Public and hidden transcripts in the East African highlands: A comment on Smith (1998)

Smith (1998) uses the relationship between Maasai pastoralists and so-calle d Dorobo hunter-gatherers in East Africa as part of a framework for underst anding archaeological finds on the Vredenberg Peninsula in South Africa. We argue that this relationship may be less marked by subservience, hierarchy , marginalization, and dependence than Smith's sources indicate, and we exp lore the implications of a fuller understanding of Maasai "Dorobo" relation s for the interpretation of African pastoralist and hunter-gatherer archaeo logical sites. (C) 2001 Academic Press.