The field is littered with potsherds which suggests that it was inhabited before it was a farm. If you have never seen these pieces of clay pot before you would be forgiven for mistaking them for flat stones. I first found these as a young boy exploring the dunes near Pumula beach and more recently at another shell midden between Ballito and the Tongaat River. As I walk more of the field I begin to realize that I come across a piece every 2 -3 steps, there is a lot of it. Every now and then I flip a piece over to see if it has a design on it but nothing spectacular has been revealed as yet.
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| Clay Potsherds |
It looks a little like a shiny bubbled rock but triggers the detector which results in a little game of hide and seek as I normally kick anything on the surface away before I dig a hole, only to reveal.. "tadaa!" ...nothing.
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| Pieces of melted iron and slag |
On one of my hunts I got an iron signal towards the middle of the field, I had already dug up 2 bolts and a piece of melted iron so I didn’t expect this to be any different. I pulled out 2 pieces of the rusted metal from the hole and studied them. Could these pieces be the remains of a spearhead? It’s definitely the closest thing to resemble a spearhead that I have found so far. When I worked my way back on an adjacent row I found another piece about a meter from the first hole and it seems to fit quite nicely. I would imagine the damage would have been caused by a plough.
The piece on the left is flat and tapered going into a cylindrical stem, the other 2 pieces are cylindrical and rod shaped. If you are battling to see it I put it all together with a little artistic license. The photos unfortunately don’t really do the pieces justice.
The more time I spend detecting the field, deep in thought, the more I start to see multiple stories taking shape, rather than just a single event. A sort of historical collage if you like. The scenes that play in my mind remind me of the type of footage you get from a "Trail-Cam". A Trail-Cam is an all-weather video or still camera that you can place in the wild and leave running for extended periods of time. The camera only records footage when it senses movement so you get these short clips of animals and people who happen to wander in front of the lens.
A Minds-Eye,“Histo-Cam”, use your imagination.
The following events are fictional from my imagination. 😊
In my mind I can see a small kraal with people going about their daily routines, smelting iron to make spears..Children are playing to the one side. The little boys are competing, trying to see who could throw their wooden spear the furthest. A small group of people are arriving back from a walk to the nearby Tete River, carrying clay pots filled with water.
The next scene shows a grass covered field, the huts are gone. A small regiment of British soldiers passing through on a reconnaissance mission are deciding on a good place to set up camp. The top of the hill will provide a good lookout.
Skip forward a few years, houses start to appear in the distance and I can see a farmer and farm workers preparing the fields, growing crops and harvesting.
Yet another scene shows a group of Boer and American soldiers running some training exercises. The American volunteers had sailed into Port Natal where they met up with the Boers. They traveled by train to Umhlali, then on horseback to the farm on the outskirts of the then Victoria County. After spending some time in training they headed off to the front lines of the 2nd Anglo-Boer war.
Or perhaps…
The following events are fictional from my imagination. 😊
In my mind I can see a small kraal with people going about their daily routines, smelting iron to make spears..Children are playing to the one side. The little boys are competing, trying to see who could throw their wooden spear the furthest. A small group of people are arriving back from a walk to the nearby Tete River, carrying clay pots filled with water.
The next scene shows a grass covered field, the huts are gone. A small regiment of British soldiers passing through on a reconnaissance mission are deciding on a good place to set up camp. The top of the hill will provide a good lookout.
Skip forward a few years, houses start to appear in the distance and I can see a farmer and farm workers preparing the fields, growing crops and harvesting.
Yet another scene shows a group of Boer and American soldiers running some training exercises. The American volunteers had sailed into Port Natal where they met up with the Boers. They traveled by train to Umhlali, then on horseback to the farm on the outskirts of the then Victoria County. After spending some time in training they headed off to the front lines of the 2nd Anglo-Boer war.
Or perhaps…
[Place your own scenarios here.]
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