Dr Nthabiseng Mokoena is a lecturer at the National University of Lesotho and is currently the only woman archaeologist in the country. She is working to change that, pioneering new approaches to community heritage while simultaneously establishing an Archaeology programme at the university. Her archaeological career began as a Field Technician on the Metolong Dam project in Lesotho. She went on to study for a Masters degree and later a PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand, exploring the links between Iron Age farming communities and contemporary Bantu-speaking community identities. Her work is explicitly political and forward-looking, as she feels strongly about the importance of history in establishing a sense of community and identity in the modern world.
Through conducting archaeological work in collaboration with local communities, Dr Mokoena has worked to integrate scientific understandings of the past into the ways that people talk about landscapes and belonging today. Her PhD research focused on the site of Thaba Bosiu, a national heritage site in Lesotho which had previously been studied for its stone age remains. Dr Mokoena focused instead on the more recent history of the site and how the different identities formed there were part of the establishment of the Basotho nation as we know it today. Her excavations recovered evidence from hunter-gatherer communities, Nguni ‘Bafokeng’ communities, and the Basotho communities who continue today to be custodians of this site, challenging ideas about a homogenous cultural tradition over the long-term. Instead, she argues that multi-cultural pasts should be recognised as an important counter-narrative to xenophobic political agendas.
Nthabiseng checks out a rockshelter.
Working with communities in Transkei, Mokoena has also researched community perceptions of heritage, with particular reference to the significance and conservation of rock art. Here her work has challenged imported notions of heritage, drawing attention to the importance of engaging local approaches and understandings to create sustainable preservation.
Dr Mokoena is dynamic, engaged and driven. Her colleagues describe her energy and her activism, suggesting that she is a true Trowelblazer in both her work and her personal attributes, and that she is ‘everything that transformation in African archaeology should be’. She has been a trailblazer in establishing new understandings of the past in a sometimes divided country. She says, ‘it’s difficult to move on into the future if you do not know your past,’. Her work aims to ensure that the people of Lesotho are fully able to say that they do.
Post by Stephanie Wynne-Jones
Images provided by Nthabiseng Mokoena and used with permission.
