Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa Crafting power: New perspectives on the political economy of southern Africa, AD 900–1300 Abigail J. Moffett a, ⁎ , Simon Hall b , Shadreck Chirikure b,c a Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom b Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Private Bag x3, Rondebosch, Cape Town 7700, South Africa c School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3TG, United Kingdom ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Copper metallurgy Crafting Multicrafting Trade Political economy Southern Africa Iron age ABSTRACT Archaeological studies of craft production locales provide an important lens through which to evaluate the mechanisms of the political economy at different, intersecting scales. Such multi-scaler perspectives are perti- nent to the study of southern Africa in the late first and early second millennium. Dominant models of the political economy of this period derive from research conducted at regional political centers, leaving critical assumptions surrounding resource mobility, access to craft products and other items of value, and control over craft persons largely untested in the wider region. Research conducted at the site of Shankare (AD 900–1300), located near Lolwe, the earliest dated copper mine in southern Africa, revealed the presence of a community of independent specialists. Crafting at Shankare took place in domestic contexts, with copper worked alongside domestic activities such as textile spinning, indicative of multi-crafting. Exchange and consumption patterns from the site indicate that imported items and technologies from the Indian Ocean rim region, such as glass beads and the technology of textile spinning, were spread widely within local networks. This study reveals the variable and heterogeneous ways in which craft, trade and political power articulate, and cautions for more nuanced explorations of power and economy in the region. 1. Introduction: Craft, control and the political economy in southern Africa Research into the political economy of past societies is broadly aimed at addressing the relationship of economy to power (Roseberry, 1989; Cobb, 1993; Stein, 1998; D'Altroy and Hastorf, 2001; Smith, 2004; Morehart and De Lucia, 2015). Influenced by social evolutionary perspectives, in Marxist economic theory and economic anthropology more widely, conventional approaches to the study of the political economy have been premised on a correlation between increased sur- plus and increased control over this surplus with ever increasing levels of specialised production, exchange and ‘socio-political complexity’ (Friedman and Rowlands, 1977; Haas, 1982; Renfrew and Shennan, 1982; Brumfiel and Earle, 1987; Arnold et al., 1995; Price and Feinman, 1995; Price et al., 2010; Earle et al., 1996; Earle, 2002; Earle, 2011; Marcus, 2008). However, critical applications of this analytical lens to various archaeological and anthropological contexts have revealed the complex and variable relationships of power and economy in past so- cieties, indicating that such generalised correlations may be fallacious (McGuire, 1983; Crumley et al., 1995; Guyer, 1995; McIntosh and McIntosh, 1999; Stahl, 1999; Stein et al., 2007). In light of this, research into the political economy of past societies has shifted towards mutliscaler studies, addressing interlinked levels of the economy and society from different vantage points, with a parti- cular emphasis on addressing the social contexts in which these are embedded (Hirth, 1996; Smith, 2004; Stahl, 2004; Costin, 2005; Kowalewski, 2008). Studies of producers, or crafters (cf. Costin, 2005) within past societies, that assess interrelated aspects of the craft pro- duction system such as the identity of artisans, the organisational and social relations of their production and the distribution and consump- tion of crafts, provide one such avenue for a critical, scaler perspective (Costin, 2001, 2005; Sinopoli, 2003; McIntosh, 2005; Hagstrum, 2001; Hirth, 2009; DeMarrais, 2013; Murakami, 2016). Adopting a research methodology informed by craft studies, this paper addresses copper production within the context of the regional political economy of the terminal first millennium and early second millennium in southern Africa. Copper mining and crafting communities within the vicinity of Lolwe Hill in Phalaborwa (Fig. 1) provide the locus for such a study. Earlier research within the vicinity of Lolwe indicates that mining and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101180 Received 20 May 2019; Received in revised form 30 April 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: abigail.moffett@uea.ac.uk (A.J. Moffett). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 59 (2020) 101180 0278-4165/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. T