South African Archaeological Society

Reply to Barham: Aggregation and Dispersal Phase Sites in the Later Stone AgeAuthor(s): Lyn WadleySource: The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 47, No. 155 (Jun., 1992), pp. 52-55Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3888992 .

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52 South African Archaeological Bulletin 47: 52-55, 1992

REPLY TO BARHAM:

AGGREGATION AND DISPERSAL PHASE SITES IN THE LATER STONE AGE*

LYN WADLEY Department of Archaeology University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050

* Received March 1992

Barham has put considerable effort into his assessment of the aggregation and dispersal model and its application to the Transvaal sites. I am grateful to him for the attention he has drawn to the model and particularly for raising some issues that may be of concern to other readers. Barham's critique of the aggregation model is summarized and answered below.

Aggregation at Jubilee Shelter and Dispersal Camps at James and Siphiso

Barham suggests that the aggregation/dispersal model is not useful because he has tested it at Siphiso, Swaziland. He believes that, using the model, Siphiso would be classified as an aggregation site. Siphiso contains beadmaking debris and a few artefacts that could serve as hxaro gifts, but it is a small shelter on a steep slope, con- tains relatively informal tools, has hardly any arrow points or bone manufacturing debris and contains the remains of small bovids and small, collectible creatures.

In order to reply to this criticism I must first provide some background to the aggregation/dispersal model and its application in the Transvaal. Premises about aggregation and dispersal camps have been derived from modern San camps (Wadley 1987, 1989). Aggregation is a 'public' phase of band life when kin-related households congregate; it is a time for visiting, socializing, making and exchanging gifts, marriage brokering and intensified ritual. Manufacturing is at a premium during the aggregation phase partly because it is the time when most gift exchange takes place and partly because, as Yellen (1977) points out, the longer people stay in one place the more likely it is that the full range of their potential activities will take place.

The post-classic Wilton and late Wilton levels (c. 1840-3730 BP) at Jubilee Shelter are interpreted as aggregation camps (Wadley 1987, 1989) on the basis of a substantial list of attributes rather than a single attribute. The c. 1840-3730 BP levels contain debris from the manufacture of bone artefacts, particularly points, and bone and ostrich eggshell jewellery, particularly ostrich eggshell beads. Retouched stone tools occur in far higher frequencies than at other contemporaneous sites in the area. In addition these stone tools are predominantly made on colourful, fine-grained rocks that must be collected from outcrops that are 20 to 30 km from the shelter. The local quartzite has been ignored, and local quartz appears in lower frequencies than in previous time periods. Gender-specific activity areas can also be discerned in these levels, suggesting that behaviour was relatively formal. A cache of objects including MSA tools, quartz crystals, rubbed pebbles, magnetite chunks and a striated soapstone object.smeared with red ochre was found next to a hearth. The unusual association of these items made me

suggest that the cache may have belonged to a shaman. Finally, the fauna of Jubilee Shelter includes a wide range of large and small animals, suggesting that both large game hunting and trapping were practised. Clearly the interpretation of Jubilee as an aggregation site is not based on the manufacture of eggshell jewellery alone.

Furthermore, several excavated southern Transvaal sites are interpreted as dispersal phase sites on the basis of other attributes (Wadley 1987). Although idiosyncratic in content, these sites are characterized by fauna dominated by small creatures, and by low frequencies of retouched artefacts, jewellery, bone tools and the debris from the manufacture of beads and arrows.

It is most appropriate to compare Cave James with Jubilee Shelter because these sites are close together and have similar dates and there is consequently no need to make allowances for material culture differences that might be time related. There are striking differences between the artefacts found in the two sites. While the Jubilee artefacts are formal and are made on rocks col- lected some distance from the site, the James artefacts are informal and are manufactured almost exclusively on local quartz and quartzite. The raw material difference is noteworthy because James is closer to the source of the fine-grained exotic rocks than Jubilee. Furthermore, the sites appear to have been occupied in different seasons: Jubilee contains the remains of winter fruits and James the remains of summer fruits. Jubilee contains a wide range of large bovids while the James fauna is restricted to birds, rodents and small bovids. The Jubilee and James data fit the aggregation/dispersal model neatly and the interpretation is based not only on cultural material but also on palaeoenvironmental data.

It is important to note that if James were to have a single aggregation attribute such as arrow- or bead- making, or the presence of shamans' paraphernalia, James would still be interpreted as a dispersal camp because of the other features present. Yellen's (1977) study of 16 dispersal phase sites (his transient camps) shows that there is a great deal of variablity among them. One site contained bead-making debris, for example (Yellen 1977:153). Nonetheless, this site could not be mistaken for an aggregation camp: no other manufacturing debris was present, only two hearths were visible and the only faunal remains were those of porcupine, springhare and steenbok. In some of the other small camps manufacturing debris was completely absent but the remains of a single gemsbok were present. In short, it is not possible to predict the precise nature of a dispersal phase camp but it is possible to distinguish it from an aggregation camp. I previously pointed out (Wadley 1987:41-42) that one might therefore expect the archaeological remains of the emphemeral dispersal phase camps to show similar variability.

Barham rejects the aggregation model because Siphiso looks like a dispersal phase site and yet he believes that my model would define it as an aggregation site. However, Siphiso is comparable to Jubilee Shelter only in the presence of ostrich eggshell beads. Barham also uses the presence of pigment in Siphiso as an aggregation site indicator but this is inappropriate because it is not in my original list of attributes (Wadley 1987:42-46; Wadley 1989:43). I did not list pigment because of its wide range

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South African Archaeological Bulletin 53

of uses and the fact that it is sometimes found in ESA sites.

In his critique Barham does not give details of Siphiso's contents but they are necessary for comparative purposes. The excavations themselves are of a similar size so it is not unreasonable to compare the quantities of artefacts. The Siphiso figures comprise data from Level 111, which is dated 1940 ? 370 (TX-5619), and from Level 1V which is dated between 5710 ? 280 (TX-5621) and 6960 ? 110 (TX-5626) (Barham 1989). The Jubilee figures comprise data only from the levels dating between 1840 ? 50 and 3730 ? 60 BP (stratigraphic units B- CASH, BB-GRUB, RL-G, L-L4) because these are the only levels with evidence for aggregation.

At Siphiso there are 18 whole beads and 42 broken beads (presumably some are incomplete) (Barham 1989:671). At Jubilee there are 254 beads, plus 30 ochre covered beads, 2 broken beads, 32 whole incomplete beads and 58 broken incomplete beads (Wadley 1987:150). At Siphiso there is only one piece of worked bone, whereas at Jubilee 649 pieces of worked bone occur between c. 1840 and 3730 BP. At Siphiso there are 221 cores and 67 retouched tools of which 5 are segments and 2 are backed bladelets (Barham 1989:468, 473, 475). At Jubilee there are 811 cores but 977 pieces of retouch, including 41 segments and 61 backed bladelets (Wadley 1987:131-4).

In addition the Siphiso fauna suggests an economy based on trapping whereas the Jubilee fauna includes many large bovids that were probably hunted. In short, using my model, Siphiso is quite different from Jubilee and is clearly a dispersal phase site. Thus the evidence supports rather than threatens the aggregation/dispersal phase model.

Sample Size at Cave James Barham suggests that sampling error may be a factor in

the apparent informality at Cave James. The Cave James data published in 1987 were obtained

from a small excavation but further excavations carried out in this cave (Wadley 1988) do not alter the interpretation. Furthermore, the artefact sample from the initial excavation cannot be called small notwithstanding the size of the trench. The Holocene levels contained 107 cores, 10 485 flakes and 127 retouched pieces of which 59 could not be classified beyond the category 'miscellaneous retouch' (Wadley 1987:139). Although the Jubilee and James assemblages are broadly contemporaneous, the Jubilee tools can be classified as a classic Wilton assemblage, while the tools from James cannot readily be placed into any industry. I agree with Barham that cutting and scraping activities are likely to be carried out at both aggregation and dispersal sites. I am suggesting, however, that people might use different 'styles' of tools for the same task depending on whether this was being performed during aggregation or dispersal. The same cutting task might, for example, be performed with a beautiful backed blade at an aggregation camp and with an unmodified flake at a dispersal camp.

Manufacturing as an Aggregation Site Activity Barham suggests the dispersal phase is a good time to

devote to activities such as beadmaking and beadwork and that these activities should therefore take place year round, not only during the aggregation phase. He also uses Yellen's data on tool manufacture and raw material location to suggest that the primary factor determining their density is length of occupation, and this in turn is dependent on resource availability.

Modem San do not discard their metal tools (Yellen 1977), and so the discard rate for Stone Age tools and modem San tools is different. Since modem San keep their tools with them, they can, as Yellen suggests, make anything they please at any time of year. What is pertinent to my argument is that the San do not choose to make certain items in some of their camps even though they may have the necessary implements and raw materials and time to do so. Eggshell bead making is again a suitable example: in Yellen's 16 dispersal phase camps only one contained evidence for beadmaking. This amply illustrates that there is a difference between what people are hypothetically able to do and what they actually do. I suggest that social mores determine the decisions people ultimately make about their actions (Wadley 1987).

Unfortunately, Yellen's aggregation site data remain unpublished so we do not know what proportions of debris and what variety of raw materials accumulate from various activities. However, I am in full agreement with Yellen's comment that "there is no close correlation between the location of raw materials and the camps at which they are processed" (1976:67). The presence in Jubilee Shelter of a wide range of rocks including a high proportion from 20 to 30 km away supports this observation. The more varied the artefacts and their raw materials, the more likely it is that an assemblage will belong to a well established home base where a wide variety of processing and manufacturing tasks take place (Wadley 1987:68). Binford (1985) and Gould (1985) debated the likelihood that rocks were collected during special excursions or during the process of other subsistence activities. I do not wish to enter the debate but find it necessary, as I did in 1987, to comment that the difference in rock types at Jubilee and James must be important. James is closer than Jubilee to the source of jaspilites and chalcedonies yet they were rare in James and common in Jubilee. Whatever the reason, the Jubilee inhabitants were bringing fine-grained rocks home and producing formal tools from them, while the James occu- pants kept to the production of flakes from the local quartz and quartzite. These differences are not consistent with a suggestion that the sites are simply distinguished by varying quantities of the same activities.

The Role of Unworked Crystals Related to the rock type differences at the two sites is

the issue of quartz crystals. Barham claims that the unworked crystals at Jubilee were more likely to be used for knapping than by shamans. He suggests that replication experiments could resolve this issue.

My suggestion that some of the unworked quartz crystals might be part of shamanistic paraphernalia was based on the appearance of crystals in the cache mentioned previously. I am, of course, fully aware that crystals were also used as cores. There are many quartz cores in both sites. What is unusual, however, is that the quartz crystals have their origin close to Cave James and yet there are few unworked crystals there but many in Jubilee. The reverse should also be the case if crystals were merely raw materials because there are far more quartz tools in James. Furthermore, in Jubilee, there are particularly high frequencies of quartz crystals in the levels where quartz tools have the lowest frequencies (Wadley 1987:73).

Barham suggests that replication studies might resolve the issue because only crystals larger than 20 mm are useful for knapping, thus the smaller crystals would have been used for ritual purposes. It is wrong, however, to assume that people would always place more value on the economic function of a crystal and would only use 'rejects' for ritual purposes. Conclusions on social issues

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54 South African Archaeological Bulletin

cannot be drawn from technical experiments. Social issues can only be resolved by using social models. Thus the aggregation/dispersal model, for all the methodological problems that are associated with it, can only be toppled by a different social model that provides better explanations and has greater heuristic potential. Replication studies fall short of this requirement.

Poor Resolution and Poor Preservation in Archaeological Sites

Barham says that although the aggregation model is potentially important it is not useful because of the lack of resolution in archaeological sites and because of the difficulty in assessing sites where organic preservation is poor. He also says that where it is not possible to distinguish between site types on the basis of artefact content alone, then we must rely on a combination of economic and environmental data regarding season of occupation and foods extracted. He concludes that we need a relatively fine-grained palaeoenvironmental database for reconstructing site use.

The issue of poor resolution and preservation affects all archaeological interpretations, not just social ones. If social interpretations are useless because of poor resolution then replication studies and palaeoenvironmental studies are equally useless. Indeed, in the face of such pessimism all archaeology is worthless. This is a standpoint that I refuse to accept.

In reply to the second part of Barham's comment I must point out that my Transvaal study was not merely a social study but included both seasonality and palaeoenvironmental studies.

The use of theory and ethnographic analogy Barham suggests that we should leave theory well

alone until we have explored all alternative means of interpretation. He offers replication studies as an alternative approach to the use of theory. On the contrary, while replication studies are useful for resolving technical issues, they can never be a substitute for theory. Theory is paramount to all interpretation. All interpretation is informed by theory even when a researcher does not recognize the 'brand' of theory he is using. Even the choice of a topic for study is determined by a researcher's theoretical bias.

Barham's anti-theoretical approach is linked to his atti- tude towards the use of ethnographic analogy: he questions the validity of reconstructing relations of production when the past is not accessible by direct historical comparison. Barham is concerned, for example, that we do not have an "unbroken ethnographic record which links the historic San with the stone tool-making traditions of the LSA". He implies that the change in technology from stone to metal knives and arrows may have brought about a change in social relations thereby making analogy between San and LSA people invalid. Certainly there is a difference in the debris found in Stone Age and modern camps: Stone Age camps are richly endowed with discarded tools whereas modern camps seldom contain tools because metal implements are never abandoned.

First, it is not strictly true that we have lost the link between San and Stone Age people. There are references to San using stone tools, particularly stone arrowheads (Bleek & Lloyd 1911:227; Goodwin 1945). Stone arrowheads were still used at the turn of the century and were spoken of as being the "best" kind of arrow. Jantje, one of Bleek's informants, stated a preference for white

stone (quartz) arrowheads, saying that iron tips were ugly (Goodwin 1945). The Bleek and Lloyd late nineteenth century records of northern Cape San who still held stone in high regard suggest that there was little difference between their hunting practices and beliefs and those of more recent !Kung studied by Marshall (1976) and Lee (1979).

Certainly there is no evidence that the change in raw material either changed the use or meaning of San tools and weapons or brought about a change in !Kung social relations. Indeed it would be unlikely that it should unless this change was accompanied by a change in social rules, such as those for the sharing of meat or for gaining access to the hunt itself. What is important is the way in which people obtain access to and control over resources. Social relations cannot be caused or changed by forces of production (Friedman 1974; Godelier 1975, 1977, 1978), such as technology. Ultimately the study of technology is technicist; only social theory can explain social behaviour.

In taking this standpoint I am not trying to deny social change, nor do I suggest that LSA people are fossilized San, but I am suggesting that change must be demonstrated and not merely assumed. The issue of demonstrating social change in San society is currently the topic of heated debate among social anthropologists (for example, see Solway & Lee 1990).

Secondly, even where change can be demonstrated, this does not automatically invalidate the use of ethnographic analogy. Analogy is not exclusively a relation of similarity, it must also take cognizance of differences between source and subject (Wylie 1985:94). While argument by analogy is liable to error it can be closely controlled (Wylie 1985:107) by ensuring that we are using arguments of relevance (Leone 1982:749) before we con- struct ethnographic models for interpreting Stone Age lifeways.

Relevance is typically understood to be a function of knowledge about underlying 'principles of connection' that structure source and subject and that assure, on this basis the existence of specific further similarities between them (Wylie 1985:94).

Analogies that include considerations of relevance demonstrate that there are similarities between source and subject with respect to the processes that determine the presence and inter-relationships of their manifest properties (Wylie 1985:95). The aggregation analogy fulfils this requirement.

Aggregation is universal to all modern hunter- gatherers: it is essential to the maintenance of social relations because it provides the means through which people gain access to social, religious and economic resources. It is only the 'between band' relations (and not the unstable relations within a band) that can provide for the reproduction of the economy and its social conditions of existence (Keenan 1981:12). The most obvious occasion for viewing 'between band' situations is that of aggrega- tion. It seems likely that aggregation camps are also going to provide the key to our understanding of stability or change in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. There are methodological problems with our abilities to identify aggregation sites archaeologically (Conkey 1991:65-6), but these difficulties do not alter the fact that aggregation sites are the only places where we can examine 'beyond the household', 'between band' relationships.

The challenge to archaeologists is not to justify the search for prehistoric aggregation sites, the challenge is to trace the origin of the practice of aggregation and to refine the methodology for recognizing it in prehistoric sites.

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South African Archaeological Bulletin 55

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