Papers by Amanda Esterhuysen
Wits University Press eBooks, Aug 25, 2018
Wits University Press eBooks, Aug 25, 2018
South African Archaeological Bulletin, 2019
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 2019
ABSTRACT This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the social and historic dimension of the ... more ABSTRACT This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the social and historic dimension of the Wesleyan Mission Station, Plaatberg, located in the Free State province of South Africa. It argues that the footprint of the mission station, exposed during an archaeological study of this landscape, lays bare the individual, as well as the general Methodist philosophy and political ideals. By placing acts of enclosure at the centre of the study it forefronts the missionary mind-set, and the desire to emulate a European social landscape. The paper also reflects on how, within the context of the broader imperial campaign, the Methodists’ ideal becomes a fleeting reality, but also how the mirage of a colonial town and country rapidly dissolved as the British withdrew from the Orange River Sovereignty. Finally, the paper considers the role of the boundary walls in the landscape, the region’s shifting political borders and the less tangible boundaries of prejudice that conferred obligations, responsibilities and expectations on the people who lived at Plaatberg.
Critical Arts, 2021
The present special issue of Critical Arts is an exploratory result of ongoing conversations, bet... more The present special issue of Critical Arts is an exploratory result of ongoing conversations, between Amanda Esterhuysen and Vibeke Maria Viestad in 2019. In May 2018 Esterhuysen took over the management of the Origins Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), and in February 2019 Vibeke Maria Viestad launched her book Dress as Social Relations at the centre. During the preparation for the book launch, conversations turned to the manner in which narratives about human origins and the San had been curated in the Origins Centre since the opening in 2006, and to questioning whether the line between foregrounding the history of the Khoe and San and displaying them as objects of communal histories had been crossed. Added to this was the predicament of trying to change or even challenge some of these narratives given the cost of refurbishing a museum, and navigating the politics of curation and conservation, while acknowledging the harm caused by presenting indigenous people as examples of “proto-pan-Africans”. The Origins Centre was opened at the behest of President Thabo Mbeki, after Professor Ben Smith, then director of the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI), proposed the development of two Drakensberg rock art sites and a small supporting museum in Johannesburg, for which the University donated buildings. Initially this was conceptualised as the South African Museum of Rock Art (SAMORA), but when the design team began to formulate their plans, the museum’s specifications were expanded to include the James Kitching museum of palaeontology, and the idea of an Origins Centre was formulated. The Centre’s remit was to provide a narrative from the evolution of the earliest life through to modern humans. However, only the sections on early human evolution, and rock art were completed so that currently the museum entrance introduces aspects of early human evolution and technological innovation followed by passages and rooms featuring different forms of southern African Rock Art. The theme of art is carried throughout the museum so that the evolution of humans, early technological development, and the ontologies and histories of the Khoe and San are also communicated through contemporary art. In 2015 a new wing was added to house rock engravings removed in
Azania:archaeological Research in Africa, Jan 9, 2023
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets
University of Durban-Westville, Dec 1, 1999
Wits University Press, Dec 1, 2016
Archives of Times Past, 2022
Mapungubwe Reconsidered: A Living Legacy, 2015
Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 2018
Mined landscapes represent the exploitation of Earth’s resources, but they also provide evidence ... more Mined landscapes represent the exploitation of Earth’s resources, but they also provide evidence for the unequal power relations and changing attitudes to resource use (including both geology and human beings as resources) within mining communities and their surrounding political and economic contexts. This study explores the impacts that gold mining has had on the landscapes of Johannesburg, South Africa, with particular reference to how land used for Black mineworkers’ cemeteries was reclaimed and used to store mine waste. The study describes how the uncovering of an early 20th century cemetery site beneath a mine waste dump poses questions on the meaning and significance of the dead in the urban industrial landscape. The deliberate burial and then accidental rediscovery of these bodies some 100 years later is a significant metaphor for the reinterpretation of racialised urban landscapes in South Africa.
Journal of Ethnobiology, 2017
Historical archaeobotany provides an empirical record of sometimes hidden livelihoods, particular... more Historical archaeobotany provides an empirical record of sometimes hidden livelihoods, particularly when documentary records are lacking. This paper reports on the wide range of plant taxa identified from the excavation of Historic Cave, Makapan Valley, South Africa, the site of a siege that took place in AD 1854. Growing tensions between Dutch settlers and chiefdoms in the northern regions of the country precipitated what appeared to be a premeditated, well-coordinated attack on the settlers by the Ndebele. In anticipation of settler retaliation, the Kekana Ndebele fortified a cave and furnished it with supplies. However, the Dutch settlers and their auxiliaries placed the Kekana under siege, causing thousands to die. The well-preserved remains of their stores provide a unique record of domestic and wild foods, cultivated and collected by the Ndebele in the midnineteenth century. This study gives historic depth to some of the farming practices recorded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in South Africa and provides an indication of the knowledge and wide use of fruiting trees in the area. The presence of a diviner-herbalist hints at the more complex way in which food and plant material may have been regarded and utilized.
The 2014 PanAfrican Archaeological Association (PAA) Congress was held at the University of the W... more The 2014 PanAfrican Archaeological Association (PAA) Congress was held at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg in tandem with the 22nd biennial meeting of the Society for Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA). The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) of South Africa provided the lion's share of funds to make the event possible. Geoff Blundell and Bruce Rubidge made invaluable contributions to the funding proposal. The then vice chancellor of Wits Professor Loyiso Nongxa was a staunch supporter of PAA2014 and facilitated infrastructural and logistical support from the university. Deputy vice chancellors professors Yunus Ballim, Belinda Bozzolli, Patrick Fitzgerald, Derek Keats and Rob Moore provided generous assistance in one way or another. The dean of the Faculty of Science Professor Andrew Crouch and the faculty's financial director Mr Manfred Malomo also gave unstinting support. Ms Andrea Leenen of the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST), as well as the Wenner-Gren Foundation provided funds to sponsor international students to attend the congress. The French Institute in South Africa (IFAS) kindly translated all documents to help make this a truly bilingual congress. The core of the congress was a five-day international conference that took place in mid-July 2014. A day of workshops for invited archaeology students from several countries preceded the main conference, and three days of excursions to visit important heritage sites in South Africa took place immediately after the main event. A mid-conference excursion took delegates to the world-famous Cradle of Humankind. About 450 delegates from Africa, Europe and North America registered to participate in PAA/SAfA 2014. These included academics and senior postgraduate students plus staff of museums and government agencies involved in heritage and archaeological matters. The day-today logistics were admirably handled by Ms Fiona Storie and her team from Scatterlings Inc. Wits postgraduate students
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2016
This study examines desiccated tissue samples from mummified human remains removed and excavated ... more This study examines desiccated tissue samples from mummified human remains removed and excavated from Historic Cave in the Makapan Valley, Limpopo Province using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energydispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and light microscopy. A range of methods are employed to clean, rehydrate and stain the desiccated tissue, and the outcomes are compared. Through this comparative analysis it is possible to determine the most suitable method for examining desiccated tissue from Historic Cave. In the SEM analysis, epidermal keratinocytes and vellus hairs were observed on the surface of the skin tissue. Histological analyses demonstrated the exclusive preservation of collagen fibres in the muscle tissue, the connective tissue and the skin tissue. This suggests that the collagen fibres play an integral part in preserving the structure of desiccated tissue that is devoid of cellular elements.
Materializing Colonial Encounters, 2015
This chapter examines the aftermath of a series of violent clashes between the Boers and Kekana N... more This chapter examines the aftermath of a series of violent clashes between the Boers and Kekana Ndebele that occurred on the northern frontier of South Africa in 1854. That year, growing Ndebele resistance against colonial expansion erupted in a number of incidents that prompted the murder of several Dutch colonists. Following retaliation from the Boers, one of the Ndebele chiefdoms, the Kekana, sought refuge in a cave. They were placed under an agonizing siege that lasted over a month, during which the Kekana suffered great human loss. Through a study of human and material remains retrieved at the cave, the chapter attempts to expose the complex web of spiritual and physical relationships that played a role in the collapse and restoration the Kekana Ndebele chiefdom. In particular, it aims to detect the margins, boundaries, and internal lines that began to shift as foreign forces began to threaten the local body politic. This chapter recognizes the human corpse as the source of powerful social symbolism, and explores the cause and effect of dismemberment and anthropophagy. Transitioning from the colonial corpse of the Boer to the African corpse, this study traces the physical and spiritual risk taken by Mugombane, the Kekana’s leader, which may have ultimately caused his demise. Although the material culture excavated from the site of the siege reveals the key political relationships enjoyed by Mugombane and buttressing his political sphere, it also exposes some of the internal tensions structuring the chiefdom. Material fragments also bring into visibility the people who occupied the margins of both Boer and African society, offering a window into local forms of social resilience and change.
This paper highlights the results of multi-disciplinary analyses of naturally mummified inhumatio... more This paper highlights the results of multi-disciplinary analyses of naturally mummified inhumations from Historic Cave, Makapansgat, Limpopo, South Africa. The cave is situated within the Malmani dolomite, and represents a recent doline system within more ancient karstic systems. The site was used as a refuge from conflicts during the Iron Age, and is perhaps best known for the 1854 conflict between Chief Mokopane and a Boer Commando, in which several thousand Langa and Kekana were besieged for a month between October and November, during which time many hundreds died of hunger and thirst. The mummified remains were recovered from formal and informal excavations undertaken over the last 100 years and represent the inhumed bodies of individuals who likely died during the siege of 1854. This research focusses primarily on juvenile individuals, preserved through processes of natural mummification, and which record significant aspects of taphonomic history. Traditional taphonomic approa...
World Geomorphological Landscapes, 2015
The geologic and geomorphological diversity of South Africa, the spectacular landscapes that resu... more The geologic and geomorphological diversity of South Africa, the spectacular landscapes that result, and their internationally important ecological and cultural/archaeological associations, all make the landscapes of South Africa prime sites for geoheritage and geotourism. To date, however, there has been little work to develop this potential. This chapter describes examples of sites where geoheritage and geotourism activities have been developed in South Africa, and how other scenic South African landscapes can enhance their geoheritage and geotourism potential.
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Papers by Amanda Esterhuysen