Kingdom of Mapungubwe - Early Human Settlement

Early Human Settlement

Mapungubwe is located within a predominantly Venda speaking area in the present day Limpopo Province of South Africa. The area around it was initially occupied by the Vhangona who were later joined by the Vhatwanamba, Vhaleya and other Sotho groups. Ancient paintings found on rocks and in caves alluded to an earlier settlement by the San group. Research is not unanimous regarding how far back the area has been inhabited by Bantu speaking people and a number of potential dates have been suggested. For example, Huffman (2000) posits that Bantu speaking people (most likely the Vhangona who are the aboriginal Venda) first settled around the Mapungubwe valley around 300 AD and were part of the so-called western stream which is also referred to as the Kalundu tradition (or the Happy rest fascie) within the archeological literature. Robertson and Bradley (2000) on the other hand, suggest a much earlier date of around 200 BC. In fact, Robertson and Bradley cast serious doubt on the whole Bantu migration thesis that suggests that Bantu speaking people migrated from West Africa to Southern Africa, a thesis which has been accepted as conventional wisdom without subjecting it to scrutiny. The conventional Bantu migration model has also been challenged by a growing literature which includes among others, Gramley (1978), Schmidt(1978), Schepartz (1988), Hall (1990) and Vansina (1995). This literature questions the migration thesis and suggests rather, that instead of migrations, there was continuity and organic growth and expansion of populations around early settlements and whatever migrations there may have been before 1500 AD were mostly associated with traders and a few other travelers. While this literature generally dismisses the thesis of large scale earlier Bantu migrations in general, it suggests however that large scale migrations by Bantu speaking people only started occurring from the 1500 AD onwards.