Research
THE MATOBART PROJECT
Since 2017, the MATOBART project has concentrated on rock art produced by hunter-gatherers in the Matobo of Zimbabwe, a region that has been listed among the UNESCO World Heritage sites, via the study two key sites, Pomomgwe and Bambata. The project is the result of an international collaboration between France and Zimbabwe. It is coordinated by C. Bourdier (University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès – UMR 5608 TRACES), A. Nhamo (University of Zimbabwe), G. Porraz (CNRS – UMR 7269 LAMPEA), and K. Makabeta (National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe), and therefore directly associates the principal institutions responsible for research and cultural heritage in both countries. The project is supported by the European Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the University Institute of France, the French Embassy in Zimbabwe, the French Institute of South Africa, the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès and the TRACES and LAMPEA laboratories (UMR) of the CNRS, the Research Laboratory for Historical Monuments, the IRAMAT-CRP2A, the University of Tübingen, and the University of Bergen.
MATOBART has several scientific objectives that will contribute to a better comprehension and valorization of rock art in Zimbabwe and southern Africa more generally. These objectives also aims to extend the international reputation of Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage. Another ambition of the project is of an academic and conservational nature, as well as to foster human and cultural exchanges. All of these aims, and more, underline the richness and scope of the project.
University training is also at the heart of this scientific partnership, as the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès and the University of Zimbabwe are among the principal institutions involved in the project. MATOBART is also a field school for teaching rock art documentation and study, as well as archaeological excavation, and has provided several research Master’s projects (six since 2017) and doctoral thesis projects (two currently in progress). The project is actively training the archaeologists of tomorrow, including rock art specialists, pigment specialists, specialists of lithic industries, and geoarchaeologists. These exchanges between universities will reinforce and perpetuate the long-term scientific relationship, and more global exchange, between Zimbabwe and France.
An important part of the MATOBART project involves the conservation and valorization of Zimbabwe’s exceptional archaeological and artistic heritage, which is unfortunately little known at national and international levels. Education of the public is the first priority, and is a key challenge facing the country as rock art sites are often damaged or vandalized. The 2018-2020 class of the ATRIDA Master’s program and the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès is currently working on the presentation of this project to a broader audience, via the website that you are currently visiting, as well as via the production of informational leaflets.
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAM
MATOBART tackles two major scientific issues regarding rock art in southern Africa.
1) The dating of rock art is a fundamental challenge as it is methodologically complex and there are few possibilities available for direct dating. This is a particularly important issue in the context of southern Africa because it is the global cradle of graphic representation. The oldest decorated objects, dating to around 100 000 years, were found in this area, yet the antiquity of rock art traditions gave yet to be demonstrated, as the oldest date as of today site at roughly 5500 years ago. Beyond this date the question of synchrony, or not, of graphic representation on objects and rock walls remains open, which underlines the importance of understanding the various factors involved in the creation and preservation of rock art. Why decorate rock surfaces? Il this a « natural » need relating to biological transformations, be them physiological, neural, or cognitive? Or rather, can this behaviour be understood as a social response to other factors (climatic of sociological changes, for example)?
2) Studying the changes and possible filiations in rock art iconography can inform us on the cultural dynamics of past populations. Filiation is a clear demonstration of intergenerational transmission and underlines enduring features of cultural traditions at millennial time scales. Changes, on the contrary, reveal the transmission of elements that archaeologists whose reasons form the crux of archaeological investigation: are these changes the results of climatic changes, having, for example, impacted economic resources and territorial organizations? Do they, rather, represent social upheavals, such as the arrival of new populations in a region?
MATOBART hopes to answer several different questions:
- What chronological information can be obtained regarding these paintings?
- Which elements of iconography are stable, and which evolve, and at what rate?
- Are changes seen in rock art iconography contemporary with changes in technical production systems or in subsistence strategies?
- Did climatic and environmental changes have consequences for rock art iconography, and in what way?
The MATOBART project's methods
MATOBART is focused on the interdisciplinary reinvestigation of the rock art and occupations of two sites, Pomongwe and Bambata. These sites were excavated during the 20th century, but the rock art was never studied. The paintings are being studied from stylistic and technological perspectives, and their chronology is also a primary line of questioning. The deposits in these shelters contained numerous and diverse archaeological remains: elements made of stone of bone and used as tools r as hunting weapons, personal ornaments, faunal and carpological remains, charcoal, and pigments. The archaeological data available in the deposits provide elements we can use for what is called « relative dating » of paintings. Flakes of paint, tools used for the transformation of pigments (grindstones and pestles), and the pigments themselves found in the archaeological levels can be compared with the paintings on the rock walls, and therefore allow for the proposal of chronological phases. More generally, rock art is correlated with other elements of material culture, such as technical equipment and food resources, and is also resituated within its climatic and environmental context.
The project therefore fosters a strongly interdisciplinary approach, which includes different tasks in the field, in museums, and in the laboratory:
1) Documentation of rock art:
- photographic and three-dimensional documentation of painted rock walls;
- decoding and tracing of different motifs and their superpositions;
- sampling of different paints to characterize their recipes;
- summary of rock wall conservation.
2) Archaeological survey excavations in order to verify the number of successive occupations in the sites, and in order to collect samples for direct dating and for the reconstitution of passed climates and environments in the region.
3) Study of archaeological materials at the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences (Harare):
- general inventory and reorganization of collections;
- sampling of painted spalls, grindstones with paint remains, and pigments;
- analysis of lithic and bone technical equipment;
- analysis of faunal remains.
4) Observation and complementary analysis in the laboratory for a part of the archaeological materials using specialized analytical equipment:
- characterization of paint recipes (paint samples, including flakes and pigments);
- direct dating of archaeological remains and sediments;
- characterization of botanical remains;
- characterization of floors and sedimentation dynamics.
THE TEAM
MATOBART depends on collaborative work between several scientific disciplines and different domains of archaeological research. The team is multidisciplinary and international, making it of great value, both humanly and scientifically, and its principal participants are from France, Zimbabwe, but also South Africa, Germany, and Norway. The team also grows regularly as new participants are added. It currently consists of about twenty members, including professional researchers, postdoctoral students, heritage curators, research engineers and technicians, and students.
Rock Art
The heart of the project, the study of rock art, consists of several different aspects. Specialists of iconography conduct stylistic studies. The technical documentation of the different graphic representations allows them to analyze motifs, shapes, compositions, and parietal stratigraphies of paints in order to understand continuity and change in iconography. Other specialists focus on the technology of paintings, from the choice and the acquisition of pigments all the way to the tool chosen for paint application. In particular, technological study entails the characterization of the physical and chemical composition of pigments and the recipes of paints found on rock walls or on painted spalls using multiple combined analyses. This also includes the study of taphonomy, which is also useful for determining the conservational state of rock surfaces in order to propose solutions for their protection.
The Occupations
The identification of archaeological cultures depends of different studies conducted on various types of remains:
- Lithic technology focuses on the analysis of the technical know-how employed during the manufacture of stone tools, and also investigates the organizational and economic aspects of raw material acquisition;
- Lithic use-wear analysis, which examines the traces of use on stone tools in order to determine the function of objects and how they were used
- Zooarchaeology, which focuses on determining the species hunted and consumed, as well as hunting and butchery techniques;
The integration of results from all of these studies provide information on the function of sites by documenting the activities that occurred during occupations. Direct dating of archaeological materials (C14) or sediments (OSL) then are used to determine the absolute chronology and the different phases of occupation at each site.
Environments
Several approaches allow us to reconstruct the ecosystem in which hunter-gatherers lived thousands of years ago:
- Geomorphology retraces the long-term geological evolution of landscapes
- Zooarchaeology provides information on which species were present
- The flora is reconstituted by combining microscopic observations of sediment thin sections in the laboratory, which contain information on pollens (palynology), seeds (carpology) and phytolithes;
- The sedimentological and geoarchaeological study of the different levels provides information of the dynamics involved in their formation (sedimentology, micromorphology), which reflect the climatic conditions during of level formation.