Our focus of attention will be the geology of the rocks in this area, but not forgetting the beauty of this place, the historical significance of South Africa’s first Kingdom, which lasted for 400 years and abandoned in the 14th century and the fossils that have been found here.
Normal SanParks conservation fee applies or free with a valid Wild Card membership.
Mapungubwe National Park was established in 1996. The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape was declared a National Heritage site in 2001 and was later inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list on 3 July 2003.
Mapungubwe National Park, together with the Tuli Block (Botswana) and the Tuli Safari area (Zimbabwe), forms part of the Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area, now officially known as Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area.
Significant features in the landscape include the river, the broad plains, flat topped hills, rocky outcrops and abundant wildlife.
CONFLUENCE
The Limpopo River and flood plain
The Limpopo River, which is approximately 1750 kilometres long, rises to the west of Mapungubwe National Park. It is the second largest river in Africa, which flows into the Indian Ocean, after the Zambezi River and has eroded into the surrounding rock formations a steep escarpment that descends into a broad flood plain. The Limpopo River flows in a great arc, first zigzagging north and then northeast, and then turning east and finally southeast. It serves as a border for about 640 kilometres, separating South Africa to the southeast from Botswana to the northwest and Zimbabwe to the north.
The Shashe River
The Shashe River is a highly ephemeral river, with flow generally restricted to a few days of the year. The river contributes 12.2% of the mean annual runoff of the Limpopo Basin. The lower Shashe is a sand filled channel, with extensive alluvial aquifers in the river channel and below the alluvial plains. This forms the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe. More than two million years ago, the Upper Zambezi River used to flow south through what is now the Makgadikgadi Pan (presently a vast seasonal wetland) to the Shashe River and thence the Limpopo River.
GEOLOGY AND SOILS
Once a high plateau, the area has been eroded away over millions of years to create a landscape with alternating valleys and ridges. The isolated, flat topped hills that characterise this landscape were formed by the erosion of sandstone until only a few free-standing outcrops were left.
The Limpopo Mobile Belt
The Mapungubwe National Park is located in the Limpopo Mobile Belt, a part of the earth’s crust that was active about 250 million years ago between Zimbabwe and Kaapvaal Cratons. Movement between these two sections of the earth’s crust resulted in the formation of a basin where some of the oldest rocks in the world, estimated to be over 3300 million years old, can be found. Younger, metamorphic rocks dating back 2000 million years are also evident in the vicinity of Mapungubwe and these are overlain by the younger Karoo sandstone that is only 200 million years old. The Karoo rocks are rich in fossils, contain economic quantities of coal and a short distance away diamonds are mined from a kimberlite pipe at Venetia.
Soils
Soils in the Park vary from red-brown sandy loam to dark brown clays with large areas characterised by sandy, lime-rich in a weathering profile, generally about 750 mm in depth. Although dominated by reddish soils with a high base status and clay content in some areas, there are also soils that are weakly structured on hard rock with significant lime content. As an agricultural resource the soils have for the most part a low potential and are easily degraded by overgrazing.
Dolerite Dykes
Movement of the earth’s crust resulted in molten lava being pushed up through narrow cracks in the sandstone from a great depth to form dolerite dykes. As the softer sandstone was eroded, the harder dolerite sills remained behind and elongated ridges, almost resembling the man-made walls built by the ancients.
FOSSILS
Fossil termite mounds
Fossil termite mounds in the area visible from the Pinnacle Deck at the confluence view site (opposite direction to the Confluence view site) about 80 vertical columns with a diameter of about 60 cm rise up to 2 m above the surrounding rock surface. These are believed to be the remnants of a small wooded area in which termites built their mounds around the trees. The weathered outside edges of the structures are made up of interwoven tubes of sandstone of 1 – 1.5 cm in diameter, which are likely to have been passage ways used by termites. A sample is on display at the Interpretive Centre.
Dinosaurs
Two of the earliest plant-eating dinosaurs, Plateosauravus (Euskelosaurus) and Massospondylus, are known to have lived in the area now known as the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape. Plateosauravus, the oldest South African dinosaur, lived about 210 million years ago and is believed to have grown to be about 10 metres long. Massospondylus, the most common South African dinosaur, lived about 195 million years ago and is believed to have grown to between three and six metres long.
These two species are similar in many ways. They both had long tapered necks and tails and elongated cylindrical bodies and they both walked on all fours, standing upright on their hind legs in order to reach the succulent young fronds of cycads and seed ferns. Like many other dinosaurs, these used their hands to manipulate objects like branches or to prop or pull themselves up against objects.
MAPUNGUBWE AS A CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Mapanugbwe National Park and World Heritage Site is a Cultural Landscape that represents “combined works of nature and man”. These works are illustrative of the evolution of human society of the physical constraints and or opportunities presented by their Natural Environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe (1075–1220) was a pre-colonial state in southern Africa. The kingdom was the first stage in a development that would culminate in the creation of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe in the 13th century, and with gold trading links to Rhapta and Kilwa Kisiwani on the African east coast.
Culture and society
Mapungubwean society was "the most complex in Southern Africa". It is thought by archaeologists to be the first class-based social system in Southern Africa; that is, its leaders were separated from and higher in rank than its inhabitants. Mapungubwe's architecture and spatial arrangement also provide "the earliest evidence for sacred leadership in southern Africa". Life in Mapungubwe was centred around family and farming. Special sites were created for initiation ceremonies, household activities, and other social functions. Cattle lived in kraals located close to the residents' houses, signifying their value.
The kingdom was likely divided into a three-tiered hierarchy with the commoners inhabiting low-lying sites, district leaders occupying small hilltops and the capital at Mapungubwe hill as the supreme authority. Elites within the kingdom were buried in hills. Royal wives lived in their own area away from the king. Important men maintained prestigious homes on the outskirts of the capital. This type of spatial division occurred first at Mapungubwe but would be replicated in later Butua and Rozwistates. The growth in population at Mapungubwe may have led to full-time specialists in ceramics, specifically pottery. Gold objects were uncovered in elite burials on the royal hill.
Excavations
Although the University of Pretoria excavated the site ever since 1932 it was kept top secret. The artefacts found dated from approximately 1000 AD to 1300 AD and consisted of a variety of materials such as pottery, trade glass beads, Chinese celadon ware, gold ornaments (including the famous golden rhino), ceramic figurines, organic remains, crafted ivory and bone and refined copper and iron.
Burials at Mapungubwe Hill
At least twenty four skeletons were unearthed on Mapungubwe hill but only eleven were available for analysis, with the rest disintegrating upon touch or as soon as they were exposed to light and air. Most of the skeletal remains were buried with few or no accessories with most adults buried with glass beads. Two adult burials (labeled numbers 10 and 14 by the early excavators) as well as one unlabelled skeleton (referred to as the original gold burial) were associated with gold artefacts and were unearthed from the so-called grave area upon Mapungubwe hill. Recent genetic studies found these first two skeletons to be of Khoi/San decent and thought to be a king and queen of Mapungubwe. Despite this latest information the remains were all buried in the traditional Bantu burial position (sitting with legs drawn to the chest, arms folded round the front of the knees) and they were facing west. The Skeleton numbered 10, a male, was buried with his hand grasping the golden scepter.
The skeleton labelled number 14 (female) was buried with at least 100 gold wire bangles around her ankles and there were at least one thousand gold beads in her grave. The last gold burial (male), who was most probably the King, was buried with a headrest and three objects made of gold foil tacked on to a wooden core-a bowl, scepter and rhino. At least two more rhino were in the sample, but their association with a specific grave is unknown.
In 2007, the South African Government gave the green light for the skeletal remains that were excavated back in 1933 to be reburied on Mapungubwe hill in a ceremony that took place on 20 November 2007. The remains were claimed by various groups.
It would appear that the Mapungubwe hill is still as sacred and feared today, as has always been the case for the past one thousand years!
To read more on this interesting topic visit www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mapungubwe Or visit the Interpretive Centre on site at Mapungubwe National Park. Entrance fee in November 2013 was R45 per person.