The dry thornveld of the western Limpopo valley, below the Waterberg and west of the K2 kingdom's settled floodplain, where hunter-gatherers kept their shelters and hunting grounds while farmers clustered at the confluence.
In the Shashe-Limpopo rock shelters (Hall and Smith; van Doornum) hunter-gatherers obtained farmers' goods during the K2 period and some shelters were taken over by farmers for rain rituals; the K2 rulers reportedly employed San rain-makers. For this western stretch the evidence is thin.
Who holds it
- Title
- Band headmen
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
None that can be named
How things stand that morning
Thinly peopled; foragers with some herders and farmers along the river.
Customs
Band life.
Assemblies
Band discussion.
Overlord claims
The K2 ruler's reach here is not pinned.
Where the sources disagree
- Hall and Smith and van Doornum are cited from general knowledge, not fetched in this research.
Evidence: General archaeology of farmer-forager relations in the middle Limpopo; nothing dated to 1200 for this stretch.
On the map: An outline drawn from the general distribution of the evidence; it is not a border.
Sources and studies
- Mapungubwe (Wikipedia)
- Huffman and Woodborne, New AMS dates for the Middle Iron Age in the Mapungubwe landscape, South African Journal of Science 117 (2021)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.