Ethnoarchaeologists study modern objects in the hopes of understanding how similar objects were made and used in the distant past. This study asks whether modern Bakgalagadi settlements can help archaeologists identify ancient settlements of the Bakgalagadi? An examinatian of villages, cattle posts and lands provides some ideas on how these functionally different types of settlements might be distinguished in the archaeological record. But Bakgalagadi culture has changed much in the recent past: traditional objects are hardly used any more and modern Bakgalagadi architecture is similar to that of other Batswana. This highlights the main difficulty for ethnoarchaeologists: often the present bears little resemblance to the past. Nevertheless, this study sheds much light on settlement in Botswana. even if it is not specifically useful for identifying ancient Bakgalagadi sites.
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