The emergence of pottery in Africa during the tenth millennium cal BC: new evidence from Ounjougou (Mali)

Abstract

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...

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“…These groups might have also traded hunted game or labor hours with nearby Table 1 Showing the relationship between the previously defined (Kay and Kaplan 2015) and revised categories Kay and Kaplan (2015) This paper Raised-field farming farmers or pastoralists, as many modern Pygmy groups do (e.g. Binford 2001), and practiced landscape management with fire (to varying degrees), the promotion of beneficial plant species, and the intensive gathering of wild cereals (Archibald, Staver and Levin 2012;Fuller 2007;Huysecom, Rasse et al 2009). Additionally, during our period of interest, all societies would have utilized pottery; this level of technology has been present in West Africa since at least 9400 BC (Huysecom, Rasse et al 2009), and was ubiquitous across the continent by the beginning of our study period.…”

Innovations, food storage and the origins of agriculture

“…The dates range from 15000-10000 BC for China (Boaretto et al 2009), Japan and Siberia (Jordan and Zvelebil 2009;Kuzmin 2013), to cal 9400 BC for West Africa (Huysecom et al 2009), and around 5500-5000 BC for the Brazilian Amazon (Roosevelt 1995).…”

The Holocene Archaeology of Southwest Ethiopia: New Insights from the Kafa Archaeological Project

“…Hunter-gatherer-fishers were producing pottery in the Sahel and Sahara by the tenth millennium BP (Close 1995;Huysecom et al 2009), 1 and a millennium later in eastern Africa along the Kenyan shores of Lakes Turkana and Victoria (Dale 2000;Prendergast & Lane 2008;Robbins 1972). Between the seventh to fifth millennium BP, ceramics appeared along the Eritrean-Ethio-Sudanese borderlands at archaeological sites reflecting a mix of foraging, fishing, or agro-pastoralism (Brandt et al 2008;Fattovich 1990;Marks and Mohammed-Ali 1991;Phillipson 1977;Sadr 1991).…”