A Study of stone age industries at mothudi, selebi-phikwe in eastern Botswana

This study was an endeavour to study the lithic artefact occurrences at Mothudi area in order to determine the industrial traditions in the area by specifically dealing with the typology and chronology of lithic artefacts as well as sourcing of raw materials used in the lithic assemblage of the area. To achieve this goal, both survey and test excavations were carried out as research approaches for retrieving surface and subsurface data. Although the aim of this study was to establish the lithic industrial traditions, data belonging to the Iron Age (IA) were also collected to aid in making tentative conclusions about the period. An area of approximately 1000m^2 was surveyed and areas for test excavations were purposely selected within the survey area. The analysis of the lithic artifacts has shown that the industrial traditions of the area are those of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) while microliths are suggestive of a Later Stone Age (LSA) occurrence in the area. Due to lack of dateable material in association with MSA, chronology of the Mothudi MSA is only estimated. The estimation of the chronology is that the MSA may date to approximately between 80000 and 40000 years ago or even later. IA materials show that Mothudi was one of the big towns during its time. Contacts with other contemporary civilizations existed, whether in form of trade or otherwise. It is recommended here that future research should focus along the river banks in order to recover data in undisturbed contexts.