Clay Acquisition and Processing Strategies During the First Millennium AD in the Thukela River Basin, South Africa: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach

Despite a sizable corpus of pottery provenance studies in southern Africa, there has been no systematic research aimed at comparing modern and ancient production strategies. In this paper we present a model of Zulu clay acquisition and processing strategies and outline its implications for understanding the mineralogical composition of ceramics produced by early farming communities in the Thukela River basin in South Africa. Through a comparison of the mineralogical properties of modern and archaeological ceramics from the basin, we propose that clay-processing strategies were considerably different during the first millennium A. D., while clay acquisition strategies have not changed considerably in the basin over time. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.