Macupulane revisited: ceramic production fifty years after Margot Dias

Abstract

Ethnographic projects, produced in the context of colonial ethnography and anthropology and presenting communities as unchangeable and living in an eternal present; these ethnographies have been used in the creation of archaeological interpretative models. This article reexamines Margot Dias’s research in Macupulane (district of Manjacaze, province of Gaza) and addresses the need for historically informed ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological research. The aim of this article is to discuss the need to account for change when formulating ethnoarchaeological investigation by reviewing the changes that have occurred in Macupulane’s ceramic production since 1959. While in the past potting was an activity practiced exclusively by women, today it is dominated by men who use the wheel to produce vessels in large quantities, aiming to supply regional markets. Historically situated factors and events, such as Portuguese colonialism and the Mozambican civil war, deeply transformed local social relations of production. By combining a diachronic (historic) perspective and short term ethnographic observation we can more readily contribute to long-term archaeological research. Historically informed ethnoarchaeology addresses change, rather than focusing on synchronic models that continue to present non-western populations as living in an eternal present.