Farmers of the low country between the Drakensberg escarpment and the Lebombo, from the Limpopo south to the Crocodile.
Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries new communities, making pottery of the Kgopolwe style, settled the Phalaborwa area to exploit its copper and other minerals, and similar pottery is found in the Shingwedzi and Nhlarweni country of the northern Kruger Park (Evers and van der Merwe 1987, Meyer 1986, as summarised in Koedoe 2024). At Phalaborwa iron and copper ores in a carbonatite complex were mined and smelted in low-shaft furnaces; radiocarbon dates place the earlier metal-working phase in the tenth to thirteenth centuries, with tin-bronze and brass appearing towards its end (Miller, Killick and van der Merwe 2001). Salt was boiled at hot springs and pans such as Harmony and Baleni on the Letaba.
Copper, iron and salt from here could reach the K2 kingdom and the coast by the Olifants and the Limpopo. By about 1300 the Lowveld was almost empty of people until the sixteenth century, so on 1 January 1200 these communities are near the end of their time.
Who holds it
- Title
- Local chiefs; no paramount known
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
None that can be named
How things stand that morning
Independent communities producing copper, iron and salt.
Customs
Not known; metal-working was a specialist craft.
Overlord claims
None known; trading ties with the K2 kingdom are likely.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- Thirteenth century, not pinnedThe Lowveld communities thin out; by about 1300 the region holds very few people until the sixteenth century.Depends on: Drought and the shift of trade and people towards the plateau. Stopped by: Good rains and continued demand for copper.
Where the sources disagree
- The archaeologists' 'Eiland' facies name is used in more than one sense (Meyer's 'Early Eiland' is first-millennium pottery); Eiland itself is a site excavated by Evers between the Olifants and the Klein Letaba, not the salt site, which is Harmony or Baleni.
Evidence: Archaeometallurgy and radiocarbon at Phalaborwa, surveys in the Kruger Park; political life unknown.
On the map: An outline drawn from the general distribution of the evidence; it is not a border.
Sources and studies
- Miller, Killick and van der Merwe, Metal working in the northern Lowveld, South Africa, AD 1000-1890, Journal of Field Archaeology 28 (2001)
- Koedoe 66 (2024): article on the Iron Age sites of the Letaba in the Kruger National Park (Le6 and Le7), with a review of the Lowveld sequence
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.