The MATOBART Rock Art & Stone Age Project (2017-2024)

Rock Art of hunter-gatherers in the Southern African Later Stone Age: apparition, filiations and ruptures in the Matobo (Zimbabwe)

In short

The MATOBART research project investigates rock art production by hunter-gatherers in the Matobo Hills (Zimbabwe), a region listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The project results from an international collaboration between France and Zimbabwe, coordinated by Camille Bourdier (University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès – UMR 5608 TRACES), Ancila Nhamo (University of Zimbabwe), Guillaume Porraz (CNRS – UMR 7269 LAMPEA), and Kelvin Machiwenyika (National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe) and supported by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Institut universitaire de France, and IFAS-Recherche. The idea of conducting further research in the Matobo Hills originated during an April-May 2016 mission in Zimbabwe, initiated and largely funded by IFAS-Recherche.

Where?

Located in southwestern Zimbabwe, the Matobo Hills is a granitic massif covering more than 2000 km². In this area, over 3000 rock art sites are known to date. Most of these sites were painted by hunter-gatherer populations during the Later Stone Age, between 13000 and 2000 years ago. This exceptional density of archaeological remains is one the reasons why the Matobo Hills were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2003.

More precisely, the research project focuses on two ket sites: Pomongwe Cave and Bambata Cave. Excavated during the 20th century (N. Jones, L. Armstrong, C. Cooke, N. Walker), the deposits in these shelters contained numerous and diverse archaeological remains: elements made of stone or bone and used as tools or as hunting weapons, personal ornaments, faunal remains, seeds, charcoal, and pigments. Additionnally, painted flakes, tools used for the transformation of pigments (grindstones and pestles), and the pigments 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.

What?

The paintings of the Matobo Hills open a window on the life, the imagination and the spirituality of these hunter-gatherers populations of the distant past. In order to understand and protect this priceless heritage, the multidisciplinary Franco-Zimbabwean programme MATOBART was set up in 2017. The project tackles two major scientific issues regarding rock art in southern Africa:

When did rock art emerge in the Matobo Hills, and in which conditions?

The dating of rock art is a particularly important issue in southern Africa, widely considered as the global cradle of graphic representation. The oldest decorated objects (100 000 years old) have been discovered in this region, yet the antiquity of rock art traditions still remains to be demonstrated, as the oldest directly dated rock painting currently known is approximately 5500 years old. In the Matobo Hills, evidence suggests to the existence of rock art dating back to the Pleistocene (13000 years ago), during the early Later Stone Age, if not even the Late Middle Stone Age — a phenomenon that remains unprecedented in Southern Africa. Establishing a chronological framework for the region’s rock art is therefore a major challenge for understanding the timeline and conditions surrounding the emergence of the hunter-gatherer societies.

How did the Matobo Hills rock art evolve over time, and what does it reveal about the long-term socio-cultural dynamics of Later Stone Age populations of Zimbabwe-Limpopo? 

The Matobo Hills rock art shows an important diversity of subjects, techniques, styles, colors, compositions etc., reflecting the socio-cultural differences among the hunter-gatherer populations who produced it. Studying changes and possible filiations in rock art iconography can provide valuable insights into the cultural dynamics of past populations. Filiation is a clear evidence of intergenerational transmission and underlines enduring features of cultural traditions over millennial timescales. Changes, on the contrary, lie at the heart of archaeological investigation: are these changes the results of climatic changes, that may, for example, have impacted economic resources and territorial organisations? Do they, rather, represent social upheavals, such as the arrival of new populations in a region?

The MATOBART project also focuses on university training and valorisation of Zimbabwe’s archaeological heritage.

University training is also at the heart of the project, which serves as a field school for teaching rock art documentation and analysis, as well as archaeological excavation methods. In 2023, six Master’s students and five PhD candidates were trained and conducted their research within the framework of the project, including specialists of rock art, pigments, lithic industries, landscape archaeology and geoarchaeology. This training was notably supported by a three-year Erasmus+ programme which allowed student and researcher mobility between the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès and the University of Zimbabwe.

An important part of the MATOBART project involves the conservation and valorisation of Zimbabwe’s exceptional archaeological heritage, which remains little known at national and international levels. Public education is the first priority, and represents a key challenge facing the country, as rock art sites are often damaged or vandalised.

How?

The MATOBART project fosters a strongly interdisciplinary approach of the rock art and occupations of Pomongwe Cave and Bambata Cave, 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;
• Tracing of the preserved motifs and recording of their overlappings, allowing rock art specialists to conduct stylistic studies, analysing the shapes, techniques and compositions of the motifs, and to understand continuity and change in iconography;
• Sampling of paintings with different colors and texture to characterise their recipes to conduct analysis of the painting technology, including the choice and the acquisition of pigments and the tool chosen for paint application;
• Assessment of the rock wall conservation, to propose solutions for their protection.
  
  

2) Archaeological survey excavations of the deposits

The re-opening of 20th-centuryt test pits will allow to verify the number of successive occupations in the sites, and 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 reorganisation of archaeological collections;
• Sampling of painted spalls, grindstones with paint remains, and pigments;
• Analysis of lithic and bone technical equipment, thanks to two approaches: 1) Lithic technology focuses on the analysis of the technical know-how employed during the manufacture of stone tools, as well as the organisation and economy of raw material acquisition; 2) Lithic use-wear analysis examines the traces of use on stone tools in order to determine the function of objects and how they were used;
• Analysis of faunal remains or zooarchaeology, which focuses on determining the species hunted and consumed, as well as hunting and butchery techniques.
  
  

4) Laboratory observations and complementary analysis of sampled archaeological materials

• Characterisation 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 of paint recipes, to characterise the painting technology, including the choice and the acquisition of pigments and the tool chosen for paint application.
• Direct dating of archaeological remains (C14) and sediments (OSL), used to determine the absolute chronology and the different phases of occupation in each site.
• Characterization of botanical remains (pollens, seeds, phytolithes) to reconstitute the past flora;
• Characterization of floors and sedimentation dynamics to retrace the climatic conditions during of the formation of the deposits.

Who?

The MATOBART project is led by Camille Bourdier (University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès) and co-coordinated by Ancila Nahmo (University of Zimbabwe), Guillaume Porraz (CNRS – UMR 7269 LAMPEA, former researcher affiliated to IFAS-Research) and Kelvin Machiwenyika (National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe).

The MATOBART team is multidisciplinary and international, from France, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Germany, and Norway, including students, senior researchers, postdoctoral students, heritage curators, research engineers and technicians.

The project is supported by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the University Institute of France (IUF), the French Embassy in Zimbabwe, IFAS-Research, the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, the UMR 5608 – TRACES, the UMR 7269 – LAMPEA, the French Ministry of Culture Research Laboratory for Historical Monuments, the UMR 5060 – Archéosciences Bordeaux (formerly IRAMAT-CRP2A), the University of Tübingen, the University of Bergen, the University of Pretoria, the University of Zimbabwe and the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.

More on the Matobart project:

• In French: Documentaire de CNRS Images — “Sur les traces des premiers peintres d’Afrique” (documentary in French)

• In English: CNRS Images documentary — “Searching for Africa’s earliest Painters”: