Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites

Biagetti, Stefano; Alcaina-Mateos, Jonas; Ruiz-Giralt, Abel; Lancelotti, Carla; Groenewald, Patricia; Ibañez-Insa, Jordi; Gur-Arieh, Shira; Morton, Fred; Merlo, Stefania

Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites

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dc.contributor.author Biagetti, Stefano
dc.contributor.author Alcaina-Mateos, Jonas
dc.contributor.author Ruiz-Giralt, Abel
dc.contributor.author Lancelotti, Carla
dc.contributor.author Groenewald, Patricia
dc.contributor.author Ibañez-Insa, Jordi
dc.contributor.author Gur-Arieh, Shira
dc.contributor.author Morton, Fred
dc.contributor.author Merlo, Stefania
dc.date.accessioned 2023-06-19T06:20:54Z
dc.date.available 2023-06-19T06:20:54Z
dc.date.issued 2021
dc.description.abstract Numerous and extensive ‘Stone Walled Sites’ have been identified in southern African Iron Age landscapes. Appearing from around 1200 CE, and showing considerable variability in size and form, these settlements are named after the dry-stone wall structures that characterize them. Stone Walled Sites were occupied by various Bantu-speaking agropastoral communities. In this paper we test the use of pXRF (portable X-ray fluorescence analysis) to generate a ‘supplementary’ archaeological record where evident stratigraphy is lacking, survey conditions may be uneven, and excavations limited, due to the overall site size. We propose herein the application of portable X-ray fluorescence analysis (pXRF) coupled with multivariate exploratory analysis and geostatistical modelling at Seoke, a southern African SWS of historical age (18th century CE). The aim of the paper is twofold: to explore the potential of the application of a low cost, quick, and minimally invasive technique to detect chemical markers in anthropogenic sediments from a Stone Walled Site, and to propose a way to analyse the results in order to improve our understanding of the use of space at non-generalized scales in such sites.
dc.description.sponsorship This research is funded by Fundacio´n Palarq, calls 2019 and 2020, project ”GeoEtnoArqueologia y uso del espacio (GEA)” entrusted to SB. SM and FM received financial support from the Office of Research and Development at the University of Botswana. The work of SGA was funded by the European Union’s MapDung project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No H2020-MSCA-IF-2017-794823. SB, JAM, ARG, CL and SGA are members of CaSEs Research Group of the Catalan Research Agency (AGAUR SGR212), which is an associated unit (Unidad Asociada) to the Institucion Mila Y Fontanals of the Spanish Research National Council (CSIC).
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.citation Biagetti S, Alcaina-Mateos J, Ruiz-Giralt A, Lancelotti C, Groenewald P, Ibañez-Insa J, Gur-Arie S, Morton F, Merlo S. Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites. PLoS One. 2021;16(5):e0250776. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
dc.identifier.issn 1932-6203
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57232
dc.language.iso eng
dc.publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
dc.relation.ispartof PLoS ONE. 2021;16(5):e0250776.
dc.relation.isreferencedby https://github.com/cl379/papers_supl_materials/tree/master/Biagetti2020_Seoke
dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/794823
dc.rights © 2021 Biagetti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject.keyword Archaeology
dc.subject.keyword Chemical elements
dc.subject.keyword Sediment
dc.subject.keyword Chemical deposition
dc.subject.keyword Cattle
dc.subject.keyword Archaeological excavation
dc.subject.keyword Livestock
dc.subject.keyword Towns
dc.title Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

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