ABSTRACT
A rcher and Hastorf ’s (2000, p. 33) statement that ‘there appears to be a conceptual gap between the role that plants and plant knowledge played in the past and the level of research interest and commitment to the study of archaeobotanical data within archaeology’ rings especially true for the archaeology of South Africa’s farming communities. Although archaeologists have a fair sense of the range of species cultivated by indigenous farmers, issues that relate to human-plant interaction remain understudied. e lack of archaeobotanical research is surprising, because ethnographic, historical, and archaeological information all suggest that plants formed an integral component of these societies.
