Spatial Patterning and Site Occupation at Likoaeng, an Open-Air Hunter-Gatherer Campsite in the Lesotho Highlands, Southern Africa

Archaeologists studying southern African hunter-gatherers are increasingly interested in investigating issues of broader anthropological interest, including gender relations, the ways in which people organized their living space, and the sharing of food. With this interest has come the recognition that rockshelter deposits may hold limited potential for the exploration of these questions because of the palimpsest effects and disturbance created by repeated occupations. Attention is therefore turning to open-air living sites, among which those with temporally discrete occupations are particularly important. We report here on the preliminary analysis of spatial patterning from one such occupation at a multiphase hunter-gatherer campsite on the banks of the Senqu River, Lesotho. Here the distributions of artifacts (principally, but not exclusively, of stone) are examined, related to the presence of features present at the site, and interpreted.