First technological approach to a late Holocene pottery assemblage from the Marshill site in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Marshill rockshelter is an archaeological site in the Stormberg, in the foothills of the Maloti-Drakensberg mountain range. Between 2020 and 2024, we conducted a series of small test trench excavations to establish a chronostratigraphic framework and to begin the analysis of cultural material recovered from the deposits. This paper offers a preliminary analysis of a small but crucial ceramic collection that was uncovered during the excavations from 2020 to 2023. In this assemblage, we have identified surface strategies (smoothing, spatulating and burnishing), the use of kilns with controlled atmospheres, two main modelling methods (coils and moulding), and three types of textural classes that coincide with three thin section fabrics. In the context of southern African archaeology, some of the characteristics identified for Marshill’s pottery assemblage find similarities with other excavated sites in the broader region (e.g., vegetal matter in some of Marshill’s sherds).