Metsemegologolo – meaning ‘ancient towns’ in Setswana – is the name of an experimental digital project on African urbanism through the case study of Tswana towns (South Africa/Botswana). We are looking for innovative ways to make this history accessible in digital form to different audiences.
The project brings together an international collective of researchers in archaeology, history, GIS studies, history of art, digital arts, environmental studies and linguistics. Increasing digital representations of marginalised histories is part of the ongoing process of decolonizing the digital humanities and further deepens connections to, and preservation of, cultural heritage sites.
It isn’t widely known that in precolonial times vast networks of towns and homesteads were built across south-eastern Africa, part of a rich cultural landscape that existed before modern national boundaries.