Professor Karim Sadr, the head of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits, and his team of young archaeology students made international headlines last year when they unearthed a 15th-century stone-walled settlement a mere 20-minute drive east of Kathorus, along the lower slopes of the Suikerbosrand Valley.
Sadr believes the settlement, which has been named Tshweneng, is one of the many Tswana stone-walled settlements that spread across the area that today includes Alberton, Johannesburg, Midrand and Pretoria as well as across the provinces of North West and Limpopo.
The settlement is believed to have been in existence until as recently as the 19th century, when it was raided by warriors of Mzilikazi’s rampaging army at the start of the Difaqane/Mfecane wars during the early 1830s.
The professor and his team are reaching out to the descendants of this historical city to participate in their research.
“Ideally, the descendants of those who built and inhabited this city should be involved in future research at this site. Some of my postgraduate students are already in contact with representatives of the Bakwena branch of the Tswana who claim parts of the landscape to the south of Johannesburg. We hope that they will actively become involved in our research project,” said Sadr.
Sadr’s team attributed their stunning discovery to a new technology called LiDAR.
Sadr explained that LiDAR was used to “redraw “ the remains of the city. The technology had been used previously to locate lost cities all over the world, including the remains of Mayan cities hidden in the rainforest in Meso-America.
“Four or five decades ago, several ancient Tswana ruins around the Suikerbosrand hills, east of Kathorus, had been excavated by archaeologists from the University of the Witwatersrand. But from ground level and on aerial photos the full extent of this settlement could not be appreciated because vegetation hides many of the ruins,” Sadr explained.
“It is one of several large settlements occupied by Tswana-speakers that dotted the northern parts of South Africa for generations before the first European travellers encountered them in the early years of the 19th century. In the 1820s all these Tswana city-states collapsed in what became known as the Difeqane civil wars,” said the professor.
Sadr surmised that it will take another decade or two of fieldwork to fully understand the history of this African city.
Watch this space as we discover more about the fascinating city of Tshweneng.
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