Nkope culture
Nkope culture is an Iron Age culture found in Malawi , eastern Zambia, and Mozambique . It is the earliest Iron Age culture in this region and at the same time the first agricultural culture in this area. It is suspected, without it can be proven, that it was already a Bantu- speaking population. The Nkope culture is named after the Nkope (Nkope Mission) archaeological site . It dates from around AD 250 to 1000.
The Nkope culture is mainly defined by its ceramics. They are mostly round vessels with an inverted rim and bowls with a flattened, thickened or inward-facing rim. The wall of the ceramic is often noticeably thick.
The places of the Nkope culture are mostly found on Lake Malawi and on the banks of the Shire .
During excavations, quite large villages with the remains of houses, bones of domesticated cattle and rubbing stones that indicate grain cultivation were found. Hunting and fishing continued to be of great importance. Shells and glass beads are evidence of trade with the African east coast. Iron occurs only sporadically and seems to have been very valuable. Stone tools continued to play an important role.
In Malawi, Nkope ceramics were followed by Kapeni , Longwe , Mawudzu and Nkhudzi ceramics in the late Iron Age .
The Nkope culture has not been explored until 1968 when Keith Robinson began excavating in various locations in Malawi. Th. Huffmann assigns it to the Zimbabwe Culture , i.e. the Munhumutapa empire .
See also
literature
- Yusuf M. Juwayeyi: Iron age settlement and substence patterns in southern Malawi , In The Archeology of Africa , edited by T. Shaw, P. Sinclair, B. Andah, A. Okpoko, London / New York 1993, pp. 391-98 , ISBN 041511585X
- Thomas N. Huffman: Archeology and Ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. In: Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 11, 1982, pp. 133-150