What would a Bronze/Iron civilization arising in South Africa look like?

This is not so much evaluating the plausibility of independent civilization as it is a question of culture and political organization. What would be the culture and political organization of a bronze or Iron Age series of polities in the geographical region of South Africa "in a vacuum" so to speak? Plainly, what would it look like compared to Mesopotamia, China, or Mesoamerica? Barring minimal or no influence from the rest of the world, hence "in a vacuum".

I ask for understanding, as I know precious little about precolonial society in that region save for some names, like those of cultures or kingdoms (Xhosa, Zulu, San, etc.)
 
To answer what features such a society would have, I think you would need to define which cultural groups constitute it. There are only two broad groups known from the region from OTL - the autochthonous Khoisan peoples, and the later Bantu arrivals. The Bantu already had iron-working technology by the time they arrived, so I assume you're more interested in a POD that allows for a settled Khoisan (or Khoisan analogue, given different migration patterns in prehistory) civilization arising in the region. If we assume the Khoisan, then given knowledge of OTL's Khoisan culture and cosmology, we could extrapolate what such a culture and cosmology would give rise to given a transition first to settled agriculture and then to complex state societies.

Geographically speaking, where would be the most likely location? Orange or Limpopo river valleys? Eastern Cape? Somewhere else?
 
To answer what features such a society would have, I think you would need to define which cultural groups constitute it. There are only two broad groups known from the region from OTL - the autochthonous Khoisan peoples, and the later Bantu arrivals. The Bantu already had iron-working technology by the time they arrived, so I assume you're more interested in a POD that allows for a settled Khoisan (or Khoisan analogue, given different migration patterns in prehistory) civilization arising in the region. If we assume the Khoisan, then given knowledge of OTL's Khoisan culture and cosmology, we could extrapolate what such a culture and cosmology would give rise to given a transition first to settled agriculture and then to complex state societies.

Geographically speaking, where would be the most likely location? Orange or Limpopo river valleys? Eastern Cape? Somewhere else?

If the Khoisan speakers are the indigenous inhabitants, I wouldn't mind them being the founders of this civilizational sphere, then having iron spread to them by the Bantu later.

Also, river valleys. Always choose river valleys, that has been my experience.
 
If the Khoisan speakers are the indigenous inhabitants, I wouldn't mind them being the founders of this civilizational sphere, then having iron spread to them by the Bantu later.

Also, river valleys. Always choose river valleys, that has been my experience.

Totally, rivers are the shit. Been a few years since I read Guns, Germs, & Steel, but of course Diamond is skeptical about the domesticate potential of the area. What is there in the way of potential crops and livestock? Given that modern humans have been in the South Africa region at least as long as they've been in New Guinea and Australia, developing at least simple farming shouldn't be impossible.
 
is tin/copper/brass available in south Africa? I.E., the stuff needed to go through the tool/copper stages on the way to the bronze age? Or are Bantu wanderers more likely to bring iron tech with them before any of that happens?
 
Totally, rivers are the shit. Been a few years since I read Guns, Germs, & Steel, but of course Diamond is skeptical about the domesticate potential of the area. What is there in the way of potential crops and livestock? Given that modern humans have been in the South Africa region at least as long as they've been in New Guinea and Australia, developing at least simple farming shouldn't be impossible.

Cows were later introduced to the area. I guess if the Bantu could chase herds of cows and elands down there earlier, it might aid in the process

is tin/copper/brass available in south Africa? I.E., the stuff needed to go through the tool/copper stages on the way to the bronze age? Or are Bantu wanderers more likely to bring iron tech with them before any of that happens?

I'm actually not sure of South Africa's metal potential, I'd have to look it up.
 
Totally, rivers are the shit. Been a few years since I read Guns, Germs, & Steel, but of course Diamond is skeptical about the domesticate potential of the area. What is there in the way of potential crops and livestock? Given that modern humans have been in the South Africa region at least as long as they've been in New Guinea and Australia, developing at least simple farming shouldn't be impossible.

IIRC, nothing in the area is 'easy' to domesticate, something that the natives would take to over hunting/gathering. The problem is that everything that is easy to domesticate and acclimated to the area is way up in the Med sea area. So you either have to go the ASB route and invent a plant that is easy to domesticate, or somehow get Med crops down to south Africa...
 
IIRC, nothing in the area is 'easy' to domesticate, something that the natives would take to over hunting/gathering. The problem is that everything that is easy to domesticate and acclimated to the area is way up in the Med sea area. So you either have to go the ASB route and invent a plant that is easy to domesticate, or somehow get Med crops down to south Africa...

Okay Bantu expansion now far too necessary for spreading or connecting these things around. Also, not all the good stuff was in the Mediterranean, one cannot forget African rice and blessed, blessed Kola nuts.

Furthermore, sometimes people semi domesticate difficult animals for strategic reasons, such as elephants in India. I don't think it's that far a cry. Also, I'm of the mind that zebras are exactly like predomesticate horses, because they are. They were not domesticated for other myriad reasons, mostly because horses already were introduced in agricultural regions and non agricultural regions obviously had no need to domesticate zebras.
 
Okay Bantu expansion now far too necessary for spreading or connecting these things around. Also, not all the good stuff was in the Mediterranean, one cannot forget African rice and blessed, blessed Kola nuts.

Furthermore, sometimes people semi domesticate difficult animals for strategic reasons, such as elephants in India. I don't think it's that far a cry. Also, I'm of the mind that zebras are exactly like predomesticate horses, because they are. They were not domesticated for other myriad reasons, mostly because horses already were introduced in agricultural regions and non agricultural regions obviously had no need to domesticate zebras.

will African rice and kola nuts grow in south Africa (tropical vs. Med climate)? As for zebras, IIRC, they have some traits that make them a whole lot harder to domesticate than horses. Which doesn't mean it couldn't be done, but it would take a lot more time and effort... which means that hunting/gathering might be more efficient.
 
will African rice and kola nuts grow in south Africa (tropical vs. Med climate)? As for zebras, IIRC, they have some traits that make them a whole lot harder to domesticate than horses. Which doesn't mean it couldn't be done, but it would take a lot more time and effort... which means that hunting/gathering might be more efficient.

That's the key to zebra, and granted most, animal domestication. It would be such an arduous process for such a little (obvious) return, that people wouldn't do it because of inefficiency.
 
That's the key to zebra, and granted most, animal domestication. It would be such an arduous process for such a little (obvious) return, that people wouldn't do it because of inefficiency.

will African rice and kola nuts grow in south Africa (tropical vs. Med climate)? As for zebras, IIRC, they have some traits that make them a whole lot harder to domesticate than horses. Which doesn't mean it couldn't be done, but it would take a lot more time and effort... which means that hunting/gathering might be more efficient.

Actually, these were all true for the predomesticate horse. The trouble is after agriculture began generating food surplus, the horse presented an actual possibility for use, and was thus domesticated.
 
That's the key to zebra, and granted most, animal domestication. It would be such an arduous process for such a little (obvious) return, that people wouldn't do it because of inefficiency.
some animals are just flat out easier to domesticate, which is why they were in OTL. True, it is generally a second-stage part of agriculture (plants first), and not generally done until you have a reliable plant food source. But the social structure of the animal has a lot to do with it, which is why cattle were domesticated fairly quickly, while African buffalo never were (in spite of the fact that humans were around the latter a lot longer). The difference between wolves and foxes are a good example; wolves are practically designed to be domesticated and will take to humans very quickly. Foxes don't; they were finally domesticated in the 20th century in what was a generation after generation science experiment. It's not that it could never be done, but if it takes 5 times as long to domesticate a buffalo as it does a cow, there's no incentive to do so. Granted, stone age people didn't really get this concept and what domestication they did was a lot of trial and error and accident....

so to get back to our POD, we need to get some kind of plant crop down to SA, or ASB-ish invent one, if we're going to get agriculture going, and an eventual metal age...
 
This blog not only offers this picture,

WalterRothschild_zebras_buckingham.jpg


it also presents some reasons why zebras were not domesticated in large numbers to breed just from your captive and captive-born stock.

OTOH, is riding really that necessary? At least for agriculture, putting them in front of a plough or cart seems much more useful.
 
Iroquois plow-less agriculture was significantly more productive than its Euroamerican plowed counterpart until Early Modern technological advances, so not even plowing is particularly necessary.
 
I'm actually not sure of South Africa's metal potential, I'd have to look it up.

Cassiterite (tin ore) can be found in SA, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Namibia seems to have lots of tin.
For copper, the mines of Katanga are world famous, but Zambia seems to have as much copper. The open-pit copper mine in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, SA is Africa`s largest man-mad hole in the ground, with a width of almost 2,000 metres.

So yes, Southern Africa would have enough ressources for lots of bronze, it seems.

This sounds like an interesting research project right up your train of thought.
 
Zebras, I believe are far more vicious than the ur-horse was. Everything in Africa is instinctively more skeptical of people, they grew up with us. Thats why Africa still has mega-fauna.

That being said, the Ostrich seems to be a missed domesticate.
 
Hmmm....
The Khoikhoi were pastoralists and have been in the Cape area for ~2k years, so cattle, sheep and goats are 'there'.

Have the infamous Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa leave behind mediterranean grain, and the idea of domestic animals (which the San people that were probably at the Cape at the time might then trade with the Khoi to get), and possibly idea of writing. Maybe even start local metal working.

By the time the Bantu show up, the locals have far more power than OTL, and can resist them.

By the time Europeans show up, the writing system has no visible resemblance to Phoenician scripts, and the handful of loan words have shifted in sound enough that it's not clear that there's any relation. No other traces of the Phoenicians exist aside from those (rather hidden) clues.
 
I actually know a person who has tried ostrich egg. He stated it was definitely an interesting experience.
 
Have the infamous Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa leave behind mediterranean grain, and the idea of domestic animals (which the San people that were probably at the Cape at the time might then trade with the Khoi to get), and possibly idea of writing. Maybe even start local metal working.
Why would the San want or need any of those things? For this to happen you need a long-term Phoenician project in the Cape.
 
Why would the San want or need any of those things? For this to happen you need a long-term Phoenician project in the Cape.

That last needs to be investigated for its possibility. Back in the 1970s there was a quasi scifi novel based on the idea of Carthaginian migrants fleeing to southern Africa instead of being massacred or enslaved by the Romans. Lets imagine the Phonicians establsihing a series of trading posts along the African coasts, then there are Carthaginian refugees moving into those enclaves. If the dice roll correctly enuogh of the these enclaves propsper & aseries of mixed San, Khoisan, Mediterranean cultures expand metal working, agriculture, writing, pottery, shipbuilding, ect... South of the desert region, & up the east coast.
 
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