Crafting power: New perspectives on the political economy of southern Africa, AD 900–1300

摘要: Abstract Archaeological studies of craft production locales provide an important lens through which to evaluate the mechanisms political economy at different, intersecting scales. Such multi-scaler perspectives are pertinent study southern Africa in late first and early second millennium. Dominant models this period derive from research conducted regional centers, leaving critical assumptions surrounding resource mobility, access products other items value, control over persons largely untested wider region. Research site Shankare (AD 900–1300), located near Lolwe, earliest dated copper mine Africa, revealed presence a community independent specialists. Crafting took place domestic contexts, with worked alongside activities such as textile spinning, indicative multi-crafting. Exchange consumption patterns indicate that imported technologies Indian Ocean rim region, glass beads technology were spread widely within local networks. This reveals variable heterogeneous ways craft, trade power articulate, cautions for more nuanced explorations