SOCIETY OF THE LATE IRON AGE

• A prominent feature of the late Iron Age economy was mining. White settlers would claim that they had provided the know-how for mining, but actually many thousands of tons of rock containing iron and copper were excavated long before the whites ever arrived.

• South Africa's late Iron Age societies were complex and rather rigid, with a hierarchy based on a division of labour and power between both the sexes and the age groups.

• Age groups were strictly defined, with each new generation given its own name which it bore throughout the lives of its members. History was measured in terms such as "this happened when generation name were warriors..."

• Cattle played a central social and economic role, and all tasks connected with cattle were performed by men:
  • Young boys herded sheep and cattle.
  • Unmarried men protected the herds and rustled the neighbours' cattle.
  • Married men were warriors (especially to defend cattle).
  • Older men based their power and prestige on the ownership of cattle.
  • Small specialised groups of men were responsible for the activity of mining.

• Women were perceived as a different kind of wealth because the more children they had the stronger their husbands were. They were thus interchangeable with cattle in the form of bride wealth.

• Households were usually shared by extended families or lineages made up of the descendants of a single male ancestor. When several lineages claimed a more distant common ancestry they constituted a clan. Several clans together could develop into a territorial unit or chiefdom.

• Although this social organisation was brutally unequal it was a powerful mechanism for maintaining order.