The First Herders at the Cape of Good Hope

It is generally accepted that the earliest livestock and pottery were brought to the southern tip of Africa by Khoi-speaking herders from northern Botswana around 2000 years ago. The archaeological remains of that age, however, show no sign of such a migration. Rather, some evidence points to the arrival of the Khoi in the southwestern Cape toward the end of the first millennium AD. The earliest livestock and pottery, it is argued, probably reached the Cape of Good Hope some 2000 years ago by a process of diffusion. The implications of this model for the current debates on the transition from hunting to herding in southern Africa are discussed.     

Fuel For Lamps: Organic Residues Preserved in Iron Age Lamps Excavated at the Site of Sahab in Jordan

Five Iron Age ceramic lamps from a tomb at the site of Sahab in the south‐eastern part of central Jordan were analysed using gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The results of this study provide data on the type of fuel used in three of these lamps. The study proposes that animal fat, possibly of ruminant origin, was used in three Early Iron Age II lamps. The material used in the other two Iron Age I lamps could not be determined due to the absence of diagnostic biomarkers. The data obtained from the lamps can be put in conjunction with the archaeological evidence on the availability of domestic animals and, most probably, use of their products at the site of Sahab during the Iron Age.     

Micromorphological Study of Concotto Surfaces Protected by the Avellino Eruption in 3945 ± 10 cal. BP at the Early Bronze Age of Afragola Village in Southern Italy

ABSTRACT

The term Concotto refers to fragments or patches of hard heated clay that derive from living surfaces, walls, and ovens. Concotto fragments are found throughout the Italian peninsula and date from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Current studies express contradictory opinions about whether or not the Concottos on living surfaces represent intentionally constructed surfaces or the secondary products of the contact between hot embers and sediments. This study uses micromorphological analysis to investigate the function and composition of Concotto surfaces from several domestic structures at the Early Bronze Age village of Afragola in southern Italy. Afragola is an exceptionally preserved agricultural village that was covered by almost 1?m of volcanic ash during the Vesuvius eruption in 3945?±?10 cal. BP. The Concottos at Afragola are hard, red surfaces that are typically associated with burned materials. Micromorphological analysis reveals that the Concottos were intentionally made by laying down patches of clay and then heating them to create a hard, flat surface. This study explores the potential uses of the Concotto as cooking surfaces during the Early Bronze Age of southern Italy.     

Stable isotope dietary analysis of prehistoric populations from the Minusinsk Basin,Southern Siberia,Russia: a new chronological framework for the introduction of millet to the eastern Eurasian steppe

We report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of 354 human and faunal samples from five archaeological cultures of the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia – Afanasyevo, Okunevo, Andronovo, Karasuk and Tagar (ca. 2700–1 BC) – a key location in Eurasia due to its position on a northern corridor linking China and central Eurasia. The results indicate that the diet of Eneolithic to Middle Bronze Age (Afanasyevo to Andronovo) populations was primarily C₃-based, with C₄ plants only becoming an important component of the diet in the Late Bronze Age Karasuk and Early Iron Age Tagar cultures. Freshwater fish seems to have been an important constituent of the diets in all groups. The findings constitute the earliest concrete evidence for the substantial use of millet in the eastern Eurasian steppe. We propose that it was probably introduced from Northwestern China during the Karasuk culture at the start of the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500 BC. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for the nature of pastoralist economies on the steppes.     

Craniometric evidence for South African Later Stone Age herders and hunter–gatherers being a single biological population

Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter–gatherers and herders co-existed in South Africa during the last 2000 years. In spite of being the focus of intensive research over the years, the biological status and origins of the herders are still unclear. Did they represent a genetically distinct immigrant population who remained separate from the indigenous hunter–gatherers, or where they indigenous hunter–gatherers who took up herding after contact with herders, probably in northern Botswana? Here, this issue is investigated using craniometric data collected on a large sample of individually dated human crania from coastal LSA context. Mahalanobis distances (D), calculated from the raw metric data, show that there was a small increase in inter-individual craniofacial variation after the introduction of herding at ca. 2000 BP. Here it is argued that this small increase in variation is neither consistent with a large-scale immigration of genetically distinct herders into South Africa, or the long-term co-existence of two genetically distinct populations. Two alternative explanations fit the data better: (1) herding entered South Africa via the small-scale immigration of genetically distinct herders; and (2) local hunter–gatherer populations adopted herding after coming in contact with herders in northern Botswana. While small-scale immigration would not have had a major influence on the local gene pool, it would have increased variation to some extent as immigrants mixed with local populations. If small-scale external gene flow was not a factor in the introduction of herding, secular issues related to the introduction of herding could explain the increased variation in post-2000 BP populations.     

Pastoral Neolithic Settlement at Luxmanda,Tanzania

The later Holocene spread of pastoralism throughout eastern Africa profoundly changed socio-economic and natural landscapes. During the Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 5000–1200 B.P.), herders spread through southern Kenya and northern Tanzania—areas previously occupied only by hunter-gatherers—eventually developing the specialized forms of pastoralism that remain vital in this region today. Research on ancient pastoralism has been primarily restricted to rockshelters and special purpose sites. This paper presents results of surveys and excavations at Luxmanda, an open-air habitation site located farther south in Tanzania, and occupied many centuries earlier, than previously expected based upon prior models for the spread of herding. Technological and subsistence patterns demonstrate ties to northerly sites, suggesting that Luxmanda formed part of a network of early herders. The site is thus unlikely to stand alone, and further surveys are recommended to better understand the spread of herding into the region, and ultimately to southern Africa.     

Domestic cattle mobility in early farming villages in southern Africa: harvest profiles and strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotope analyses from Early Iron Age sites in the lower Thukela River Valley of South Africa

Several researchers have suggested that Early Iron Age (i.e., first millennium ad) farmers in the mountainous valleys along the southeastern seaboard of southern Africa moved their livestock in a transhumant or seasonal fashion between grazing areas in order to take advantage of differentiation in availability of pasture. Until now, there have been no data to systematically test this hypothesis. This study presents new zooarchaeological and preliminary strontium isotope data from the Early Iron Age sites of Ndondondwane, Mamba I and Wosi in the lower Thukela River Valley of South Africa. Harvest profiles of domestic stock suggest that herds were present year-round in the valley bottom, despite the advantages of a transhumant pastoral system. In order to resolve the discrepancy between the harvest profiles and the expected mobility patterns, a pilot isotopic study collected modern baseline strontium data in an effort to establish the local valley signature. The isotopic signatures from the zooarchaeological cattle specimens from the three sites show variation between sites, which is indicative of both limited and variable patterns of mobility throughout the valley. In addition, the strontium data suggest that some cattle may have been moved through social and/or economic exchanges from outside the valley.     

The Iron Age Maritime Interface at the South Bay of Tel Dor: results from the 2016 and 2017 excavation seasons

The aim of the Tel Dor joint Sea and Land Project is to reassess and expand understanding of the maritime interface of Iron Age Dor. During 2016 and 2017 five features excavated under water provided new data about the development and chronology of this interface. The results support a revised dating and interpretation of previously excavated structures and the identification of several new stone‐built coastal fortification and maritime features, dating to the Early Iron Age. A later phase of construction attributed to the 7th century BCE Assyrian period at Dor was also documented. The outcome of the excavation is the introduction of new aspects of the development of Dor in the Iron Age, including what is likely part of the Iron Age II city's harbour. This may encourage revisiting current views of harbour evolution in the eastern Mediterranean.     

Dietary changes and millet consumption in northern France at the end of Prehistory: Evidence from archaeobotanical and stable isotope data

Diachronic changes of dietary human habits between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age are mainly identified through archaeological artefacts and archaeozoological and archaeobotanical studies. This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach for palaeodietary studies and to identify the food changes between Neolithic and Bronze Age human groups in northern France. These changes are probably linked to the introduction of new crops, such as millet, and the use of stable isotope analysis on bones and teeth proves to be an effective method for assessing the role of this specific cereal in the diet and the economy. Stable isotope analyses were performed on bone and tooth collagen and apatite from eight humans and five domestic animals from a Late Bronze Age site (LBA; Barbuise; 15th–13th c. BC; Aube). The studied corpus is compared with isotopic data from human and animal bones from a nearby Neolithic site (Gurgy; 5th mill. BC; Yonne) and regional Neolithic to Iron sites located in northern France. Moreover, Barbuise data are supplemented by information from an important archaeobotanical study carried out on 21 LBA and Early Iron Age sites in the region. Neolithic and LBA human collagen isotopic ratios (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) differ statistically, as do those of some animals. Carbon isotopic ratios of human apatite corroborate collagen results indicating the consumption of ¹³C enriched food by LBA humans and animals compared to Neolithic samples. The high number of occurrences of plant remains in the Bronze Age settlements near the site points to the consumption of C₄ plants, such as millet, and would account for these results.     

Intensive hunting during the Iron Age of Southern Africa

Domestic faunal samples from farming sites from southern Africa dating from the Early (～AD 200–900) and Middle (～AD 900–1300) Iron Ages with large faunal samples are typically dominated by sheep/goats (both number of identified specimens and minimum number of individuals for large samples). However, four exceptions to this general pattern from these time periods are Bosutswe, Nqoma (both in Botswana), KwaGandaganda and Mamba (both in KwaZulu-Natal). At these sites, cattle outnumber sheep/goats, which have previously been measured using a Cattle Index. Intensive hunting is investigated at one of these sites, Bosutswe. Using various lines of evidence, including measuring high- vs. low-ranked prey, economic activities, as well as grease extraction and ageing from the most common taxon, plains zebra (Equus quagga), it is suggested that resource depression of wild game likely occurred. This would fit the expectation, based on human behavioural ecology, that as high-ranked game resource diminished over time, more emphasis was placed on cattle herding. The greater emphasis could have influenced descent patterns of people at Bosutswe. By the Late Iron Age (～AD 1300–1820s), cattle dominate most faunal assemblages in southern Africa with large sample sizes, and ethnographic and historical information confirm the central role these animals played in the social, political and economic lives of these farmers.     

The Middle Stone Age south of the Limpopo River

Current interest in the origins of anatomically modernHomo sapiens has focused attention on early modern human remains and related archaeological materials associated with the southern African Middle Stone Age. While the anatomically modern status and a Last Interglacial or later age for the human fossils enjoy general support, issues related to the definition of the Middle Stone Age, its dating, and the interpretation of human behavior lack consensus. Available evidence suggests that the anatomically modern human skeleton appeared well before many aspects of the subsistence and symbolic behavior that characterize recent foragers and that Middle Stone Age technology persisted longer in southern Africa than its northern hemisphere counterpart.     

A meal on the hoof or wealth in the kraal? Stable isotopes at Kgaswe and Taukome in eastern Botswana

Iron Age sites associated with the Toutswe tradition in Eastern Botswana date between CE 700–1300 and share a variety of settlement patterns, economic features and material culture. The presence of domestic fauna, settlement structures and concentrations of vitrified dung provide archaeological evidence for herding economies. However, due to factors of preservation and past retrieval techniques, evidence for plant remains is still somewhat limited for the Toutswe sites in Botswana. Additionally, archaeological remains such as flora, fauna and material culture often provide only indirect evidence for their contributions to diet. This study provides new evidence for the diet of individuals from the Toutswe tradition. Given the large numbers of animal remains and residues at Toutswe sites, the expectation is that animal domesticates were also an integral part of the diet. Stable isotopic analysis of human remains indicates that even though domestic cattle and sheep occur in great abundance at Toutswe sites, their contribution to the diet may be minimal. The main source of protein for individuals at Kgaswe and Taukome comes from C4 plants such as sorghum and millet and to a lesser extent, animal products. The practice of maintaining large domestic herds for economic and social reasons rather than for primary subsistence in southern Africa today may have its roots in the Iron Age populations of the region. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From stone to metal: New perspectives on the later prehistory of West Africa

Earlier views saw West Africa as culturally stagnant through much of the Holocene until stimulus or intervention from north of the Sahara transformed Iron Age societies. Evidence accumulating over the past 15 years suggests that stone-using societies from 10,000 to 3000 B.P. were far more diverse than previously thought. Against an increasingly detailed record of Holocene climate change, the complexity of local adaptation and change is becoming better understood. Although a strong case currently exists for the introduction of copper and iron to West Africa from the north in the mid-first millennium B.C., the subsequent development of metallurgy was strongly innovative in different parts of the subcontinent. Soon after the advent of metals, a dramatic increase in archaeological evidence for social stratification and hierarchical political structures indicates the emergence of societies markedly more complex than anything currently documented in the Late Stone Age. The best-documented examples come from the Middle Niger region and the Nigerian forest. In these areas, earlier diffusionist models in which complexity originated outside West Africa have yielded to evidence that indigenous processes were instrumental in this transformation. Trade, ideology, climate shifts, and indirect influences from North Africa, including the introduction of the domesticated horse to the Sahelian grasslands, are identified as factors essential to an understanding of these processes.     

REDEFINING THE NORTHERN BRITISH IRON AGE

Summary.   Unlike Southern Britain, the Iron Age in Northern Britain spans two millennia from the introduction of iron technology to the Norse settlements. Northern Britain is divided into a series of geographical and archaeological regions, including for the pre-Roman Earlier Iron Age the whole of aceramic and non-coin-using northern England. Despite a wealth of settlement evidence, the Earlier Iron Age lacks diagnostic material assemblages, even in the ceramic Atlantic regions, where radiocarbon dating is now confirming the origins of Atlantic Roundhouses in the mid-first millennium BC. External connections may have been long-distance, reflecting a complex variety of selective connections. For the Later Iron Age, interpretation based upon historical sources has inhibited a proper archaeological evaluation of the 'Picts' and of the traditional view of Dalriadic settlement in Argyll, both of which are now under review.     

A Late Iron Age settlement in Wādī Banī Ḫālid: First season of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project

This paper introduces the first results of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project at Wādī Banī Ḫālid (northern Šarqiyyah governorate, eastern al-Ḥaǧar), where a dense Iron Age and ancient Islamic occupation was detected. The aim of the project is the definition of the Iron Age settlement patterns along the eastern al-Ḥaǧar landscape and its relationship with both the coastal areas and the al-Ḥaǧar inner piedmont sites of central Oman. In fact, this project follows previous studies of the coastal environment between Muscat and Raʾs al-Ḥadd, where several seasonal fishermen villages were investigated, and their connections with inner permanent sites, such as Lizq, recognised during the Early Iron Age II (1300–600 BCE). Therefore, Wādī Banī Ḫālid stands as a peculiar case of an Iron Age territorial unit, a natural scenario made of a narrow alluvial valley which provided natural conditions for the development of a complex culture. Moreover, the material culture emerged after a first excavation campaign proved that the main occupational phase of the imposing fortified settlement WBK1 is the Late Iron Age (late first millennium BCE to third–fourth centuries CE), thus hopefully allowing new questions to be posed for the definition of Late Iron Age cultures and the chronology in central Oman, which is mostly known based on the excavation of funerary evidence. For this reason, the first part of the paper focuses on the results of the first season in Wādī Banī Ḫālid, and the second part discusses the links between Wādī Banī Ḫālid and the south-eastern Arabia general framework during the Late Iron Age.     

Climate deterioration and land-use change in the first millennium BC: perspectives from the British palynological record

Climate deterioration at around the time of the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition has for long been argued to have resulted in upland abandonment in northern and western Britain, and recent research has provided evidence that a major climate downturn from 850 cal BC caused settlement abandonment in western Europe and potentially worldwide. It is, however, unclear to what extent only ‘marginal’ sites were affected, due to the lack of any systematic attempt to view the evidence for settlement and land-use change across a range of landscape types with differing sensitivities to environmental change. This paper addresses this issue by an evaluation of 75 pollen sequences spanning the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age in Britain to assess whether climatic deterioration was sufficient to cause widespread land abandonment. The results provide no evidence for wholesale land-use change at this time; the overall picture is one of continuity of land use or even increased agricultural activity. There are, however, hints of regional variability, with a greater tendency to abandonment of upland areas in Wales, and signs of woodland regeneration in agriculturally productive areas of lowland central southern England. The latter pattern may reflect a combination of rising ground-water levels affecting local land-use in the immediate vicinity of the mires which provide the source of the pollen data, against a backdrop of regional-scale social and economic changes at the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition.     

The late prehistory of xinjiang in relation to its neighbors

Recent research by Chinese archaeologists has identified many late prehistoric (2000-400 B.C.) oases, pastoral settlements, and cemeteries in eastern Central Asia (Xinjiang province of China). The synthesis presented here organizes the data into 10 archaeological cultures, defined on the basis of ceramics, burials, small finds, and architecture. The archaeological cultures reveal two periods, corresponding to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The oases cultures formed a core area before the Chinese Han period and maintained close contacts with nearby highland pastoralists in Siberia and western Central Asia. The evidence for interaction between Xinjiang and the complex cultures in China and western Central Asia is evaluated with regard to the origins of the early Xinjiang cultures.     

Historical Perspectives on Pre-Colonial Irrigation in Southern Africa

Abstract

One of the basic areas of interaction between water as natural resource and human societies as agents of cultural transformation is the technology of irrigation. In Africa at least 66 per cent of the available water is used for purposes of irrigation. For more than 4 000 years irrigation has secured food supplies for humans on a continent that is noted for its relative shortage of sufficient natural water supplies.

There is a remarkable hidden power of water in the history of southern Africa. This is particularly the case when we consider the development of early irrigation technologies of Iron Age farmers. The small irrigation furrow of the subsistence farmer was just as important to an insular community of Bantu-speaking people in pre-colonial times, as is the sophisticated irrigation technology in present-day South Africa. Currently there is a paucity of information about pre-colonial indigenous irrigation technology. This can be ascribed to a number of factors of which the invasion of modern Western traditions in the nineteenth century is perhaps the most important. A number of other factors for the apparent blind-spot is also presented in this study.

In southern Africa there are traces of indigenous pre-colonial irrigation works at sites such as Nyanga in Zimbabwe; the Limpopo River Valley; Mpumalanga; and South Africa's eastern Highveld. Reference is also made in this article to specific strategies of irrigation used by Iron Age communities, prior to the advent of a colonial presence. Finally, attention is also drawn to pre-colonial land tenure and state formation against the backdrop of Wittfogel's theories on hydraulic society.     

Constructing Identities in Early Iron Age Thessaly: The Case of the Halos Tumuli

This paper examines the Early Iron Age tumulus–cemetery of Halos in south–eastern Thessaly, with its unique cremation pyre–cairn combination. As there are no parallels for such combination of burial practices either in Thessaly or in any other area of the Greek world, it has usually been suggested that the tumuli were erected by people foreign to Thessaly, most probably of a northern origin. This paper presents evidence suggesting a local custom closely related to the desire to create a new identity.     

Descent of Iron Age Farmers in Southern Africa During the Last 2000 Years

Ethnographies from southern Africa indicate that patrilineal descent dominates Bantu-language speakers. With great differences in material culture suggesting sociopolitical and economical changes between the earliest farmers that settled in the region in the first millennium AD and those described from ethnographies, it is very likely that descent patterns did not remain static over the course of nearly 2000 years. With major sociopolitical and economical changes, it is not surprising to suggest that other forms of descent also existed amongst farmers of southern Africa in the past. Although it remains ambiguous to establish descent patterns from archaeological remains in the absence of human burials, in this paper I investigate herding practices and the nature of farming as ways to infer descent. The results indicate that at least matrilineal descent was common in southern Africa before the arrival of ancestral Nguni and Sotho-Tswana speakers in the region during the Late Iron Age in the second millennium AD. Other forms of descent were likely present alongside matrilineal descent during the Early and Middle Iron Ages, when widespread evidence for patrilineal descent is absent.