The transition to farming in eastern Africa: new faunal and dating evidence from Wadh Lang'o and Usenge, Kenya

Lane, Paul; Ashley, Ceri; Seitsonen, Oula; Harvey, Paul H.; Mire, Sada; Odede, Frederick

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00094849

Cited by 78 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Little is known about LSA hunter-gatherer plant use in east Africa, but ethnographic analogies suggest people would have been consuming, tending, and transplanting wild plants to varying degrees (Marshall, 2001;Marlowe and Berbesque, 2009). On the shores of Lake Turkana and Lake Victoria, hunter-fisher-gatherer peoples also intensively exploited lacustrine resources including fish and shellfish (Robbins, 1972;Lane et al, 2006Lane et al, , 2007Dale and Ashley, 2010;Prendergast and Lane, 2010;Prendergast and Beyin, in press). …”

Section: Livelihood Strategies In Amboseli From the Mid Holocenementioning

confidence: 99%

Pollen, People and Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Ecosystem Change at Amboseli, Kenya

et al. 2018

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This study presents a multidisciplinary perspective for understanding environmental change and emerging socio-ecological interactions across the Amboseli region of southwestern Kenya. We focus on late Holocene (<5,000 cal yr. BP) changes and continuities reconstructed from sedimentary, archeological, historical records and socio-ecological models. We utilize multi-disciplinary approaches to understand environmental-ecosystem-social interactions over the longue durée and use this to simulate different land use scenarios supporting conservation and sustainable livelihoods using a socio-ecological model. Today the semi-arid Amboseli landscape supports a large livestock and wildlife population, sustained by a wide variety of plants and extensive rangelands regulated by seasonal rainfall and human activity. Our data provide insight into how large-scale and long-term interactions of climate, people, livestock, wildlife and external connections have shaped the ecosystems across the Amboseli landscape. Environmental conditions were dry between ∼5,000 and 2,000 cal yr. BP, followed by two wet periods at ∼2,100-1,500 and 1,400-800 cal yr. BP with short dry periods; the most recent centuries were characterized by variable climate with alternative dry and wet phases with high spatial heterogeneity. Most evident in paleo and historical records is the changing woody to grass cover ratio, driven by changes in climate and fire regimes entwined with fluctuating elephant, cattle and wild ungulate populations moderated by human activity, including elephant ivory trade intensification. Archeological perspectives on the occupation of different groups (hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and farmers) in Amboseli region and the relationships between them are discussed. An overview of the known history of humans and elephants, expanding networks of trade, and the arrival and integration of metallurgy, livestock and domesticated crops in the wider region is provided. In recent decades, increased runoff and flooding have resulted in the expansion of wetlands and a reduction of woody vegetation, compounding problems created by increased enclosure and privatization of these landscapes. However, most Githumbi et al.Long-Term Multidisciplinary Perspectives at Amboseli, Kenya of the wetlands outside of the protected area are drying up because of the intensified water extraction by the communities surrounding the National Park and on the adjacent mountains areas, who have increased in numbers, become sedentary and diversified land use around the wetlands.

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Section: Livelihood Strategies In Amboseli From the Mid Holocenementioning

confidence: 99%

Pollen, People and Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Ecosystem Change at Amboseli, Kenya

et al. 2018

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“…To determine whether or not shifting tsetse-rich environments were present at particular locales during specific periods, direct stable isotope-based paleoecological analysis at archaeological sites can provide a complement to faunal analysis (21,(37)(38)(39). Isotopic measurements of enamel carbon (δ 13 C) and oxygen (δ 18 O) can be used to understand diet, habitat, and climate (40,41).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Environments and trypanosomiasis risks for early herders in the later Holocene of the Lake Victoria basin, Kenya

Chritz

Marshall

Zagal

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Specialized pastoralism developed ∼3 kya among Pastoral Neolithic Elmenteitan herders in eastern Africa. During this time, a mosaic of hunters and herders using diverse economic strategies flourished in southern Kenya. It has been argued that the risk for trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), carried by tsetse flies in bushy environments, had a significant influence on pastoral diversification and migration out of eastern Africa toward southern Africa ∼2 kya. Elmenteitan levels at Gogo Falls (ca. 1.9–1.6 kya) preserve a unique faunal record, including wild mammalian herbivores, domestic cattle and caprines, fish, and birds. It has been suggested that a bushy/woodland habitat that harbored tsetse fly constrained production of domestic herds and resulted in subsistence diversification. Stable isotope analysis of herbivore tooth enamel (n = 86) from this site reveals, instead, extensive C4 grazing by both domesticates and the majority of wild herbivores. Integrated with other ecological proxies (pollen and leaf wax biomarkers), these data imply an abundance of C4 grasses in the Lake Victoria basin at this time, and thus little risk for tsetse-related barriers to specialized pastoralism. These data provide empirical evidence for the existence of a grassy corridor through which small groups of herders could have passed to reach southern Africa.

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“…As de Luna et al (2012: 77) have argued, this led to a crisis of confidence in archaeology and to a largescale rejection of migration narratives in favour of localised, time-sensitive studies that tended to favour internal socio-political dynamics over macro-explanations (e.g. Lane 2004; Lane et al 2007;but cf. Huffman 1989but cf.…”

Section: Mobility In African Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobility and African archaeology: an introduction

Ashley

Antonites

Fredriksen

2016

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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The transition to farming in eastern Africa: new faunal and dating evidence from Wadh Lang'o and Usenge, Kenya

Cited by 78 publications

References 24 publications

Pollen, People and Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Ecosystem Change at Amboseli, Kenya

Pollen, People and Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Ecosystem Change at Amboseli, Kenya

Environments and trypanosomiasis risks for early herders in the later Holocene of the Lake Victoria basin, Kenya

Mobility and African archaeology: an introduction

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