Papers by Elizabeth Chindebvu
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2016
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2015
International Journal of Heritage in the Digital Era, 2013
African Archaeological Review, 2014
The landscape of northern Malawi is defined by several river catchments that drain from the highl... more The landscape of northern Malawi is defined by several river catchments that drain from the highlands in the west into Lake Malawi in the east. Many thousands of Middle Stone Age (MSA) artefacts are present on the surface, in particular, in areas where sedimentary units assigned to the Chitimwe Beds are exposed. The unique configuration of the region and its exposures makes it possible to address landscapescale questions about MSA behaviour that augment information derived from excavated assemblages. In this study, data are derived from initial results of surveys conducted in 2012 which focussed on how lithic raw materials (in the form of cobbles) and core technology (in the form of mapped and analysed cores) are distributed across the landscape relative to different landforms, geologies and one another. These data are used to examine if differences in core reduction technology occur in different catchment areas with different raw material quantities and qualities, and to test hypotheses about lithic provisioning scenarios. This allows for examination of core reduction technologies in relation to raw material sources via surface finds, on a larger regional Afr Archaeol Rev E. Gomani-Chindebvu Malawi Department of Culture, Tourism House, Private Bag 326, Lilongwe 3, Malawi débitage sur nucléus qu'ils préféraient. Cela suggère de ce fait que tout au long de MSA, les techniques de débitage du nord du Malawi étaient hautement conservatives et cela en dépit de la diversité de matière première présente et les nucléus n'étaient pas régulièrement transportés comme faisant partie d'une stratégie d'approvisionnement.
Quaternary International, 2012
a b s t r a c t J. Desmond Clark and his colleagues were first to investigate the rich Middle Sto... more a b s t r a c t J. Desmond Clark and his colleagues were first to investigate the rich Middle Stone Age (MSA e from ca. 285 to 30,000 years ago) deposits in the Karonga District of northern Malawi in the 1960s. This work demonstrated the enormous potential of the area to inform about Middle to Late Pleistocene hominin lifeways, but further studies were hindered by difficulties in dating the sites and understanding their fine-scale depositional and paleoenvironmental contexts. With the advances that have been made in the fields of geoarchaeology, lithic analysis, palaeoenvironments, and geochronology over the last fifty years, the time is ideal to renew these investigations. Recent survey and excavation in Karonga, Malawi show that MSA lithic artifacts are preserved in a variety of stratified sedimentary contexts and that they exhibit limited weathering or other indications of post-depositional transport. These deposits are in close proximity to the high-resolution paleoenvironmental records derived from sediments at the bottom of nearby Lake Malawi, which provide context for the human behavior recorded by the artifacts. Results of excavations at one of these stratified sites e the Airport Site e are detailed here. This provides a renewed example of the site formation and behavioral data available in the region.
Thompson, Jessica C., Wright, David K., Mackay, Alex, Welling, Menno, Forman, Steven L., Price, G... more Thompson, Jessica C., Wright, David K., Mackay, Alex, Welling, Menno, Forman, Steven L., Price, Gilbert, Zhao, Jian-xin and Gomani-Chindebvu, Elizabeth (2012). Reassessment of the formation and significance of the Mwanganda's Village 'elephant butchery site', Karonga District, northern Malawi. In: , Abstracts of the Paleoanthropology Society 2012 Meeting. Paleoanthropology Society Meeting, Memphis, TN United States, (A35-A35). 17-18 April 2012.
The Southern Montane Forest-Grassland mosaic ecosystem in the humid subtropics southern Rift Vall... more The Southern Montane Forest-Grassland mosaic ecosystem in the humid subtropics southern Rift Valley of Africa comprised the environmental context for a large area in which modern human evolution and dispersal occurred. Variable climatic conditions during the Late Pleistocene have ranged between humid and hyperarid, changing the character of the ecosystem and transforming it at different points in time into a barrier, a refuge, and a corridor between southern and eastern African populations. Alluvial fans presently blanket the areas adjacent to major river systems, which were key areas of prehistoric human habitation. These sets of variables have created conditions that are both challenging and advantageous to conduct archaeological research. Lateritic soil development has resulted in poor organic preservation and facilitated insect bioturbation, which has demanded an integrated micro-macro scale approach to building a reliable geochronology. An integrated field and analytical methodology has also been employed to identify the nature and degree of post-depositional movement in alluvial deposits, which preserve a wide range of spatial integrity levels in buried stone artifact assemblages between 47 and 30 ka in Karonga, northern Malawi. This paper describes the methodological advances taken toward understanding open-air Middle Stone Age archaeology in subtropical Africa, and explores the inferential potential for understanding Pleistocene human ecology in the important southern Rift Valley region.
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Papers by Elizabeth Chindebvu