Congo Upemba Depression

Congo: Upemba Depression

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Taken from: Upemba Depression by NICOLAS NIKIS 2021

Kisalian culture: originally from around lake Kisale (see map above)

Katotian culture: originally from the place called Katoto (see map left)

Kabambian A culture (13th-15th); named after Lake Kabamba at the northern end of the Upemba Depression.

The three early (700 - 1000 CE) and classic Kisalian (11th-14th) graves that contained finely worked ceremonial axes, one of them also associated with an ironsmith’s anvil (de Maret 1985: 265; 1992: 161). This is the earliest archaeological evidence of those objects that were closely associated with power in the major polities of Central Africa, such as the Luba kingdom. Two belonged to the grave of an adult and one to that of a child. Social position was also displayed by other unusual objects – leopard teeth, human jaws, ivory ornaments, shells (including a few cowries), etc. – and, more importantly, by the abundance of metal objects. Iron was used for tools – spearheads, axes, hoes, harpoons, fishhooks, etc. – and for ornaments. Copper, considered as a precious metal all over Central Africa, has been found in large quantities in some graves in the form of ornaments.

The few glass beads and cowrie shells found in graves suggest they also were connected to the long-distance trade with the Indian Ocean coast.

Katotian and Kisalian cultures were most probably communities – and perhaps polities – independent and contemporary of each other and showing contrasting aspects, not only in pottery style. The significant difference in proportion of long-distance trade (grave) goods is telling. While among more than a hundred Kisalian graves the only Indian Ocean trade items found were a few dozen cowries and four glass beads, almost 150 cowries, a dozen glass beads, and eight conus shells (Terebra maculata and Conus prometheus) were found in the richest graves of Katoto (Hiernaux, Maquet, and De Buyst 1972). Motifs imitating conus and cowries were also visible on pottery, indicating the value attached to these shells. This difference between the Kisalian and the Katotian cultures may have been related to differing access to long-distance trade networks.

Alternatively, the Kisalian elite perhaps did not prize long-distance trade items to demonstrate their social position, preferring other mediums, such as copper, the use of which displays a wider diversity of shape and techniques than in Katoto.

The Kisalian culture was followed by the Kabambian culture around the fourteenth century ce.

During Kabambian A (ca. thirteenth–mid-fifteenth century ce), the material culture is less homogeneous between sites than it was during Kisalian and the grave goods decline.

Metal objects, in particular, are less abundant and less diverse. Objects that can be considered as symbols of authority are much rarer, and only include a clap bell and a conus shell (de Maret 1999: 159). However, the social stratification seems to intensify, with the contrast between richest and poorest graves becoming sharper. The two richest graves, found together in Malemba-Nkulu, contained hundreds of iron ornaments and hundreds of copper cross-shaped ingots, called croisettes – more than half of the metal retrieved for Kabambian A – and dozens of cowries (de Maret 1992: 127–31).

During the Kabambian (13^th-15^th), the Upemba Depression was part of an extensive regional exchange network that was connected to the Indian Ocean coast, as shown by the cowries and glass beads found in several graves. Evidence suggests that trade with the Kasai region in the north was, by that time, well established but it is the exchanges with the Copperbelt that is the most evident in the graves (de Maret 1992: 193, 224).