AFRICA (Geographic Keyword)
251-275 (520 Records)
The Upper Burgi, KBS and Okote Members of the Koobi Fora Fm. in northern Kenya span the period between 2 and 1.4 million years ago and document some of the most important events in hominin evolution. Although previous archaeological and paleoecological investigations suggest hominins occupied specific niches within this ecosystem, we understand little about relationships between landscape variability and hominin adaptation. In this study, we combine stable carbon isotope data from fossil soils...
Landscape Survey of Potential Combustion Features at FxJj20 Site Complex in Koobi Fora, Kenya (2017)
Previous research in the Koobi Fora Formation, Marsabit District, Kenya identified nine delineated areas where the sediment was lithified and rubefied. These features derived from the excavation of the archaeological site of FxJj20-Main in the Lower Okote Member, which dates between 1.5 and 1.64 Ma. Previously, similar features in archaeological sites have been recovered with material that exhibit evidence of having been exposed to high temperatures. These features are discrete, isolated,...
Landscape Use in Southeastern Ethiopia (2017)
The widespread availability of satellite data has opened up parts of the world that have long been inaccessible for archaeological research. One such area is the border between Ethiopia and Somalia, which has been embroiled in civil conflicts for the past 30 years. As such, little is known about the cultural heritage of southeastern Ethiopia and the greater Somalia region. This project shows how using geographic information systems (GIS) as a form of initial survey can reveal substantial results...
Late Holocene Foraging and Early Farming in Northwestern Zimbabwe: Excavations and Analysis of Rock Shelters and an Open‐Air Village Site (2016)
Archaeological sites in Hwange National Park, northwestern Zimbabwe, record how and when food production expanded into this part of southern Africa. An examined early farming village contains diagnostic comb-stamped and channeled thickware pottery and copper bangles dated to 1800 and 1200 cal BP. This earliest farming community supplemented crops with hunted local wild game, but left no evidence of direct contact with indigenous hunter‐gatherers who had repeatedly occupied rock shelters 30 km...
Late Holocene occupations at the Pinnacle Point Shell Midden Complex (2015)
Surveys identified a series of Holocene Later Stone Age shell middens along the westernmost extent of the Pinnacle Point estate near Mossel Bay, Western Cape, South Africa. Excavations during 2006 and 2007 revealed a well-preserved record of human activity ranging from 3000 ± 75 BP to 890 ± 30 BP across six spatially and temporally distinct shell middens. Dubbed Areas 1 - 4 of the Pinnacle Point Shell Midden Complex (PPSMC), each midden presents a picture of human subsistence patterns that...
A Late Pleistocene aridity and vegetation record from stable light isotope ratios of ostrich eggshell in Pinnacle Point (2015)
Even when interior regions experienced depopulation during the last glacial, the Southern Cape apparently remained attractive to Middle Stone hunter-gatherers for millennia. The region’s year-round rainfall and generally mesic conditions may have contributed to its attractiveness. Although seasonality and vegetation shifts have been observed in the nearby Crevice Cave stalagmite isotope record, indications for possible shifts in aridity are few. We apply oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotope...
Late Pleistocene Behaviors: Perspectives from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia (2016)
Behavioral contexts across the critical period associated with the evolution and successful dispersal(s) of anatomically modern humans (AMH) within and beyond Africa are inadequately understood. Although the genetic and fossil evidence in hand largely advocates eastern Africa as the most likely source and dispersal route of AMH, the sparseness of archaeological evidence relevant to this period limits behavioral inferences from the region. As a result, evidence for behaviors considered “modern”...
Late Pleistocene lithic technological patterns in East Africa (2016)
Genetic and fossil evidence suggest East Africa played a significant role in the origin and dispersal of modern humans. While studies of East African Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages exhibit apparent regional patterning, this is often based on industrial designations derived from presence/absence or frequency of specific forms. Regional comparisons of these assemblages are inhibited by differences in comparability, especially of raw material, reduction intensity, and inter-analyst variation....
The Later Stone Age in the 4th Cataract Region, Sudan: Lithic Assemblage Features at ASU 09-02 (2017)
Later Stone Age (LSA) foragers in the Middle Nile Valley had relatively mobile lifeways that included use of pottery. Distinguishing LSA from Neolithic ceramics is difficult due to continuity in styles, an issue that extends to lithic assemblages. Lunate microliths and scaled pieces and use of flint and quartz as main lithic raw materials span both periods. We examine the lithic assemblage at ASU 09-02, a LSA site in the 4th Cataract region of northern Sudan. Situated on a terrace north of the...
Learning From Scratch What The Environments Were Like As The Complexities Of Societies Changed In Eastern Tigrai (2017)
Home to Aksum and other highly-developed polities, the Tigrai Plateau is a leading contender for sub-Saharan Africa's richest center of ancient state formation. This and its susceptibility to environmental (climate and land cover) variation make the region compelling for evaluating whether environmental changes affected the trajectories of polities. Soils exposed by gullying are the longest continuous archives of environmental proxies in the region. Many proxies are affected by both climate and...
Legacies of Ethiopian Women: Revealing Heritage through an indigenous animistic ontology (2016)
This paper will focus on the importance of including women’s legacies and narratives in the heritage of southern Ethiopia. In particular, women’s memories reveal the significance of life rituals associated with birth, marriage, and leadership, which served as reminders for illuminating their indigenous ontology Detsa concerning animism, fertility, and prestige. Traces of their life experiences and thoughts are tangible as visible markers on the landscape at Biare Dere, first settlements....
Leprosy, Segregation, & Burial Context: Remote Desert Living in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt (2016)
Stable oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel and bone apatite from adults afflicted with leprosy from the Kellis 2 cemetery (50-450 AD) in the Dakhleh Oasis provides insight into social perceptions of disease stigma during the Roman-Christian era in Egypt. Because there are no grave markers found in Kellis 2, this research focuses on the spatial analysis of stable isotope results to develop an interpretation of the burial location of leprosy cases. In particular, stable oxygen isotopes, which...
Levallois, Learning, and Lithic Variation: Results from Porcelain Flintknapping Experiments (2018)
The ability to transmit cultural information with high-fidelity across generations is a defining trait of modern humans. It is unclear, however, how and when this adaptation emerged in the human lineage. The earliest forms of human technology—stone artifacts—required knappers to understand raw material mechanics, as well as geometry (volume reduction, angles), and physics. Thus, it is often assumed that the spread of lithic technologies involved some degree of information transmission. However,...
Life in times of change – A bioarchaeological perspective on health and living conditions in Upper Nubia in the late 2nd and early 1st millennium BC (2017)
With the end of the Pharaonic Egyptian colonial occupation c. 1070BC and the increasing deterioration of climatic conditions, communities in Upper Nubia faced significant changes, both to the political structure (which may have affected trade networks), and to the agricultural potential of the region (e.g. availability of arable land). This presentation aims to elucidate if, and in what ways, these alterations impacted upon the living conditions of the people in the area, using the skeletal...
Lithic Analysis of GaJj17: a Middle Stone Age Locality in Koobi Fora, northern Kenya (2017)
The Koobi Fora region in eastern Turkana, northern Kenya, is known for its preservation of Plio-Pleistocene hominin fossils. However very little is known about the Middle Stone Age (MSA) from this region. Fossil and genetic evidence suggest modern humans originated in eastern Africa ~200ka, adding to the significance of this time period and region. In 2016, we excavated site GaJj17, an MSA site located in Area 104 of Koobi Fora. Here we present lithic analysis of recovered in situ and surface...
Lithic artifact production at the Large-scale Pharaonic chert quarries of Wadi el-Sheikh, Egypt (2017)
Recent research into quarrying and lithic production in Wadi el-Sheikh, Egypt by the University of Vienna has identified activities extending from the Middle Paleolithic to modern times. These include Middle Paleolithic use of surface materials, Neolithic chert quarrying, Pharaonic gypsum extraction, quarrying and production of groundstone, ochre collection, and small-scale independent modern salt quarrying. However, the most striking activities are the large-scale Pharaonic period chert...
Lithic Taphonomy and Digital Hydrogeologic Models: A GIS Based Approach to Understanding the Formational History of Surface Assemblages (2018)
Surface assemblages play an important role in understanding human behavior. However, modern erosional processes—specifically flowing water—can limit the behavioral inferences that can be gained from surface assemblages by transporting materials from their original discard sites. The influence of these processes can be observed in the size distribution and condition of surface lithic assemblages. The topography and geomorphology of the landscape heavily dictates the degree to which fluvial...
Lithic traditions in the Horn of Africa from MIS 3 onwards: views from the Main Ethiopian Rift (2016)
The Horn of Africa plays an important role in debates on emergence and dispersal of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) and their associated technologies (Middle Stone Age). In comparison, the period that follows (Late Stone Age) has been the subject of much less investigation. We argue that evidence regarding prehistoric groups that remained or came into the region during the latest part of the Pleistocene is critical for understanding the conditions of AMH’s unprecedented expansion and diverse...
Living on the Border: Health and Identity during the Colonial Egyptian New Kingdom Period in Nubia (2016)
Tombos is located at the Third Cataract of the Nile River in modern-day Sudan, and marks an important literal and figurative boundary between Egyptian and Nubian interaction. During the New Kingdom Period (1400-1050 BC), the cemetery at Tombos in Upper Nubia exhibits the use of Egyptian mortuary practices, including monumental pyramid complexes, likely used by both immigrant Egyptians and local Nubians. Despite the influence of Egyptian culture during this colonial period, there are several...
Living on the Edge: Syncretism, Acculturation and the Meroitic Kingdom (2015)
Although Greco-Roman Egypt has received more scholarly attention, the contemporaneous Meroitic civilization of Nubia deserves recognition as an important culture in the history of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean world. Examination of the archaeological evidence from the Meroitic civilization of Sudan (ca. 400 B.C.E. to ca. 400 C.E.) presents the opportunity to further current understandings of evolving cultural interaction on the fringes of several distinct world powers (namely Egypt,...
Living Systems of Raised-Field Agriculture in Africa: What Can They Tell Us About Pre-Columbian Systems in the Neotropics? (2015)
The study of pre-Columbian raised-field agriculture is marked by several unresolved questions: How did raised fields function as agroecosystems? Were they cultivated continuously or were fallow periods incorporated? What population densities did they support? Did making and managing raised-field landscapes require top-down control in a hierarchical society (or supervision by specialists)? Can raised-field agriculture play any role in reconciling food production and ecosystem services in...
Local Earthenware Ceramic Decoration and Cultural Transformation on Kenya’s Swahili Coast, AD700-1700 (2015)
Description of locally produced earthenware ceramic assemblages excavated from Swahili town sites on the Kenyan coast suggest that incised and impressed decoration became less common and less formally complex, particularly on cooking vessels, after AD 1200 (Chittick 1984; Horton 1996; Wilding 1989). This development appears to be contemporaneous with shifts in consumption practices, domestic architecture, religion, and the importance and expression of socio-economic identity within coast town...
Local extinctions and regional cultural diversification in time-averaged assemblages (2016)
Modern human behavior, including regional cultural differentiation, has traditionally been characterized as a relatively recent phenomenon despite evidence of modernity before 50,000 years ago from the Paleolithic record of Africa. Researchers interested in how demography might improve our interpretation of the archaeological record have shown that the rate of local group extinctions can affect neutral cultural diversity and the rate at which copy errors accumulate in structured populations....
The Location for the Origin of Domesticated Sorghum in Africa: A Brief Review of Some Cultures in the Sahara, Nile, and Sahel (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent analyses have established the location for the origin of domesticated sorghum occurring in the far eastern Sahel of Sudan during the fourth millennium BC associated with the Late Neolithic Butana Group. For over a half century, sorghum domestication has been hypothesized as occurring somewhere in the Sahelian...
Long and Continuous Record of Climate and Environmental Change from Speleothems of the Cape Floral Region of Southern South Africa (2015)
South African climate is determined by the alternating influence of subtropical trade-winds bringing rainfall to the east coast during summer and temperate westerlies causing rainfall in the south-west during winter. High growth season temperatures favor C4 grasses in the summer rainfall region whereas C3 grasses dominate the winter rainfall region. Pinnacle Point on the central south coast has mixed summer-winter rainfall and C3-C4 vegetation. Millennial and longer time-scale changes in...