A routine dig ahead of roadworks at the KwaZulu-Natal park has led to the discovery of two prehistoric skeletons
Niki Moore
It’s the perennial conflict between progress and preservation: the construction of a road network in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park can potentially do enormous damage to valuable and sensitive archaeological sites.
But if it wasn’t for the construction it is likely that these sites might never have been discovered.
Now the controversy over the discovery is starting to escalate. The contractor hired by the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative to build a road network to deliver tourism infrastructure to the park a World Heritage Site is facing criminal charges over the destruction of two previous archaeological sites.
What has brought the simmering matter to a head is the discovery this week of two prehistoric skeletons on the eastern shores of Lake St Lucia. This find may be of major scientific significance.
The eastern shores has been identified by archaeologists as the possible passage for the migration of the Nguni tribes from central Africa more than 2 000 years ago.
The skeletons were discovered during a routine dig ahead of the contractors putting a road network through the St Lucia park as part of the area’s tourism development.
According to a statement issued by Andrew Zaloumis, project manager for the Lubombo initiative, the skeletons could date back to the 13th century.
“One of the bodies was found in a kneeling position, while the other was sitting. The gender of either is unknown at this stage.
“The find is extremely valuable in terms of adding to what little is known about past lifestyles and cultures of people living in the area between 1 000 and 2 000 years ago.”
Zaloumis says other artefacts found include decorated pottery fragments with typical shell-impressed decorations, grinding stones, animal skeletons and various shells.
“Many near-complete pots have come from this site.”
The archaeologist who made the find on Sunday, Gavin Anderson, is an independent scientist employed by the Lubombo initiative to evaluate sites ahead of the road-builders.
Earlier this week he refused to comment on the discovery as it was cited as “sensitive”. Anderson is busy with what is called “rescue archaeology” a superficial assessment of designated sites to establish whether they can be demolished for road building or whether in-depth exploration should take place.
According to law, any roadworks need to be cleared by the KwaZulu-Natal Heritage Council Amafa in case the planned road interferes with known cultural sites. In the case of St Lucia’s eastern shores, the area has long been acknowledged as having major archaeological significance.
A month ago Amafa brought criminal charges against the road contractor for bulldozing sites that had been designated as sensitive.
“They went through one site that had been clearly marked by their archaeologist as not to be disturbed,” said Amafa director Barry Marshall.
“We had a meeting with the [Lubombo initiative] and warned them. Then they did it again. In the third instance, the bulldozers went right through an ancient grave and destroyed it. That was when we decided that we were compelled to press charges.
“The discovery of these graves underlines once again the importance of the [St Lucia park] as a cultural treasure-house and reinforces Amafa’s position we need to treat this area with extreme sensitivity,” says Marshall.
The archaeological significance of St Lucia is one of the reasons the area was given World Heritage Site status in 1999. It has been earmarked for massive tourism development to take advantage of its natural and cultural importance and create a world-class tourist attraction.
“These individual sites are significant, but not all that important on their own,” says Zaloumis. “What is vitally important is the overall pattern of discoveries that are made in the area. This is what has given St Lucia such importance as a cultural site.”
Amafa archaeologist Annie van de Venter says the eastern shores are generally accepted as being the migration route for the Nguni tribes from the Great Lakes region of central Africa who were the forerunners of the modern Zulu and Xhosa tribes.
“One of the theories is that there was a window of time a few thousand years ago when there was no tsetse fly in this region. During this period these people came down the coast with their cattle and established settlements.
“It is accepted that these were the first migrations into Southern Africa. We have a theory that there were already hunter-gatherers living here, but they were displaced by the migration and have since disappeared.”
@Coop banks get massive boost
The credit union and cooperative movement is gaining momentum as more people look for banking alternatives
Barry Streek
The drive for the formation of cooperative banks and credit unions has been boosted by the disclosure that the Savings and Credit Cooperatives League of South Africa (Saccol) now has combined assets of R15,5-million with 9 700 members.
This move marks a formidable increase in Saccol’s initial membership of 3 000 and assets valued at R3,5-million in the previous year.
The league is owned and controlled by its affiliates: savings and credit cooperatives and credit unions.
Saccol’s work earned it recognition by the Reserve Bank when it published a proclamation in the Government Gazette in December 1994 as a self regulatory organisation and as representative of savings and credit cooperatives and credit unions.
The recognition qualified Saccol for an exemption from the Banks Act.
This makes Saccol affiliates more formalised than informal savings clubs and stokvels that provide access to credit for their members, who normally cannot raise finance from banks.
They also have to comply with the regulations laid down by the Registrar of Cooperatives to register as a cooperative.
Saccol says each credit cooperative must have at least 100 members who meet and decide how savings will be initiated and develops a constitution, culminating in the election of a board of directors and the adoption of policies and a business plan.
David de Jong, Saccol’s general manager, says the organisation is aiming for R23-million in assets and 14 000 members for the new year.
“In the past year over half of the enquiries we have received about credit unions were from loan finance companies who are finding loopholes in the current Gazette under which we operate and [we] are devising ways of getting round the restrictions or them taking deposits through bureaus and the managing and administration of pseudo credit unions they want to start up.”
De Jong says the ultimate objective of the South African credit cooperative movement should be the enactment of a specific law for credit cooperatives as opposed to the existing framework of overlap, inconsistencies and exemptions.
Earlier this year, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union established a savings and credit cooperative to guarantee better interest rates for its members than those offered by mainstream banks.
The move to promote cooperatives was also recently endorsed by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, who said that although a strong trade union movement had been established in South Africa and the unions had attempted various forms of cooperative action, no significant cooperative movement had emerged apart from those established by the Mineworkers’ Development Agency.
The South African Communist Party says it has started to build a people’s cooperative movement and has called for a cooperative banking sector so that the “savings of the working class were managed by the working class itself and were used to address the people’s developmental needs”.
Next week, from July 30 to August 3, Saccol and the World Council of Credit Unions will host the Savings and Credit Cooperative Association of Africa congress. The gathering will be addressed by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel and Governor of the Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni.