Pastoral Neolithic Settlement at Luxmanda, Tanzania

Abstract

The later Holocene spread of pastoralism throughout eastern Africa profoundly changed socioeconomic and natural landscapes. During the Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 5000-1200 B.P.), herders spread through southern Kenya and northern Tanzania-areas previously occupied only by huntergatherers-eventually developing the specialized forms of pastoralism that remain vital in this region today. Research on ancient pastoralism has been primarily restricted to rockshelters and special purpose sites. This paper presents results of surveys and excavations at Luxmanda, an openair habitation site located farther south in Tanzania, and occupied many centuries earlier, than previously expected based upon prior models for the spread of herding. Technological and subsistence patterns demonstrate ties to northerly sites, suggesting that Luxmanda formed part of a network of early herders. The site is thus unlikely to stand alone, and further surveys are recommended to better understand the spread of herding into the region, and ultimately to southern Africa.

Molecular and isotopic evidence for milk, meat, and plants in prehistoric eastern African herder food systems

“…In the wetter southern highlands and richer grasslands, faunal remains show that later herders with different mortuary and ceramic traditions c. 3000 to 2000 BP kept large cattle herds and depended on livestock, with little to no reliance on wild fauna (36,37). Lipid residues demonstrate that herders at the Luxmanda and Ngamuriak settlement sites used their pottery predominantly for processing ruminant carcass products, and to a lesser extent for processing milk.…”

The lithic assemblage from Sugenya, a Pastoral Neolithic site of the Elmenteitan tradition in southwestern Kenya

“…Herder strategies had lasting effects on the environment (Shahack-Gross et al 2008) and influenced the continued evolution of food-production practices in eastern Africa. Renewed interest in the PN is improving our understanding of this critical time period in terms of tool technology (Langley et al 2017;Goldstein 2018aGoldstein , 2018b, ceramics (Prendergast et al 2012;Ashley and Grillo 2015) and herding practices (Chritz et al 2015;Janzen 2015;Grillo et al 2018). Many opportunities for further work remain, both in terms of new excavations and of existing lithic, ceramic, and faunal assemblages that are in need of (re-)analysis.…”

“…Evidence for economies structured around management of domesticated livestock does not appear until after c. 3200 BP in the Central Rift Valley. Specialised herding economies spread rapidly southward from this point, reaching at least as far as the site of Luxmanda in north-central Tanzania as early as 3000 BP (Grillo et al 2018). Expansions westward were more protracted, as large herding sites in the Lemek Hills and Loita Plains appear only after 2700 BP (Robertshaw 1990).…”

“…Nearly all the débitage and cores come from the midden layers of Trench I, which likely represents secondary deposition events wherein signatures from different activities could become mixed. Despite this taphonomic complication, the Sugenya pattern offers promising clues that discrete activity areas may be detectable at other PN sites (see also Robertshaw et al 1990;Grillo et al 2018).…”

“…Recent excavation projects have refined the chronology for the arrival and spread of herding. Mobile pastoralists appear to have arrived in the Lake Turkana Basin around 4800 BP (Hildebrand et al in press), spread throughout southern Kenya after c. 3200 BP, and reached central Tanzania by 3000 BP (Grillo et al 2018). It is now clear that the timing of the arrival of early food production in these regions corresponds to periods of dynamic climatic and demographic transitions (Gifford-Gonzalez 2016;Ashley et al 2017;Skoglund et al 2017;Marchant et al 2018).…”