Small game forgotten: Late Pleistocene foraging strategies in eastern Africa, and remote capture at Panga ya Saidi, Kenya

Prendergast, Mary E.; Miller, Jennifer; Mwebi, Ogeto; Ndiema, Emmanuel; Shipton, Ceri; Boivin, Nicole; Petraglia, Michael D.

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108032

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 139 publications

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“…Comparison of the zooarchaeological assemblage and isotopic dataset from KC with PYS and other interior eastern African sites highlights spatial variation in forager subsistence in eastern Africa (Robinson, 2017(Robinson, , 2019Prendergast, 2020;Roberts et al, 2020;Jones and Brandt, 2022;Prendergast et al, 2023). Of the known late Pleistocene and late Holocene sites, KC has the highest proportion in NISP and MNI of forest-adapted species: primates, hyrax, bovids (Cephalophini and Neotragini) and rodent species, for any eastern Africa zooarchaeological assemblage (Gifford-Gonzalez and Kimengich, 1984;Mehlman, 1989;Marean, 1992a;Prendergast et al, 2007Prendergast et al, , 2013Robinson, 2017Robinson, , 2019Chritz et al, 2019).…”

Section: Kuumbi Cave In the Wider Eastern African Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(colobus monkey), and giant pouched rat, however, there is a greater persistence of open woodland and grassland fauna at the site, such as kongoni/topi (Alcelaphus/Damaliscus), waterbuck, blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), buffalo, warthog (Phacochoerus sp. ), and reedbuck (Shipton et al, 2018;Roberts et al, 2020;Culley et al, 2021a;Faulkner et al, 2021;Prendergast et al, 2023).…”

Section: Kuumbi Cave In the Wider Eastern African Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the late Pleistocene, fossils have documented major turnover of grazing fauna as arid grasslands expanded in the interior during glacial periods (Marean, 1992b;Kusimba, 2013;Tryon and Faith, 2016;Robinson, 2017Robinson, , 2022. Meanwhile, the 78,000-year zooarchaeological record from PYS on the coast shows the persistence of forest-and grassland-adapted fauna throughout its record of occupation (Shipton et al, 2018;Roberts et al, 2020;Prendergast et al, 2023). Spatial differences in eastern African environments between these areas seem to have shaped human hunting and foraging behaviours well into the Holocene.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late Pleistocene to late Holocene palaeoecology and human foraging at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island

Iminjili

Stewart

Culley

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Archaeol.

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BackgroundClimate change played a major role in shaping regional human-environment interactions in Africa during the late Pleistocene-Holocene, but this topic has not been exhaustively studied, particularly in eastern Africa. While there is growing evidence that the coastal and island settings in this region played a critical role in human evolution, combined archaeological and palaeoenvironmental studies have tended to focus on the arid interior and show the dominance of grasslands with patches of closed and open woodlands during the last 20,000 years.MethodsHere, we present stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of zooarchaeological remains (n = 229) recovered from Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island, spanning the last glacial period and the Holocene (20,000 to 500 cal. BP).ResultsOur data demonstrate that the vicinity of Kuumbi Cave was consistently covered by mosaic habitats, dominated by forests and small patches of open woodland and grassland. The inhabitants of Kuumbi Cave exploited these diverse tropical habitats even after the regional arrival of agriculture.DiscussionWe suggest that the stable coastal forest mosaic habitats acted as a refugium for foragers during glacial periods and that the Iron Age inhabitants of Kuumbi Cave were not food producers migrating from the interior, but rather Indigenous foragers interacting with food production.

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Section: Kuumbi Cave In the Wider Eastern African Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Kuumbi Cave In the Wider Eastern African Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late Pleistocene to late Holocene palaeoecology and human foraging at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island

Iminjili

Stewart

Culley

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Archaeol.

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The dik-diks of Guli Waabayo: Late Pleistocene net-hunting and forager sociality in eastern Africa

Jones

2023

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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Net-hunting is closely linked to organized labor and hunter-gatherer cooperation in many world regions. At the Rifle Range Site (RRS) in southern Somalia, scholars have argued that Later Stone Age (LSA) foragers developed specialized dwarf antelope hunting strategies—possibly using communal net-drives—to facilitate developing concepts of territoriality around resource-rich inselberg environments during a wet period in the early and middle Holocene. Unfortunately, a lack of radiocarbon dates and faunal data limited detailed zooarchaeological perspectives on changing hunting patterns at the site. The large and well-dated dwarf antelope bone assemblage (1263 specimens) from nearby Guli Waabayo (GW) rock shelter, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to explore proposed relationships between net-hunting and LSA social and economic reorganization in southern Somalia ~ 26–6 thousand years ago (ka). Consistently high dik-dik frequencies (55.2–71.9%) and mortality profiles comprised of individuals from all age groups throughout the sequence do not support previous arguments associating specialized dwarf antelope hunting with territoriality and Holocene climatic amelioration at RRS. Instead, they suggest that LSA foraging groups regularly hunted dik-dik (genus Madoqua) using nets over a ~ 20,000-year period beginning as far back as the arid Marine Isotope Stage 2, 29–14.5 ka. Findings from this study complement recent arguments for greater economic variability in Late Pleistocene eastern Africa and push discussions of forager social change further back in time than previously considered.

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By the lakeshore: Multi-scalar geoarchaeology in the Turkana Basin at GaJj17, Koobi Fora (Kenya)

Ranhorn,

Mavuso,

Colarossi

et al. 2023

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Small game forgotten: Late Pleistocene foraging strategies in eastern Africa, and remote capture at Panga ya Saidi, Kenya

Cited by 3 publications

References 139 publications

Late Pleistocene to late Holocene palaeoecology and human foraging at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island

Late Pleistocene to late Holocene palaeoecology and human foraging at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island

The dik-diks of Guli Waabayo: Late Pleistocene net-hunting and forager sociality in eastern Africa

By the lakeshore: Multi-scalar geoarchaeology in the Turkana Basin at GaJj17, Koobi Fora (Kenya)

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