An archaeological survey of the Linyanti and Liambezi marshlands in north-eastern Namibia revealed a number of hunting and fishing sites with first millennium AD farming community ceramics as well as evidence suggesting the adoption of ceramic technology by hunter-gatherers in this area during the second millennium AD. These finds have implications for the archaeology of recent southern African hunter-gatherers: they suggest both practical criteria for the recognition of ceramics obtained by trade during the spread of food production through southern Africa in the last two millennia, and point to a likely scenario for the appearance sui generis of ceramics associated with Khoe-speaking nomadic pastoralists.