Mbombela

Below the eastern escarpment, the Crocodile River runs through the lowveld country around Mbombela. Stone-walled settlements on the slopes bear witness to communities who farmed and kept cattle here before the town existed. Long passages lined with stone connected homesteads among the terraced fields and guided cattle to their enclosures. Archaeologists have identified different patterns of settlement in the region, some associated with Koni and others with Ndebele communities, which may have appeared here in the early seventeenth century.