In what ways do meetings between differing knowledges of the material world involve change to people's engagements with their immediate, everyday surroundings? And may our insights from studies of such dynamics inform archaeological thinking and practice in fruitful ways without unwillingly projecting ideas and concepts specific to western post-Enlightenment thinking? By combining archaeological and anthropological insights with African philosophical critique, this article presents an approach which aims to enable understanding of the materiality of dwelled-in spaces which is context dependent, seeks symmetry in human/non-human interaction instead of asymmetry, contests the continued prioritizing of cognitive dimensions of knowledge, and acknowledges feminist and Africanist critique of universalist notions of science. Sensitive to epistemological and ethical concerns with ethnoarchaeology, the article discusses certain contrasts that emerged from two field studies in Botswana, and how these insights may inform our archaeological interpretations of the Later Iron Age in southern Africa.
To what extent do we need structuralist cognitive settlement models such as the Central Cattle Pattern and the Zimbabwe Pattern for future research and understanding of Iron Age social life in southern Africa? How will alternative approaches enable us to progress beyond the present status of knowledge? While the three last decades of debate have underpinned key aspects of archaeological inquiry, notably questions of social change, gender dynamics, analytical scale and the use of ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological insights, the sometimes entrenched nature of the debate has in other respects hindered development of new approaches and restrained the range of themes and topics scholars engage with. In this article, we identify the issues of analytical scale and recursiveness as key to the development of future approaches and present an alternative framework through empirically grounded discussion of three central Iron Age themes: ceramics and the microscale, the spatiality of metal production and the temporality of stonewalled architecture.
What do researchers and heritage practitioners do when their concepts of place do not coincide with those held by local communities? Discussing a case study from Mozambique against its wider southern African backdrop, this article argues that professionals cannot overlook the fact that many rural communities in this part of Africa do their version of 'archaeology' by reconstructing the past via their ancestors. The primary focus is to establish a ground for epistemic levelling between 'scientific' and 'other' knowledges and an ensuing heritage ethics from which to articulate a set of key tenets for future engagements with local communities and public archaeology. In order to develop an approach that is inclusive and within the scope of 'a truly engaged archaeology', we explore the potential of encounters between different epistemologies, between those of professional practitioners and those of the public they engage with.
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