RESERVE - Archaeology: The absence of evidence does not mean the evidence of absence

There is an African saying that “the wise eagle that wants to see tomorrow’s brightest day must be brave enough to shake the great reptile of the Past awake”. The past is alive in Mountainlands and fiercely attracts debate and beckons one to ask questions and demands answers truthfully. Some of the questions, which are debatable, are whom the ancient ones were referred to as “tindzala” in Swazi – the ones that came before us? Who created all the rock packed routes, left evidence of ancient gold mining activities and built solar stone calendars? Some of the questions and proposed answers elicit different responses – from down right outrage, ignorance, curiosity to an internal knowingness.

In Mountainlands several sites indicate the presence of earlier civilisations. Various sites support different theories ranging from Early, Middle and Late Stone Age sites through to San drawings, to the routes and temples of Dravidian and Phoenicians merchants and even Egyptian slave traders. LEFT: Sunrise on 21 December, the summer solstice, over two standing stones believed to be an ancient solar calendar. RIGHT: Many strange standing stones or monoliths seem to have been planted by man and often seem to correlate with each other over many kilometres.

Scattered throughout the strata and rocks of Mountainlands are deposits of reef and alluvial gold, and also iron, talc, asbestos and nickel. Not only did the rich gold reefs attract attention in the 1880’s, but the early evidence of historic civilizations mining for minerals were described in writings by the early Europeans. Firstly, the prospectors found that others before them exploited gold by primitive methods. As D. Wilson (1901) Mining Commissioner and Landdrost of Kaapsche Hoop (then called Duiwels Kantoor), reported:

“Another curious and puzzling find, affording evidence of a very high degree of civilization on the part of the ancient explorers of De Kaap, took place within a few yards of my office at the Kantoor. Running into the side of a steep hill, was the remains of a tunnel, which was opened up in the course of prospecting work, when the diggers unearthed two earthenware pipes about three feet long and six inches in diameter. They had most of the signs one looks for in ancient pottery and were obviously of very great age”.

Who the ancient miners were, still remains an unresolved and tantalizing secret, and depending on one’s viewpoint, great efforts are made to attribute it to San people, Dravidian merchants form the Indian sub-continent, Arabs, Phoenicians and even Egyptians. Evidence of dwellings estimated to be some 500 years old can be interpreted as part of a culture that traded gold with eastern (Arabic and Indian) communities in the past. At least one such complete Iron Age “village” is found on Mountainlands as well as various other sites still to be verified.

Apart from such glimpses into history, as well as well-made iron and stone artefacts that were collected, little is known about the archaeology of Mountainlands. From July 1952 to 1955 some 1915 artefacts were collected from 20 sites around Barberton, including Mountainlands. These are at present housed in the Barberton museum. The artefacts were collected from open donga sites where material of all ages was mixed on the surface. Earlier Stone Age (approximately 1 million to 200 000 years ago) implements were exposed at various depths in the deep dongas, Middle Stone Age (125 000 to 75 000 years) material occurred in the ferricrete overlying the subsoil, and Later Stone Age (between 30 000 and 40 000 years ago until about 2 000 years ago) artefacts were exposed by surface erosion. Even today many Late Stone Age artefacts are encountered on walks in Mountainlands. The Stone Age is so-called because people in earlier times used stone implements, which they fabricated themselves. Wood, bone and rope were also used but because these were organic materials it disintegrated and vanished in most cases. Stone implements are therefore the characteristic remains of these early inhabitants.

During the Early Stone Age period the implements were in general large. Middle Stone Age smaller and more specialized and tools from the Later Stone Age period even smaller and mounted on wood or bone. A variety of potsherds, which vary considerably in type, composition, colour, thickness, texture, finish, burnishing and decoration, occur widespread on old living sites and in protected shelters in the area.

The rock art in some parts of southern Africa such as the Drakensberg, Cederberg and Limpopo-Shashe Confluence area has been intensively studied, but the Mountainlands not. This was in part due to its inaccessibility. Van Riet Lowe’s (1952) catalogue of rock art sites in South Africa lists only ten in the Barberton and Nelspruit Districts. More rock paintings have been documented since then. These occur on many sites where suitable protected surfaces could be found on granite boulders over the whole area from the Komati Valley, Legogote and in the Kruger National Park. Paintings are both monochrome and biochrome and in different styles. The colours vary from very dark maroon through different shades of red to brown, yellow and white. In Barberton on a hillside close to the Havelock cableway, rock paintings in dark red and yellow ochre can be found. The number of located sites and the continuous discovery of new ones show that this part of southern Africa deserves to be as well known as the more intensively studied regions.

There is also proof that the Barberton mineral riches have been worked during the Iron Age (from 2000 years ago) before Europeans came looking for their fortune in this area. Small prehistoric iron mines, smelting sites and slag are found in many places, indicating that iron was exploited on a large scale. Unfortunately the gold miners of the turn of the century were not impressed with such antiquities and destroyed most of the definitive proof of their predecessors’ identity through their own mining operations.

However, the remains of ancient cultures that must once have thrived in the area are numerous. Terraces and rock packed structures can be found in Mountainlands and research by Dr. Cyril Hromnik has it that the Dravidian merchant caste of southern India mined gold here 2000 years ago, resulting in these stone structures, celestial calendars as well as temples. Since 1984 interest in the early history of the Barberton goldfields has been revived by Dr. Hromnik’s controversial research and his discovery in this area, of what he claims to be ancient megalithic Dravidian religious structures. Hromnik is of the opinion that an area known, as Komati-land was the trading zone of the Dravidians and that their presence in fact predates the appearance of the first Bantu in this part of Africa by centuries. The oral tradition of the local Swazi (Siswati), who settled in this area only relatively recently, in the first half of the 19th century, has little to say about these early gold miners. However the Swazi people are almost unanimous in attributing the stone enclosures, stonewalled roads and other stone structures that occur in the vicinity of the gold workings to the beSutfu. By calling these ancient stone-builders beSutfu the Swazi traditions do not refer, as is popularly believed, to the modern Bantu-speaking BaSotho (meaning “Black People”). –Sutfu is not just a Nguni variant of the name Sotho; the reference is, rather, to people of the uSutu River.

Intensive study by capable archaeologists and researchers who can make a positive contribution is required to determine the history of the civilizations that have existed in the area. This indeed offers a challenge and a great opportunity to answer the questions of Mountainlands’ fascinating archaeological past.