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

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 w...

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Authors: Biagetti, Stefano, Alcaina-Mateos, Jonas, Ruiz-Giralt, Abel, Lancelotti, Carla, Groenewald, Patricia, Ibañez-Insa, Jordi, Gur-Arieh, Shira, Morton, Fred, Merlo, Stefania
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2021
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repository:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/57232
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Archaeology
Chemical elements
Sediment
Chemical deposition
Cattle
Archaeological excavation
Livestock
Towns
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spelling Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled SitesBiagetti, StefanoAlcaina-Mateos, JonasRuiz-Giralt, AbelLancelotti, CarlaGroenewald, PatriciaIbañez-Insa, JordiGur-Arieh, ShiraMorton, FredMerlo, StefaniaArchaeologyChemical elementsSedimentChemical depositionCattleArchaeological excavationLivestockTownsNumerous 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.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).Public Library of Science (PLoS)202320232021info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/57232http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250776reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPFinstname:Universitat Pompeu FabraInglésPLoS ONE. 2021;16(5):e0250776.https://github.com/cl379/papers_supl_materials/tree/master/Biagetti2020_Seokeinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/794823© 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.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/572322026-06-12T07:21:37Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
title Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
spellingShingle Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
Biagetti, Stefano
Archaeology
Chemical elements
Sediment
Chemical deposition
Cattle
Archaeological excavation
Livestock
Towns
title_short Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
title_full Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
title_fullStr Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
title_full_unstemmed Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
title_sort Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Biagetti, Stefano
Alcaina-Mateos, Jonas
Ruiz-Giralt, Abel
Lancelotti, Carla
Groenewald, Patricia
Ibañez-Insa, Jordi
Gur-Arieh, Shira
Morton, Fred
Merlo, Stefania
author Biagetti, Stefano
author_facet Biagetti, Stefano
Alcaina-Mateos, Jonas
Ruiz-Giralt, Abel
Lancelotti, Carla
Groenewald, Patricia
Ibañez-Insa, Jordi
Gur-Arieh, Shira
Morton, Fred
Merlo, Stefania
author_role author
author2 Alcaina-Mateos, Jonas
Ruiz-Giralt, Abel
Lancelotti, Carla
Groenewald, Patricia
Ibañez-Insa, Jordi
Gur-Arieh, Shira
Morton, Fred
Merlo, Stefania
author2_role author
author
author
author
author
author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Archaeology
Chemical elements
Sediment
Chemical deposition
Cattle
Archaeological excavation
Livestock
Towns
topic Archaeology
Chemical elements
Sediment
Chemical deposition
Cattle
Archaeological excavation
Livestock
Towns
description 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.
publishDate 2021
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2021
2023
2023
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv PLoS ONE. 2021;16(5):e0250776.
https://github.com/cl379/papers_supl_materials/tree/master/Biagetti2020_Seoke
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/794823
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Public Library of Science (PLoS)
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
instname:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
instname_str Universitat Pompeu Fabra
reponame_str Repositorio Digital de la UPF
collection Repositorio Digital de la UPF
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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