Speakers
Session One
Ancient southern Africa, metallurgy began with the processing and use of iron and copper early in the first millennium CE. Current evidence suggests that gold, tin and the alloys bronze and brass only appeared after the incorporation of the region into the Indian Ocean exchange system. Before then copper was melted in broken pottery, repurposed as receptacles in metallurgy. The appearance of gold, tin and bronze was accompanied by a use of custom-made crucibles. Archaeological work unearthed an assemblage of reused pottery and crucibles used in gold, copper, bronze and brass working. This provided an opportunity to study their structural and chemical characteristics using microscopic and geochemical techniques. The results showed that crucibles, reused pottery and domestic pottery were made of local clays with genetic relationships to local geologies. Consequently, the conclusion to this paper is that if the idea to make crucibles was from the Indian Ocean, then local people had agency and domesticated ideas from elsewhere in innovative ways. The continued use of pottery indicates cross craft overlaps in container use in technical and everyday activities. This makes materials analysis a profitable lens for engaging with local responses to incoming ideas in contexts of early forms of globalisation.