Mapping the Iron Age in Southern Africa: Magnetometry at two Iron Age villages in Western Zambia.

In recent years the use of near-surface geophysical survey – especially magnetometry – has been on the rise across sub-Saharan Africa, illustrating its utility at both large and/or built-up sites with stone architecture, as well as smaller and more ephemeral village sites in equatorial and sub-tropical regions of the continent. This article describes geophysical surveys and excavations at Nanga and Kanono, two Iron Age village sites in the Machile Valley, Western Zambia, undertaken between 2019 and 2022. Surveys allowed for detailed analyses of village layouts and showed the relationship between domestic areas and areas of iron production. Subsequent ground-truthing of both domestic and iron production areas elucidated differential spatial patterns of iron production stages (i.e., smelting and smithing) between village sites dating to between 800 and 1400, and allowed for the identification, excavation, and analyses of several Early Iron Age smelting furnaces. • Magnetic gradiometry is effective for mapping shallow (<1.5 m) southern African Iron Age village sites. • Settlement patterns in Machile changed between the late 1st/early 2nd millennium from dispersed villages to nucleated villages • Gradiometry surveys show changes in the organization and spatial arrangements of iron working practices in Western Zambia • Spatial changes have implications for regional understandings of iron production as a socio-technical institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]