The Toromoja Late Stone Age Site: Lithic Assemblage Variability in Botswana and Southern Africa
Open AccessThe Later Stone Age in South Africa has been continuously studied since the early twentieth-century, but little work concerning the Later Stone Age in Botswana has been conducted until recently. Ultimately, a thorough examination of intra-regional and inter-regional activity differences and stylistic variability is integral to the understanding of the diverse ways of life of Later Stone Age peoples. A more detailed understanding of the technology, subsistence practices, and regional or territorial interactions of LSA groups that lived in Botswana would add to our understanding of the LSA record in southern Africa as well as providing a foundation for regional comparisons of various LSA sites and groups in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (Fig.1). The understanding of the practices of LSA peoples and the foundation for regional comparisons between sites can be constructed through the comparison of tool type frequencies across various sites in Botswana and South Africa. In order to thoroughly understand the significance of the LSA and technological variability, first the history of archaeology in Botswana, and of the San people and their relationship to the LSA archaeological record should be scrutinized. Stone tool variability is one method of studying regional variability in technology, subsistence, and culture, and this method is applied to sites in southern Africa and Botswana. This thesis will analyze the Central District of Botswana, specifically the site of Toromoja and will compare it with other sites, both in Botswana and South Africa. Various technological industries have been identified previously in southern Africa, and these techno-typological categorizations will be used to assess the assemblages considered. The Toromoja assemblage will be compared with assemblages from the Tsodilo Hills, ≠Gi, Rose Cottage Cave, Thamaga, Toteng, and general technological trends in Zimbabwe and Zambia. Analysis of assemblage variability, for example in tool typologies and their corresponding functions, across southern Africa may be employed to add to data supporting inferences concerning the way of life of the Kalahari inhabitants and their relationships with other peoples.
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