OSSREA Publications

This study captures community voices in matters relating to their relationship with specific archaeological heritage sites and landscapes in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Focusing on the stonewalled archaeological heritage associated with Venda speakers, and the reburial of human remains excavated by the University of Pretoria from the Mapungubwe and nearby sites. It tries to establish why archaeology and cultural heritage conservation struggles for relevance in contemporary South Africa. In articulating the relevance of archaeology in South Africa in particular and southern Africa in general, and in the context of public or community-based archaeology, this study seeks answers to how communities and the public interact, use and/or negotiate with their pasts. The research critiques the notion of archaeological heritage conservation and attempts to explore the conservation perspectives of descendant communities. It indicates that such perspectives are not in tandem with what archaeologists and heritage managers prescribe. By following the re-burial of human remains from Mapungubwe, the study indicates that descendant communities and individuals can locate their own pasts in cultural heritage sites and landscapes in ways markedly different from modern forms of environmental and cultural resources conservation. This may have nothing to do with academic archaeology. The research further exposed the conflict between cultural heritage protection efforts and modern development and questions the role of such efforts, given the challenges of unemployment, social inequality and poverty. Researchers are therefore encouraged in this study to continue rethinking the notion of heritage, to debate the objectives behind cultural heritage conservation and explore the relevance of archaeology today. It is necessary to share the findings of scientific archaeology with communities and the public for a better understanding of the past.