No abstract

No abstract

International audienc

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oThe site complex Ounjougou on the Dogon Plateau (Mali) comprises sediments up to 100,000 years old with numerous Pleistocene and Holocene sequences. The site Ravin de la Mouche (11.4-10.2 ka) is of special archaeological significance because in its Early Holocene deposits, pottery sherds have been found which are among the oldest in Africa. For a better understanding of the environmental conditions which might have contributed to the innovation of pottery making, a multi-proxy approach was applied to the sediments of Ravin de la Mouche, including phytoliths, pollen, palynofacies, micromorphology and charcoal. The multiproxy approach also allows reconstructing the complex taphonomy of the site. In our phytolith study, we applied a combination of the general and the indices approaches. We recorded a maximum of morphotypes and used the summarized data for a calculation of the indices D:P, Ic, and Iph, in comparison with modern surface samples and data from other African phytolith studies. With the general approach, a number of morphotypes could be detected which are useful in describing the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene vegetation. Phytoliths were extracted from the Pleistocene base and the early Holocene layers HA1, HA2 and HA3. The Pleistocene sediment samples, with an age of ca. 30-40 ka BP, have no grass short cell phytoliths (GSCP) and their composition is difficult to interpret. HA1 is a coarse fluvial deposit with mainly redeposited phytoliths of Pleistocene origin. The palaeosoil in HA2 contains phytolith assemblages developed in situ from a terrestrial plant cover. The vegetation was an open tropical grassland and a gallery forest with palms and Marantaceae. Annuals from the grass subfamilies Chloridoideae and Panicoideae, probably with a low biomass production, dominated the grassland. This might explain the insignificant role of fire, as indicated by the very low number of micro-charcoals. HA3 results from a rhythmic deposition of alluvial sediments, pointing to pronounced seasonality of rainfall and discharge. It contains pollen, charcoal, and phytolith assemblages with a similar composition as in HA2. The Early Holocene annual grassland on the Dogon Plateau probably harboured a high number of species from the grass subfamily Panicoideae with edible grains. We suggest that the massive expansion of useful Panicoid grasses during the Early Holocene triggered the development of important cultural innovations, mainly pottery production. Cooking wild cereal grains in a ceramic container would have enabled a very effective exploitation of the vast Sahelo-Sudanian grasslands, which remained to be successful until modern times.

Recent fieldwork at the site Ravin de la Mouche at Ounjougou (Dogon Country, Mali) sheds new light on sub-Saharan Africa at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, a region and a period of crucial significance for the understanding of African prehistory. At Ravin de la Mouche, a technological complex was found with ceramics and an associated original lithic industry in a stratigraphic context which, since September 2007, is well-dated and can be interpreted in palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental terms. These new data add to the scenario for the emergence of pottery during the 10th Millennium calBC and to establish a An early emergence of pottery in Asia and AfricaArchaeological research reveals that in Japan, Siberia and China, prehistoric populations first began to produce ceramic ware between 15,000 and 10,000 calBC, more than five thousand years earlier than in the Near East (Yasuda 2002: 119-142; Kuzmin 2006). The emergence of pottery in Asia is linked with the climatic amelioration at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and coincides with the appearance of lithic industries marked by distinctive small bifacial arrowheads (Habu 2004: 26-36). This technological complex is usually regarded as an expression of the intensified exploitation of plant and animal resources, often including smallseeded grasses (Richerson et al. 2001).In Africa, the earliest pottery has been found in the large mountain massifs of the Central Sahara, in the Eastern Sahara and the Nile valley. About 30 14 C and luminescence dates place the emergence of ceramics in the Sahara and the Nile valley between the end of the 10th millennium and the beginning of the 9th millennium calBC (Close 1995: 24-27, Roset 2000, Jesse 2003: 40-42, Haaland 2007. This is related to the sudden onset of a warmer and wetter climate in the Early Holocene that enabled the re-settling of the Sahara after the hyperarid phase of the last glacial maximum, the "Ogolien" (Nelson et al. 2002: 97-99). The origin of the earliest African pottery is controversial and has been much discussed, with three hypothetical scenarios proposed. The first theory places the emergence of ceramics in the Nile Valley, based principally on the earliness of the exploitation of aquatic resources and wild cereals in this region (Haaland 1992: 47). The second suggests an origin somewhere south of the Sahara (Close 1995: 23), but until recently, the oldest finds of sub-Saharan ceramics were only dated to the 8 th millennium calBC, both at Lothagam in Kenya (Robbins 1974), and in the Ravin du Hibou at Ounjougou in Mali, for phase II of its Holocene occupation sequence (Huysecom et al. 2004: 584). A third assumes that pottery was invented by relict populations who had survived in ecological refuge zones of the Sahara during the hyperarid Late The HA4 formation (6,700 -8,100 calBC) The Early Holocene sequence at Ounjougou and ceramics associatedThe most recent formation, HA4, of fine-grained particle size and particularly well-developed in the Ravin du Hibou, has yielded artefacts from cultural...