered in universities and theknowledge vacuum has been filled by a variety of exotic explanations invokingancient settlers from India or even visitors from outer space that share acommon assumption that Africans were too primitive to have created suchelaborate stone structures.
Forgotten World defies the usual stereotypesabout backward African farming methods and shows that these settlements were attheir peak between 1500 and 1820, that they housed a substantial population,organised vast amounts of labour for infrastructural development, and displayedextraordinary levels of agricultural innovation and productivity. The Koni werepart of a trading system linked to the coast of Mozambique and the wider worldof Indian Ocean trade beyond.
Forgotten World tells the story of Bokonithrough rigorous historical and archaeological research, and lavishlyillustrates it with stunning photographic images.
Key points
Lavishly illustrated with stunning photographic images showing the stonewalls and stone circles and terraced fields in the Mpumalanga landscape.
A well-argued explanation by respected historians and archaeologists ofthe significance of these settlements established between 1500 and 1820.
Forgotten World defies the usual stereotypes about backward Africanfarming methods and shows that they housed a substantial population,organised vast amounts of labour for infrastructural development, anddisplayed extraordinary levels of agricultural.
This book includes a DVD of a documentary film, Forgotten World, directedby Terri Alla.
This edition is in Sepedi
Peter Delius is Professor of History at the University of the Witwatersrand.His latest books include "Mpumalanga: history and heritage" and"Mpumalanga, an illustrated history", both with Michael Hay, and"A Long Way Home: migrant worker worlds 1800-2014", co-edited withLaura Phillips and Fiona Rankin-Smith.
In the 1960s archaeologist Tim Maggs did pioneering research on the precolonialblack farming communities in the Free State. Retired to the Western Cape, hecontinues to cooperate in research projects on the Later Stone Age and earlyfarming communities in the Western Cape, North West and especially Mpumalanga.
Alex Schoeman is a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of theWitwatersrand.
