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The Society of Malaŵi Journal

located on flat land to the south-west of Namitambo hill. The two IA sites were in the
respective villages of Magodi and Truwa. All the five sites are located less than
sixteen kilometers to the south-east of Mbombwe.
Midima rockshelter had geometric rock paintings done using red paint.
4
Research elsewhere in Malawi has demonstrated that red rock paintings were the
work of LSA people rather than IA people. Despite its large size, Malowa rockshelter
was not painted. Unlike Midima and Namitambo rockshelters which had never been
excavated before, Malowa had previously been excavated by J. Denbow and R.
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Ainsworth, but their project was incomplete in that the excavations did not reach
bedrock. Further, they analyzed only stone artefacts and pottery but not faunal and
floral remains, which they also recovered. This omission led me to re-excavate
Malowa rockshelter in addition to the other four sites

Results of the Excavations
All the rockshelters yielded stone artefacts in the lower levels, and both stone
artefacts and pottery in the upper levels, as well as faunal and floral remains. The
faunal remains consisted of bones, shell, including shell beads, and at least one
specimen of an edible caterpillar. The floral remains included seeds of both wild and
domestic plants, and artefacts made of wood, such as bark cloth, and remains of
bamboo containers and of reed mats. The IA sites yielded pottery only. In addition,
the Truwa site yielded some objects consistent with iron smelting.
The three rockshelter sites also yielded sufficient charcoal for carbon-14 (C-
14) dating. C-14 dating is performed on organic remains only, that means on anything
that was once alive. In the absence of charcoal, archaeologists could use bones or
plant remains, but they often hesitate to do this because it results in partial or
complete destruction of the object. At Malowa, the dates ranged from 6610 BC to
1710 AD, and at Midima, from 90 BC to 1020 AD. Namitambo yielded only one date
6
of around 100 AD. The IA sites had no dateable material. However, the pottery types
recovered from these sites included Nkope and Kapeni, which were dated towards the
7
end of the first millennium AD in the nearby adjacent area of Thyolo district. It is
possible that the pottery from Magodi and Truwa sites is of about this age. Other
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pottery types recovered in the research area were Longwe and Mawudzu.

Conclusion
The preliminary conclusion is that by the seventh millennium BC, Chiradzulo district
was already occupied by LSA inhabitants. IA people joined them towards the end of
the first millennium AD, and the first few centuries of the second millennium. The
two groups coexisted for several centuries as reflected by the presence of both stone
artefacts and pottery at rockshelter sites. Faunal remains and domestic and wild plants
are reflective of their subsistence economies. LSA people were hunter/gatherers. IA
people were agriculturists who introduced domesticated plants and pottery in the area.

4 Schoffeleers, JM. 1978. Nyau symbols in rock paintings. In Rock art and Nyau symbolism in Malawi.
NE Lindgren & JM. Schoffeleers. (Department of Antiquities publication no 18) Limbe, Malawi:
Montfort Press.
5 Denbow, J. 1973. Malowa rockshelter: Archaeological report. In Occasional Papers. (Department of Antiquities
publication no.14) Zomba, Malawi: Government Press: 1-8. Denbow J & Ainsworth R.1969. Malowa rockshelter,
report on preliminary excavation. In Occasional Papers. (Department of Antiquities publication no. 7) Zomba,
Malawi: Government Press :1–13.
6 Juwayeyi, Y.M. 1981. The later prehistory of southern Malawi: A contribution to the study of technology and
economy during the Later Stone Age and Iron Age periods. PhD Thesis. University of California, Berkeley.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid. See also Robinson KR. 1977. Iron Age occupation north and east of the Mulanje plateau, Malawi.
(Department of Antiquities publication no 17). Limbe, Malawi: Montfort Press.
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