BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE- Eswatini was one of the topics at the European Society for the study of Human Evolution 2022 (ESHE22).
University of Tubingen History and Medieval Archeology Lecturer Dr Manuel Will said Eswatini was strongly understudied with great but mostly untapped potential.
He said this in his recently published study titled ‘Rethinking the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Southern Africa- New Data and Perspectives in Eswatini’. He made the presentation of his findings of Eswatini the past Saturday at ESHE22 at Tubingen in Germany.
The background of his work read that the Kingdom of Eswatini (former Swaziland) was a logical candidate to answer our questions as it lies close to key sites of the current discussion such as Border Cave.
“At the same time, Eswatini remains a strongly understudied region with great but mostly untapped potential.
“During our renewed investigation of the Sibebe material, we carefully searched the assemblages for datable material,” he said, when explaining their findings at Sibebe.
“We express our gratitude to Hlobsile Sikhosana and the members of the Eswatini National Trust Commission for kindly providing us with access to the SARA collection and workspace at the National Museum Lobamba.
“We are especially grateful to Temahlubi Nkambule, Rosemary Andrade, Celiwe Dlamini and Nomsa Dlamini for their constant scientific and logistic support. Special thanks are due to Bob Forrester for his tireless effort to study and protect the rich cultural heritage of Eswatini,” said Will in his publication.
Will is an accomplished archaeologist who has 63 publications, 25 436 reads and 679 citations.
