AFRICA (Geographic Keyword)

1-25 (520 Records)

Accuracy vs. Precision: Understanding Potential Errors from Radiocarbon Dating on African Landscapes (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only David Wright.

Primarily located in the tropical latitudes with a diverse array of unique floral and fauna, there are unique challenges for obtaining a reliable chronology for archaeological sites on the African subcontinent. Radiocarbon dating is the most frequently employed method for gaining age control on Late Quaternary sites, however aspects affecting the accuracy of the method are rarely considered. Carbon recycling from reservoirs in old sedimentary structures may uptake into ostrich eggshell or...


Acheulean Hominin Ecology: Organic Residue on Lithics as Evidence of Plant Processing (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Julio Mercader Florin. Robert Bird. Mariam Bundala. Fernando Diez-Martin. Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo.

Several compendia have illustrated the reach of conventional approaches to exploring the origin of omnivorous diets. Included are the cost of developing large brains and bodies; tooth size/shape, enamel thickness, wear; and the chemical signal from diet on bones/teeth. Over the last decade, new interpretations of human origins have proposed a long history of fire dependence, suggesting humans are biologically adapted to cooked food. However, these studies have not provided direct indication of...


Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture History (1959)
DOCUMENT Citation Only George P. Murdock.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.


African Ancestry or Neanderthal-Human Genetic Admixture in Eurasians? African Diversity Matters. (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanley Ambrose. Jibril Hirbo.

Neanderthal and Denisovan genetic admixture with Eurasian modern humans, and a "signature" of Neanderthal admixture in African populations, are widely accepted "facts". Inferences of admixture are based mainly on the assumption that Yoruba, San and/or Pygmy populations contain all African genetic variation. Variants shared among Neanderthals and modern Eurasians, but not present in these Africans, are assumed to reflect 2-4% admixture. However, genetic diversity and geographic structure are...


African Ecology and Human Evolution (1963)
DOCUMENT Citation Only F. Clark Howell. Francoise Bourliere.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.


The African Humid Period: Paleolimnological and Paleoecological Evidence (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Henry Lamb.

From about 15,000 to 5,000 years ago, lakes and rivers existed across now arid areas of northern Africa, accompanied by extended ranges of vegetation, animals and human settlement. In eastern Africa, lake levels were very much higher than present, with now-closed lakes overflowing into the Nile and tributary rivers. While it is widely recognised that this African Humid Period resulted from an intensified African summer monsoon linked to the early Holocene precessional increase in summer...


African Power Plays: Inland Beads, Shells, and Shell Beads in Tanzania, AD 700-1350 (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Walz.

This paper grapples with seemingly mundane objects frequently encountered, but largely ignored, in East African archaeology: beads and shells. I report on beads of various materials, shells, and other residues identified during systematic research in hinterland NE Tanzania, AD 700-1350. Finds of glass and stone beads with Indian Ocean origins and local beads of landsnail shell alter, in a meaningful manner, archaeological views of oceanic ties to interior East Africa. Material patterning...


Age, Generation and Time: Some Features of East African Age Organisations (1978)
DOCUMENT Citation Only P. T. W. Baxter. Uri Almagor.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.


Agricultural History of the Horn of Africa: New Archaeobotanical Evidence from Mezber (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Alemseged Beldados. A. Catherine D'Andrea.

Archaeobotanical analysis of samples from the site of Mezber are underway with the goal of investigating the early agricultural history of northern highland Ethiopia. Mezber is a Pre-Aksumite site excavated by the Eastern Tigrai Archaeological Project (ETAP) with cultural deposits dating from 1600 BCE to CE 1, and occupied over four phases. In 2014-16, a total of 59 soil samples ranging in size from 1.8 to 7.5 liters was processed by manual flotation. Macrobotanical remains from light fractions...


Ait Ayash of the High Moulouya Plain: Rural Social Organization in Morocco (1979)
DOCUMENT Citation Only John Chapuris.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.


An Analysis of Funerary Food Offerings and Imagery in Theban Tombs from New Kingdom, Egypt (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Chan.

Food played an important role in ancient Egyptian funerary practices, but there has not been an examination of the types of food offered. I examined food offerings and their corresponding imagery in Theban tombs from New Kingdom, Egypt (1550- 1070 BCE) in order to analyze how food in funerary rituals changed over time. Through museum records, excavation reports, and examinations of artifacts in the British Museum, the Petrie Museum and the Museo Egizio in Turin, I determined the most common food...


Analysis of Lead Recovered from the IDM-013 Shipwreck in Mozambique (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandrine Baron. David L Conlin.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Underwater Archeology of a French Slave Ship In Northern Mozambique- L'Aurore", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In early 2020 archeologists from the Slave Wrecks Project recovered several samples of lead- as both musket balls and lead caulking. This paper discusses elemental composition, isotopic ratios, and other scientific properties of the lead samples. Implications for ore sources and the ship's...


Ancestor Shrines, Diversity, and Distributed Power in West Africa: Understanding the Strength of Flexibility and Cooperation in Sociopolitical Histories (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Dueppen.

This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology and ethnohistory of western Burkina Faso provide myriad insights into the ways that social and political identities can be simultaneously strong, anchored, and flexible: communities can be simultaneously autonomous, connected, and engaged in collective action; and hierarchies can exist while being extensively...


Ancestral Spirits and Social Structure Among the Plateau Tonga. In: Reader in Comparative Religion: an Anthropological Approach - 2nd Edition (1965)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Colson.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.


The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead on Coffins: Ritual Protection and Justification of the Deceased. (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Rita Lucarelli.

The collection of texts and illustrations known as the ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead" was especially en vogue on papyrus from the beginning of the New Kingdom through the Graeco-Roman period. However, abridged versions of Book of the Dead texts and vignettes have also been widely used to decorate a number of other funerary and magical objects. Among others, the anthropoid coffins produced during the Third Intermediate Period and the 25th Dynasty present a few intriguing features in relation...


Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Johannes Krause. Verena Schuenemann. Alexander Peltzer. Wolfgang Haap. Stephan Schiffels.

Egypt, located on the isthmus of Africa, is an ideal region to study historical population dynamics due to its geographic location and documented interactions with ancient civilizations in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Particularly, in the first millennium BCE Egypt endured foreign domination leading to growing numbers of foreigners living within its borders possibly contributing genetically to the local population. Here we mtDNA and nuclear DNA from mummified humans recovered from Middle Egypt that...


Ancient Glass Studies from 1st-2nd Millennium AD Africa: What Have We learned and Where Are We Going (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Fenn.

The study of ancient glass in Africa has undergone a resurgence in the past 10+ years, particularly with regards to the integration of new and varied analytical approaches. Glass from Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Era contexts are increasingly undergoing scrutiny to explore modes of manufacture, access to raw materials, provenance of raw materials and finished glass goods, and the role that glass production and consumption played in those societies, to name a few. Advances in instrumental...


An Android-Based System for Archaeological Survey and On-Site Stone Tool Analysis (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only João Cascalheira. Nuno Bicho. Celia Goncalves.

A recent survey project is documenting new Stone Age sites in various regions of Mozambique, including the areas of Niassa in the north and Limpopo in the south. Most of this work involves the identification and characterization of hundreds of surface lithic scatters among which thousands of stone tools must be analyzed. A digital recording system was required that would allow to: 1) register information of each scatter, including context description and geographical coordinates; 2) do on-site...


Another Form of Slave Ship: Local Nautical Technologies and Practices in the Persistence of the Senegambian Slave Trade (1818–1888) (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Pape Laity Diop.

This is an abstract from the "To Move Forward We Must Look Back: The Slave Wrecks Project at 10 Years" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite its abolition by France in 1818, the slave trade continued along the coasts of Senegambia until 1888. When, in 1822, France created a special African naval squadron stationed at Gorée Island to patrol the West African coasts, slave traders in the Senegambia responded by developing new strategies to escape...


Another Look at the Australopithecine Cave Breccias of the Transvaal (1971)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Karl W. Butzer.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.


The Anthropocene of Madagascar: Reviewing Chronological Evidence for Madagascar’s Colonization (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristina Douglass. Henry Wright. Robert Dewar.

The date of Madagascar’s initial settlement has long been the subject of academic inquiry and debate. Archaeologists, historians, geneticists, linguists and paleoecologists interested in the history of Malagasy and Indian Ocean peoples, regional exchange, and environmental change have contributed diverse datasets and perspectives to this debate over Madagascar’s colonization, but consensus on the timing of human arrival remains elusive. Despite its relative proximity to the African mainland,...


Anthropogenic plant translocations in the western Indian Ocean: Archaeobotanical perspectives on the Anthropocene from Madagascar and the Comoros (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Crowther. Nicole Boivin. Leilani Lucas. Henry Wright. Chantal Radimilahy.

Although Madagascar is probably best known for its unique endemic flora and fauna, humans have also played a key role in shaping biological diversity on the island. Indeed, it is estimated that humans have been responsible for the introduction of some 10% of Madagascar’s flora in the centuries since the island was first colonised. For many of these plants, the precise dates of introduction are unknown; and while many are undoubtedly relatively recent introductions, a number are suggested to have...


Applications of Multipsectral Imagery to the Archaeology of Human Origins (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline McKinney. Sarah Hlubik. David R. Braun.

Multispectral imagery is a powerful tool for various disciplines that use landscape scale spatial patterning to understand and identify underlying geochemical variations. Paleontologists have used multispectral imagery in numerous locations; however, it has not been extensively applied in the study of archaeological sites associated with human fossil localities in East Africa. Extensive geological exposures combined with laterally expansive volcanic ashes in the Turkana basin make this an ideal...


Applying Frames of Reference: The CLIMAP dataset and the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in the Namib Desert (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodore Marks. Grant McCall. Andrew Schroll. James Enloe.

In his landmark work, "Constructing Frames of Reference", Lewis Binford attempted to create a series of models relating hunter-gatherer adaptive responses to observable climatic and ecological dynamics. In Southern Africa, the large scale shift toward microlithic technologies associated with the Middle to Later Stone Age transition is believed to coincide with the environmental changes that occurred around the Last glacial Maximum. It has been frequently hypothesized in the African literature...


Archaeobotany of Food & Craft near Bono Manso, Ghana, during the Transition from Trans-Saharan to Atlantic Trade (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Samuel Harris. Amanda L. Logan. Anne M. Compton.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kranka Dada is a village site on the periphery of Bono Manso, a complex polity occupied between the 14th – 17th centuries AD, at the height of the trans-Saharan trade and the shift to early Atlantic trade. Questions remain about the degree and nature of the involvement of sites like Kranka Dada in these different trade networks. In this paper, we offer...