The visibility and invisibility of herders' kraals in southern Africa, with reference to a possible Early Contact Period Khoekhoe kraal at KFS 5, Western Cape

Fauvelle-Aymar, François-Xavier; Sadr, Karim; Bon, François; Gronenborn, Detlef

doi:10.3213/1612-1651-10075

Cited by 13 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…While there is an obvious need for the incorporation of land use evidence, for example, in archeological and paleoecological archives, this process is not straightforward as evidence of mobile rangeland use can be elusive (Chang & Koster, ; Fauvelle‐Aymar, Sadr, Bon, & Gronenborn, ; Macdonald, ; Smith, ). For example, pastoralism can be difficult to detect in archeological records due to sparse material cultures that are prone to decay, and varying degrees of mobility that make it difficult to infer land use at a given site.…”

Section: Problems With Datasets Representing Prehistoric and Historicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land use for animal production in global change studies: Defining and characterizing a framework

Phelps

Kaplan

2017

Global Change Biology

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Land use for animal production influences the earth system in a variety of ways, including local‐scale modification to biodiversity, soils, and nutrient cycling; regional changes in albedo and hydrology; and global‐scale changes in greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations. Pasture is furthermore the single most extensive form of land cover, currently comprising about 22–26% of the earth's ice‐free land surface. Despite the importance and variable expressions of animal production, distinctions among different systems are effectively absent from studies of land use and land cover change. This deficiency is improving; however, livestock production system classifications are rarely applied in this context, and the most popular global land cover inventories still present only a single, usually poorly defined category of “pasture” or “rangeland” with no characterization of land use. There is a marked lack of bottom‐up, evidence‐based methodology, creating a pressing need to incorporate cross‐disciplinary evidence of past and present animal production systems into global change studies. Here, we present a framework, modified from existing livestock production systems, that is rooted in sociocultural, socioeconomic, and ecological contexts. The framework defines and characterizes the range of land usage pertaining to animal production, and is suitable for application in land use inventories and scenarios, land cover modeling, and studies on sustainable land use in the past, present, and future.

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Section: Problems With Datasets Representing Prehistoric and Historicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land use for animal production in global change studies: Defining and characterizing a framework

Phelps

Kaplan

2017

Global Change Biology

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“…Faunal remains provide direct evidence of past animal production, and despite a number of potential taphonomic biases (e.g. Chang & Koster, ; Fauvelle‐Aymar, Sadr, Bon, & Gronenborn, ), the basic presence and absence of species through time provides a powerful means of assessing changes in the exploitation of animals at archaeological sites. By comparing the climatic niche of domestic animals with that of hunted terrestrial ungulates (wild animals), differences in their development may be empirically investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing the climatic niche breadth of land use for animal production during the African Holocene

Phelps

Broennimann

Manning

et al. 2019

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim: Domestic animals first appeared in the archaeological record in northern Africac. 9000 years before present and subsequently spread southwards throughout the continent. This geographic expansion is well studied and can broadly be explained in terms of the movement of pastoralist populations due to climate change. However, no studies have explicitly evaluated changes in the climatic niche of these domesticates. A priori, one cannot assume a relationship between the geographic spread of animal production and changes in climatic niche breadth because their relationship is highly variable. Therefore, we investigated Holocene changes in the climatic niche of domestic animals (animal production) and compared these to changes in the climatic niche of hunted terrestrial ungulates. Location: The African continent.Time period: 9000-500 BP.Major taxa studied: Domestic animals, hunted (wild) terrestrial ungulates.Methods: For the first time, we applied methods from environmental niche dynamics to archaeological data to reconstruct and quantify changes in the climatic niche breadth of animal production during the African Holocene. We used faunal remains from archaeological assemblages and associated radiocarbon dates to estimate the proportion of the African climate space used for animal production and hunting at 500-year intervals. Results:We found that the climatic niche of domestic species broadened significantly with the geographic spread, most notably during the termination of the African Humid Period, whilst no such broadening occurred for the climatic niche of hunted species. Main conclusions:Our results provide a quantitative measure of the extent to which humans have constructed and adapted the climatic niche of animal production to manage their domestic animals across increasingly diverse ecological conditions. By incorporating ecological analysis into estimations of past land use, our methods have

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“…Identification and excavation of additional sites at which livestock were kept and killed is also critical. In the Cape some progress is now being made in finding such locales, often in the open and with low densities of archaeological remains (Fauvelle-Aymar et al 2006;Jerardino & Maggs 2007). The fact that the horn core we discuss here comes from a small open-air shell midden reiterates this point, as well as the likelihood that high-density sites such as those at Kasteelberg may be the exception, not the norm (Arthur 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An early date for cattle from Namaqualand, South Africa: implications for the origins of herding in southern Africa

Orton

Mitchell

Klein³

et al. 2013

Antiquity

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The visibility and invisibility of herders' kraals in southern Africa, with reference to a possible Early Contact Period Khoekhoe kraal at KFS 5, Western Cape

Abstract: Résumé

Cited by 13 publications

References 10 publications

Land use for animal production in global change studies: Defining and characterizing a framework

Land use for animal production in global change studies: Defining and characterizing a framework

Reconstructing the climatic niche breadth of land use for animal production during the African Holocene

An early date for cattle from Namaqualand, South Africa: implications for the origins of herding in southern Africa

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