Iron Age at Melville Koppies.
Teachers guide.
Iron Age people once settled at Melville Koppies. The evidence that we have of this
period at Melville Koppies is an original 500 year old Iron Age furnace, remains of
kraal walls and a reconstructed kraal, plus fragments of slag and pottery sherds.
Revil Mason, of the University of the Witwatersrand, did extensive research into
these settlements. Other people also researched the method of iron making and
plants that were used by Iron Age people.
The following guide poses questions, with answers for teachers. The material could
be adapted to suit the grade of pupils. Melville Koppies guides lead the educational
tours and elaborate on all aspects, according to the level of the pupils. They also
have artefacts relating to the period which are brought to the Koppies for
educational tours.
(Iron Age material is best presented to pre-primary, or very junior primary groups
in story- form with plenty of artefacts to illustrate the story. These questions
would not apply to them.)
Questions.
1. When did Iron Age people come to Melville Koppies?
2. Why did they come to Melville Koppies?
3. Describe the layout of a typical Tswana/Sotho Iron Age village.
4. Describe a typical hut.
5. What was the woman’s role in the family?
6. What crops would she have planted?
7. How did she store them?
8. Identify some plants which would have been used for food, medicine,
traditional uses and utility purposes.
9. What was the children’s’ role.
10. What was the father’s role?
11. Describe the process of smelting. (Extracting the iron from iron ore)
12. Describe the process of forging.(beating the iron into a tool)
13. Draw some Iron Age tools and explain what they were used for.
14. Why was the cattle kraal in the middle of the village?
15. Where were men, women and children buried?
16. Why did Iron Age people leave Melville Koppies?
17. Why is Melville Koppies not built over like all the surrounding areas?
18. What do you understand by ‘heritage’?
Answers.
1. A wave of Iron Age people from northern Africa entered South Africa
between 300 and 600 AD. They settled at Broederstroom. A second wave
arrived at Melville Koppies after AD 1200
2. They came to Melville Koppies because there were trees to make charcoal
from, iron ore in the rocks, water in the nearby spruit and grazing for their
cattle in the level fields to the north.
3. A typical Tswana/Sotho village was laid out in a pansy shape. At the centre
was the cattle kraal. Each ‘petal’ contained a hut. The chief had his hut at
the highest point of the village and his wives were on either side of his hut,
with the most important wife on the right hand side. The kraal had a stone
wall around it, as did the whole village.
4. Each hut had a surrounding wall as well. The walls were about waist high to
demarcate areas. A typical hut had an inner and outer circle of poles; the
inner circle was built up into a wall with rocks wedged between the poles.
The rocks were plastered in with mud to make a thick wall supported by the
poles. The walls were only waist high because the height was limited by the
poles available. A circular framework of poles rested on the two circles of
poles. This was covered with thatch from the tall grasses on Melville
Koppies . (Hyparrhenia tambo or H. Hirta). It formed a veranda all around
the hut to protect the walls from rain. The door was made of poles lashed
together and it slid along a groove in the ground.
5. Women multi-tasked. They raised the children, hoed the soil and planted
crops for food, gathered and stored food, prepared food including beer,
made pottery, jewellery, prepared hides of animals for
blankets/clothes/adornment, and had a good knowledge of medicinal and
edible wild plants.
6. Grain crops included sorghum and millet. These indigenous crops were
disease free and needed little water. Later, maize was introduced which
yielded more food per plant but also need more water. Other crops
included melons, pumpkins, wild spinach and cucumbers.
7. Grain crops were stored in grain bins which were made of clay and lined
with daga, a mixture of clay and dung. This gave off methane gas which
killed goggas. The grain also had to be protected from ants.
8. List of some of the plants on Melville Koppies :
Edible; Wild apricot (Ancylobotris capensis), Wild medlar (Vangueria
infausta), Wild currant (Rhus pyroides), Stamvrug (Englerophytum
magaliesmontanum), Bees patat (Ipomoea omaneyi), Blou bos (Diospyrus
lycioides), Cross berry raisin (Grewia occidentalis). Medicinal; fevers (Lippia
javanica, Buddlejas) wound healing (Grewias), ulcers (Protea caffra), Wild
Medlar for round worms. Traditional uses; Buffalo thorn (Ziziphus
mucronata) is the burial tree of the Zulu, Wild pear (Dombeya rotundifolia)
provides a love potion from the blossoms.
Utility purposes; wood for spears made from Cross berry raisin, Buddlejas.
Utensils made from Buffalo thorn, fish poison rotenone from Cork bush
(Mundulea sericea) (Refer to ‘Sappi tree spotting. Highveld and the
Drakensberg’, Jacana. For more information about the above.)
9. Children played and learnt about nature. Boys had to tend cattle. When
they were older they could hunt with their fathers. Girls had to help their
mothers and learn a woman’s role.
10. Fathers owned and looked after cattle, hunted sometimes, protected the
family from danger, could be part of courts that discussed tribal laws and
punished law breakers, made alliances with neighbouring villages. If a
father was a chief of a big village, say 5 000 people, he could order the
death sentence.
11. Smelting was extracting the iron from the iron ore. A clay furnace with a
small opening for a chimney and side openings for blow pipes was made.
Alternate layers of charcoal and crushed iron ore were laid inside the
furnace and this was set alight. Two men operating goatskin bellows
pumped air into the furnace to raise the temperature. After a whole night,
a small lump of iron might be produced. This was a secretive process and
was seen as giving birth to a baby. (See the references in ‘resources’ on the
website for greater detail)
12. The small bits of iron produced from smelting would be reheated and then
beaten and forged into shape by blacksmiths. This process was done in the
open because the ‘baby iron’ had already been extracted.
13. Hoes, spears, chisels.
14. The cattle kraal was in the middle of the village to show its importance and
to give the cattle extra protection from predators and enemies. Cattle were
used for trading and represented the wealth of the village. A man had to
pay lobola in cattle to the parents of a girl who he wished to marry.
15. Chiefs and their families and men were buried in the central cattle kraal.
Women and children were buried in their own homesteads. Stillborn
children were buried in ash heaps. (See Iron Age culture summary in the
‘resources’ of the website for further information)
16. Iron Age people left Melville Koppies for various possible reasons. The
number of trees decreased so they could not make charcoal. Grazing for
animals was reduced due to many people living in the area. Mzilikazi, who
fled from Shaka in KwaZulu, into the area, caused upheavals in the 1820’s.
The whites who moved north from the Cape caused further upheavals after
the 1830’s. By 1851 a large area, including Melville Koppies, had been
bought as a farm by J. P. Bezuidenhout.
17. Melville Koppies is not built over because it was saved from development
in 1959 when it was declared a nature reserve. Concerned residents, people
from the University of the Witwatersrand and eco-friendly groups had all
agitated successfully for its protection. (See the plaque on the wall of the
lecture hut)
18. ‘Heritage’ has a very wide meaning. It includes buildings, special green
areas, song, dance, pictures, and living traditions that we should preserve
for posterity. Melville Koppies is nature reserve and a Johannesburg
heritage site. (See the blue heritage plaque at the Judith Rd entrance, and
on the website)