Early Bokoni homestead occupation is dated at Komati Gorge

The Bokoni settlement region stretches along the eastern escarpment of Mpumalanga and contains clusters of stone-walled homesteads, terraces, roads and fields. At Komati Gorge Village, luminescence dating places one early homestead’s occupation at around 1489. The walls mark household spaces and agricultural landscapes, while the scale of the terraces and concentration of homesteads show sustained investment in farming and settlement organisation across the wider region.

Archaeologists identify several phases in the Bokoni sequence. Luminescence dating at two homesteads in Komati Gorge Village places the older homestead’s occupation as early as 1489 and its abandonment around 1577. Stones from the older homestead were later reused in a younger settlement, providing evidence of occupation, abandonment and rebuilding. This entry uses the earliest date as its event anchor; the wider regional chronology remains open.

The material record includes stone terraces, domestic spaces, roads and pottery. These remains can be used to study farming, household organisation, movement through the landscape and changing settlement density. Written accounts for the earliest phase are absent, so interpretations of political structure and community identity rely on archaeology, later oral traditions and comparison with subsequent phases.

Significance

Bokoni’s terraces and homesteads record intensive farming and organised settlement development in Mpumalanga during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.