Assessment of human skeletal remains from the Penhalonga district, Zimbabwe

The Nyanga complex is situated in the Penhalonga district of Manicaland province in northern Zimbabwe. According to various archival and modern sources, six skeletons were discovered in this region in the 1930s and are supposedly curated in the Raymond A. Dart Collection of Archaeological Humans Remains at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. In an attempt to locate these skeletons and associate them with the sites, archival records, skeletal and faunal analyses and radiocarbon dating were used to gain more information on the bioarchaeology of the region. Only three of the skeletons could be located in the Dart Collection, two of which could be reliably radiocarbon dated, one from the Hill of Paintings to before the beginning of the Nyanga complex, the other, from Mkondwe, to most probably contemporary with it. The latter shows evidence of dental modification similar to that seen in individuals recovered from the Monk's Kop site, situated to the north of Zimbabwe. This study forms part of a larger attempt to bring context to skeletons housed in archaeological collections because of their value as sources of information on the past.