Crafting in the In-Between: Production and Political Economy Across Zambian Socio-Economic Mosaics, 700-1700CE

My archaeological research in western Zambia studies daily life and interactional histories in ‘in-between’ places between emergent state systems in southern Africa from the 8th to the 18th centuries CE. I show how communities living in these areas were active players in broader transformations taking place across southern Africa and I bring together interdisciplinary datasets to reconstruct the work of craftspeople. In doing so, I situate crafting within its larger context during periods of dramatic change taking place across southern Africa. Rather than being ahistorical abstractions, I show frontier interactions in southern Africa are historical, dateable events that left discrete and localized archaeological traces.