Subsistence mosaics, forager-farmer interactions, and the transition to food production in eastern Africa

Crowther, Alison; Prendergast, Mary E.; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Boivin, Nicole

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2017.01.014

Cited by 68 publications

(89 citation statements)

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“…Historical and archaeological sources testify to the long-term engagement of the Swahili coast with the wider Indian Ocean world, through commercial and cultural interactions that promoted the emergence of a cosmopolitan, trade-oriented society by the late first millennium CE [ 5 ]. Biological exchange was part of the Swahili phenomenon, leading to the development, for example, of agricultural systems in which Asian domesticates play a key role [ 6 – 8 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

et al. 2017

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Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub-Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first millennium CE, while another posits introduction dating back to 3000 BCE. These distinct scenarios have implications for understanding the emergence of long-distance maritime connectivity, and the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species. Resolution of this longstanding debate requires new efforts, given the lack of well-dated fauna from high-precision excavations, and ambiguous osteomorphological identifications. We analysed faunal remains from 22 eastern African sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range, and applied biomolecular techniques to confirm identifications of two Asian taxa: domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) and black rat (Rattus rattus). Our approach included ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis aided by BLAST-based bioinformatics, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting, and direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. Our results support a late, mid-first millennium CE introduction of these species. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of biological exchange, and emphasize the applicability of our approach to tropical areas with poor bone preservation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

et al. 2017

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“…Using linkage disequilibrium, we estimate that this admixture between western and eastern African related lineages occurred an average of 800–400 years ago ( STAR Methods ). This suggests a scenario of genetic isolation between early farmers and previously established foragers during the initial phase of the Bantu expansion into eastern Africa (Crowther et al, 2017; Ribot et al, 2010), a barrier that broke down over time as mixture occurred. This parallels the patterns previously observed in genomic analyses of the Neolithic expansion into Europe (Haak et al, 2015; Skoglund et al, 2012), and the East Asian farming expansion into Remote Oceania (Skoglund et al, 2016).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure

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Summary We assembled genome-wide data from 16 prehistoric Africans. We show that the anciently divergent lineage that comprises the primary ancestry of the southern African San had a wider distribution in the past, contributing ~2/3 of the ancestry of Malawi hunter-gatherers ~8100–2500 years ago, and ~1/3 of Tanzanian hunter-gatherers ~1400 years ago. We document how the spread of farmers from western Africa involved complete replacement of local hunter-gatherers in some regions, and we track the spread of herders by showing that the population of a ~3100 year-old pastoralist from Tanzania contributed ancestry to people from northeast to southern Africa, including a ~1200-year-old southern African pastoralist. The deepest diversifications of African lineages were complex, involving long-distance gene flow, or a lineage more deeply diverging than that of the San contributing more to some western Africans than others. We finally leverage ancient genomes to document episodes of natural selection in southern African populations.

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“…As documented elsewhere (Lane, 2011a;Crowther et al, in press), a dynamic mosaic of livelihoods including foraging, hunting, specialized herding, farming, and combinations thereof would have existed in the wider Amboseli area. Specialized relationships between farmers and herders may have even facilitated new, more intensive management and production systems by pastoralists and agriculturalists (Robertshaw, 1990;Davies, 2015).…”

Section: Emergence Of Farming Communities (C 2 Ka Bp)mentioning

confidence: 87%

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

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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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Subsistence mosaics, forager-farmer interactions, and the transition to food production in eastern Africa

Cited by 68 publications

References 100 publications

Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure

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

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