Mpambanyoni: a Late Iron Age site on the Natal south coast

Abstract

Rescue excavations at the hilltop site of Mpambanyoni, near Scottburgh, were carried out in the summer of 1978-79. Two shell middens were excavated and a number of surface pottery collections made. Analysis of the remains shows that the inhabitants depended for a large proportion of their meat on hunting, fishing and gathering of molluscs, especially the brown mussel Perna perna. No direct evidence of agriculture was found, although the large bovid remains are most probably those of domestic cattle, and the presence of grindstones and pottery in an Iron Age context suggests that agriculture was practised. Three radiocarbon dates centre around the beginning of the second millennium A.D., suggesting a similarity with the site of Blackburn, near Umhlanga Rocks.

To cite this article: Robey, T. 1980. Mpambanyoni: a Late Iron Age site on the Natal south coast. Annals of the Natal Museum 24 (1): 147-64.