For years, Hora Mountain in Inkosi ya Makhosi M’mbelwa V Kingdom in Mzimba district has been synonymous with hosting of Ngoni’s Umthetho Cultural Festivals.
However, the discovery of a 9 500-year-old pyre through a research which took place between 2017 and 2019 by a team of researchers led by University of Yale’s Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Jessica Thompson in collaboration with Malawi’s Department of Museums and Monuments has added value to it.
In an interview on Saturday, Thompson said she hatched the idea to conduct the research in 2005, then as a tourist who later became fascinated by the archaeological history of Malawi.
She says: “I was doing a Doctor of Philosophy [PhD] in archaeology that was based on the South African record. However, I was intrigued by why there had not been a lot of publications about the archaeological record of Malawi.
“I was also especially interested in the Stone Ages, when early people were living as hunter-gatherers. I then began collaborating with the Malawi Department of Museums and Monuments, which was then called the Department of Antiquities, in 2009.”
Thompson says that year, some surveys were done with actual excavation taking place in 2010.
“We worked together in Karonga until 2016 on a project called the Malawi Earlier-Middle Stone Age Project. However, we never found fossils from ancient animals during our research in Karonga. We only found stone tools left behind probably by the ancestors of the Akafula,” she adds.
However, having read an article in the Society of Malawi Journal by an archaeologist named Desmond Clark, who had excavated a site at Mount Hora in 1950 in which Clark described finding the archaeological skeletons of an ancient man and an ancient woman, Thompson became interested in the project.
“That is how I came to be interested in the Mount Hora area. So, in 2016 we surveyed the area and met with local people. And in 2017, we did our own excavations at the Hora shelter where Clark had worked, and that’s when we first found the pyre,” Thompson says.
She says that in 2018 Thompson and her team came back for more excavations and found the other cluster of remains that are also part of the pyre.
An expert in archaeological cremations and the lead author Dr. Jessica Cerezo-Román says their findings demonstrate that the mortuary and other social behaviours of ancient African foragers were far more complex than previously thought.
“Cremation is rare among ancient and modern hunter-gatherers because pyres require more labour, time and fuel to change a body into fragmented and calcined bone and ash,” says Cerezo-Román.
On his part, Department of Museums and Monuments deputy director (research) and co-author of the paper Dr. Potiphar Kaliba describes the development as a very important discovery that has put Malawi at an international stage with its unique culture and heritage.
“As such, it opens up more opportunities, not only to culture and heritage but also tourism. This new information is important as well to the other researchers, academia and heritage practitioners,” he explains.
Kaliba adds that this area is already preserved as it is the venue where Mzimba Heritage Association holds its annual Umthetho Cultural Festival.
He added: “Coincidentally, this is where the discovery was found and is within the forested side of the Hora Mountain.”
The paper’s co-author also said that Malawi stands to benefit in terms of revenue as now more people will be aware of the important heritage discovered in this area.
“During festivals like Umthetho Cultural Festivals, we can have visitors who can bring in the much needed forex to the country,” he said.
This has been echoed by the then Mzimba Heritage Association secretary general Aupson Thole.
“Hora Mountain was identified as a symbol of significance and authority by M’mbelwa I and the Ngoni as a kingdom,” he said.
