EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Professor Deborah M Pearsall The Frederick A Middlebush Chair in
Social Sciences
Department of Anthropology University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, MO USA
Professor Deborah M.Pearsall
Deborah M. Pearsall was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She grew up
in various places in the upper Midwest and graduated from high
school in Avon Lake, Ohio. She returned to Michigan for college,
where she attended the University of Michigan and majored in
Anthropology. It was also at Michigan that she became interested in
paleoethnobotany—the study of plant-people interrelationships
through archaeology—and studied with Richard I. Ford. After
graduation from college, she enrolled in graduate school at the
University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and
began studying with South American archaeologist Donald W. Lathrap.
There she became interested in Ecuador, and participated in
Lathrap’s excavations at Real Alto, an ancient agricultural
village. The study of macroremains and phytoliths from Real Alto
became her dissertation research, and she received a Ph.D. in
Anthropology in 1979. In addition to continuing to work in Ecuador,
Deborah has conducted research in Peru, Guatemala, Mexico,
Puerto
Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Hawaii, Guam, and the
Midwestern U.S., and has supervised students working in these and
other regions. She has taught anthropology and carried out
paleoethnobotanical studies at the University of Missouri in
Columbia since 1978. She is the author of Paleoethnobotany, A
Handbook of Procedures (Academic Press, 2000), Plants and People in
Ancient Ecuador: The Ethnobotany of the Jama River Valley
(Wadsworth, 2004), The Origins of Agriculture in the Neotropics
(coauthor with D. R. Piperno, Academic Press, 1998), and editor of
this encyclopedia. She enjoys gardening—especially growing old
English roses—and writing, and lives on 80 acres
outside Columbia with her husband Mike DeLoughery.
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Takeru Akazawa Kochi University of Technology Kochi Japan
Pedro Paulo A Funari Department of History Universidad Estadual de
Campinas Sao Paulo Brazil
Julian Henderson Department of Archaeology University of Nottingham
Nottingham UK
Augustin F C Holl Department of Anthropology University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI USA
Joyce Marcus Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan Ann
Arbor, MI USA
M Rafique Mughal Department of Archaeology Boston University
Boston, MA USA
Daniel T Potts Department of Archaeology University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW Australia
Patty Jo Watson Washington University at St. Louis St. Louis, MO
USA
Steve Weber Department of Anthropology Washington State University
Vancouver, WA USA
Zhijun Zhao Institute of Archaeology Beijing China
FOREWORD
Archaeology today has become a truly international undertaking, and
it has done so by employing what has become a new and universal
language. The record of the human past is a material one, recorded
in the earth, in the buried remains of vanished civilizations and
in the material traces which past communities have left behind. As
this book clearly documents, those traces, the carefully excavated
settlements and burials of early human groups and their artifacts,
which they made and used, can today be made accessible in what we
may call the language of archaeology.
That language, intelligible in every part of the world, is able to
transcend the limitations of written history. For narrative
history, as set down in writing, is inevitably confined to the
literate civilizations whose very early texts come down to us from
just a few locations in the Old World. The universal language of
archaeology, however, knows no such bounds. Instead it addresses
the human use of material culture wherever human beings have lived.
It draws upon a broad range of techniques – from stratigraphic
excavation to radiocarbon dating, from aerial photography to
molecular biology – which now make it possible to speak of a world
archaeology, in which the experiences of every country and people
can take their place. This book sets out in a coherent way to make
that language clearly and directly intelligible to the reader, so
that the basic techniques of archaeology can be understood. It goes
on to apply those techniques to the entire human story. Its broad
sweep takes us from the emergence of the first humans, initially in
Africa, and their early out-of-Africa dispersals, through the whole
gamut of human experience, dealing with the rise of farming
communities, the dawn of civilizations, the formation of the first
cities, and so down to the present, and to the postcolonial era in
every part of the world.
The good news is that every land, every inhabited area of the
earth, does have its archaeology. Each community has a past, which
today can be investigated with the use of the now-universal
techniques of investigation described here. The scope is vast. The
story unfolds here on a continent-by-continent basis.
Only in recent decades has it been possible to put together such a
survey. For it was radiocarbon dating that opened the way for early
developments in every part of the world to be dated. Suddenly the
chronology of early Australia or of southern Africa became just as
secure and just as available as the comparable chronologies for
Europe or for the ancient Near East. The whole scope of human
achievement in every part of the world is becoming known through
the practice of archaeology. The authors of this survey have
produced an up-to-date account not only of the methods which
constitute the language of archaeology but also of the principal
findings which now allow us to speak of a world archaeology.
The authorship of the Encyclopedia of Archaeology reflects the
cosmopolitan status of archaeology today. It is truly
international, with Chinese scholars writing many of the entries
for China, African scholars for Africa. The coverage is, of course,
global, covering every continent (including Oceania) and every
period. It is also multifacetted, giving insights into the
different schools of archaeological thought, which flourish today.
It recognizes that philosophical themes (Marxist archaeology;
Postprocessual archaeology) must rub shoulders with social topics
(Ethnicity, Rise of political complexity), and both of these with
issues of contemporary concern (Who owns the past?, Politics of
archaeology). These in turn are found side-by-side with some of the
key scientific subdisciplines (archaeometry, phytolith analysis,
taphonomy), which today provide much of the vocabulary for that
universal language of archaeology.
The outcome is that this work will be read with profit in every
part of the world. It will be as welcome in South America (where
the Amazon basin for once achieves necessary coverage) as in
Europe, as appropriate in Japan as inMesoamerica. It reflectswell
the changingnature of archaeology,with the fast developing
rangeofnewresearch methods and the changing realities of a
postcolonial world where the past of every area and region is of
interest.
Colin Renfrew
INTRODUCTION
Archaeology is a subject that fascinates us. From Egyptian tombs to
a frozen Alpine wayfarer, from cities buried under volcanic ash to
stone arrowheads turned up by the plow, archaeology is in the news
and in our backyards. It is paradoxical that a subject that so
easily captures the imagination is so difficult to access.
Superficial media treatments and picture- book atlases and site
guides on the one hand, jargon- heavy scholarly books and narrowly
focused articles on the other – there are few ways to learn about
the real world of archaeology outside the university classroom or
the dig site. The aim of the Encyclope- dia of Archaeology is to
change this, to make all aspects of archaeology accessible to a
broad audi- ence, from educated laypersons and university stu-
dents eager to learn about the field, to scholars intent on
broadening and updating their knowledge of the discipline. No
existing work provides the breadth and depth of coverage achieved
here.
It has been my privilege and pleasure to work with over 260
talented archaeologists from around the globe during this project.
In the pages that follow, they will introduce you to archaeology
through contributions arranged in an easy-to-use, alphabetical
format. From the moment I was invited to undertake this project, I
knew that I wanted the Encyclopedia of Archaeology not only to
showcase archaeological knowledge at the beginning of the
twenty-first century, but to convey how archaeologists work, and to
illustrate the diversity of issues and theoretical paradigms that
drive our re- search. From this grew an underlying four-part struc-
ture for the Encyclopedia of Archaeology:
Archaeology as a discipline The practice of archaeology Archaeology
at the beginning of the twenty-first
century: Aworld overview Geographical overviews Topics and issues
that cross-cut geography
Archaeology in the everyday world
The ‘Contents list by subject’, which follows this Intro- duction,
illustrates how individual contributions are grouped conceptually
within this framework.
Each contribution to ‘Archaeology as a discipline’ places emphasis
on the broad approach and subject matter of part of the field of
archaeology, and pro- vides historical context when appropriate.
Here you will be introduced to schools of thought as distinctive as
cognitive and evolutionary archaeology, learn of the historic roots
and philosophy of the field, and read overviews of subjects from
archaeoastronomy to forensic archaeology to urban
archaeology.
Contributions to ‘The practice of archaeology’ de- scribe the nuts
and bolts of how archaeological re- search is conducted, and
incorporate case studies as illustrations of modern archaeological
practice. Topics range from fieldwork, through analysis of
artifacts and biological materials, to approaches to interpreting
the archaeological record. Among our authors you will find experts
and innovators in ar- chaeological methodology.
‘Archaeology at the beginning of the twenty-first century: A world
overview’ is a wide-ranging review of our knowledge of the past.
Archaeological sites and cultural traditions are placed in regional
and temporal context in contributions in the ‘Geographi- cal
overviews’ section. Each article is written by an archaeologist
with hands-on research experience in the region, and includes maps
and illustrations of sites and artifacts. Look up an archaeological
site in the index (or use the search function in the online
version) and you will be guided to the regional and topical
articles that discuss it. Or just browse and learn the latest on
the archaeology of East Africa, Micronesia, or the Lesser Antilles.
Regions are or- dered in the ‘Contents list by subject’ west to
east, and north to south, and within regions contributions are
ordered chronologically or by subregion, as deemed
appropriate.
x Introduction
Contributions to ‘Topics and issues that cross-cut geography’ are
in-depth articles on cutting-edge re- search in archaeology. Case
studies, often from more than one region of the world, illustrate
each topic. Here you will be introduced to research on subjects as
diverse as extinctions of big game, social inequality, and daily
life in ancient cities. Contributions on related subjects are
grouped in the ‘Contents list by subject’.
Finally, ‘Archaeology in the everyday world’ steps back from the
approaches, methods, and findings of archaeology to look at
archaeology as a profession. In this section are contributions on
the ethical and legal aspects of practicing archaeology today,
popular cul- ture and archaeology, and archaeology and stake-
holder communities.
The Encyclopedia of Archaeology would never have come to fruition
without the hard work of the members of the Editorial Board, who
assisted in de- veloping the subject list, fine-tuned the
geographical overview sections, suggested authors for contribu-
tions, and reviewed completed manuscripts. They each have my
wholehearted thanks. I also thank the following friends and
colleagues for their assistance and advice: Robert A. Benfer, Jr.,
J. Scott Bentley, Jane C. Biers, Christine Hastorf, Janet Levy,
NaomiMiller, Hector Neff, Elizabeth Reitz, Ralph Rowlett, and Peter
Warnock.
Deborah M. Pearsall
Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists Scott MacEachern, Bowdoin
College, Brunswick, ME, USA
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
Niger–Congo family, now spoken through much of Africa south
of the equator. The ‘Bantu expansion’ is the process – still not
entirely understood – through which early Bantu languages
spread to the east and south from their homeland on the
Nigerian–Cameroon border, beginning perhaps 5000 years ago.
Lupemban AMiddle/Late Pleistocene stone tool industry, found
in different areas of sub-Saharan Africa and descended from
the
Sangoan and eventually the Acheulean traditions. It is
characterized by the extensive use of bifacial and core-tools. It
is often assumed to be associated with forest environments,
where
these tools were used for woodworking and other functions.
microlithic Stone tool industries characterized by the use of
small tools, usually made by carefully breaking stone blades into
predetermined shapes or by the production of very small
blades.
Microliths are defined as being <3 cm in length, and are
often
used as elements in composite tools. ‘semi-domesticates’ Plants
that are not planted by humans
and that do not need human assistance to reproduce, but yield
products important to the human communities in the area.
Because of their importance, people often protect and encourage the
growth of semi-domesticates, for example, through weeding
of competing species.
tazunu Funerary monuments found in the western Central
African Republic, first built in the early first millennium BC.
They consist of a group of upright standing stones, usually
between 1 and 3 m in length, set in an artificial platform
that
often contains one or more rectangular chambers.
Tshitolian A Holocene stone tool industry of western Central
Africa, characterized by a heavy-duty bifacial tool component
originating in the Middle/Late Pleistocene Lupemban industry, as
well as a variety of different types of arrowheads and
microlithic tools.
Archaeologists know less about the prehistory of Cen- tral Africa
through the last 10 000 years than about any other part of the
continent. This is only in part because of the difficulties of
working in tropical forest: indeed, some of the least-known areas
are in the wood- lands along the northeastern fringes of the Congo
Basin.More important have been the effects of decades of political
instability and an underdeveloped infra- structure that goes back
to the colonial period. Over the last decade, however, some parts
ofCentral Africa – especially in the northwest – have yielded a
great deal of information on ancient occupations in this
period.
Moisture levels in Central Africa increased dramati- cally from the
terminal Pleistocene, much drier than the present, to the early
Holocene, which would have been generally wetter than today. This
corresponded to a great increase in forests over the same period.
However, models of a uniform expansion of trop- ical forest out of
Late Pleistocene refugia are over- simplified. There seems to have
been a great deal of local diversity in plant associations, as well
as signifi- cant regional variations in rainfall, temperatures, and
seasonality, through this period. Instead of thinking about
environmentally determined depopulations and repopulations over
Central Africa as a whole, we must imagine human communities
adapting to a wide variety of circumstances and resources in
differ- ent areas and at different times.
2 AFRICA, CENTRAL/Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists
The beginning of the Holocene saw all of Central Africa occupied by
foraging communities. Little evi- dence of these populations is
left, aside from their stone tool industries, which show a good
deal of continuity from the Late Pleistocene. Not surpris- ingly,
in the center of the continent, these industries are diverse, with
stone tool-kits in the northwestern part of Central Africa showing
some similarities with adjacent areas of West Africa, eastern
indus- tries exhibiting some resemblances to East Africa, and so
on. Perhaps most uniquely Central African is the
Tshitolian industry, found primarily in the west, in Republic of
the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo, northwestern
Angola, and parts of Gabon. The Tshitolian seems to be derived from
the Late Pleistocene Lupemban industry, and shares with the
Lupemban an important component of heavy-duty bifacial tools, as
well as arrowheads and microlithic tools. In other parts of Central
Africa, microlithic industries predominate and the bifacial tools
are rare or absent. We know little about the lifeways of these
populations, but the available evidence indicates that for the most
part they were
Republic of the Congo
Cameroon
Figure 1 Some of the sites and traditions mentioned in the text.
The
broad-spectrum, mobile hunter-gatherers. Late Pleis- tocene
lakeshore sites like Ishango in eastern Demo- cratic Republic of
the Congo, with their extraordinary bone harpoon points and
evidence for fishing and hunting, exhibit striking similarities to
Holocene sites in similar environments in East Africa, but there is
no firm evidence for the persistence of this lacustrine adaptation
in Holocene Central Africa (Figure 1).
Just after 7000years ago, significant innovations appeared in the
economic and technical adaptations of communities in the
northwestern part of the region. On what is now the frontier
between southeastern Nigeria and Cameroon, archaeologists working
at sites like Shum Laka have found evidence for con- sumption of
nuts from the incense tree (Canarium schweinfurthii), a wild
species that would be increas- ingly exploited by humans over the
succeeding millennia, as well as the first evidence for pottery in
the region. At the same time, larger bifacial (but not Tshitolian)
tools appear among the microlithic stone tools that earlier
dominated in this area, as does the first evidence for
ground/polished stone tools. In later periods, such tools would be
used in horticulture and forest clearance.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Upemba sites
Ishango Uganda
extent of archaeological traditions is approximate.
AFRICA, CENTRAL/Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists 3
The Early-/Mid-Holocene appearance of these new cultural elements
signals the origins of a very different adaptation to life in
Central Africa, one eventually involving increased sedentism, a
concentration on particular wild plant foods and increased levels
of environmental manipulation. Over the next four millennia, these
elements would come to dominate archaeological assemblages in this
part of the region, as important ‘semi-domesticates’ such as oil
palm (Elaeis guineensis) were added to local economies. This
adaptation would culminate in the farming vil- lages of southern
Cameroon and Gabon, during the first millennium BC. These sites are
characterized by the occurrence of large numbers of deep pits,
proba- bly used for storage and garbage disposal; these pits
frequently contain pottery, Canarium, and oil palm remains, and
also in some cases the remains of domes- ticated plants and
animals, including millet, banana (originally a Southeast Asian
domesticate), and sheep/ goats. These pit sites are probably
related to sites of a similar period in western Democratic Republic
of the Congo. The spread of these communities into Central Africa
from the northwestern part of the region is likely associated with
the spread of Bantu languages, since the origins of those languages
are in the Grassfields region around Shum Laka and the
archaeological evidence agrees in general with lin- guistic
evidence for the early expansion of Bantu languages. After the
middle of the first millennium AD, few pits are found in sites in
this area: the reason for this is unknown, but probably involves
changes in settlement patterning during this period. The prehistory
of other regions is not as well
known through the mid-Holocene, but ground and polished stone axes
similar to those found around Shum Laka occur in different parts of
Central Africa. In some cases, for example, at Tchissanga and
related sites on the coast of Republic of the Congo and in the
Central African Republic (CAR), these are foundwith different kinds
of pottery; in other cases, as on the Uelian sites of northern
Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Angola and elsewhere, they
exist as isolated discoveries, without significant cultural
context. In very few cases have these occurrences been dated, but
those dates that do exist indicate a Mid-/Late- Holocene time
period, and these sites are probably evidence of processes of
economic intensification sim- ilar to those in the northwest –
which, indeed, may be their ultimate origin. On the island of
Bioko, now part of Equatorial Guinea, the use of stone tools,
especially axes, would persist until the nineteenth century. In
western CAR, these developments are, by the
early first millennium BC, associated with the appear- ance of the
tazunu sites, megalithic sites in which upright standing stones are
usually set in low artificial
mounds. These are likely to have been funerary monuments, although
not all excavated examples contain inhumations, and a tradition of
tazunu con- struction may have continued in the area until a few
centuries ago. The construction of these impressive monuments, and
their association with single burials (where any are found), would
seem to imply the existence of some degree of social ranking in
western Central African Republic through this period (see Africa,
Central: Great Lakes Area).
The appearance of iron artifacts would eventually transform the
economies and even the ideologies of Central African societies, but
this did not happen immediately. Indeed, the available
archaeological evidence indicates that early iron technologies were
incorporated into the already-existing cultural sys- tems discussed
above, and that traditional assump- tions of an Iron Age, a sudden
break with earlier practices, seem to be particularly misleading in
this case. The first evidence of iron production (in fact, very
frequently the slag by-products of iron smelting and forging)
appears on sites in northwest- ern Central Africa during the first
millennium BC. Establishing the precise timing of that appearance
is difficult, in part because of difficulties with radio- carbon
calibration during the middle of that millen- nium. However, both a
habitation site associated with the tazunu of the CAR and one of
the pit sites in southern Cameroon have yielded dates for iron
working of about 2600 years ago, and so be- tween the ninth and the
sixth centuries BC. This generally agrees with dates on some West
African iron-working sites as well, but more work remains to be
done on the origins of this technology in sub- Saharan
Africa.
Sites with iron from this area, in Gabon and in Republic of the
Congo, became more common by the late first millennium BC, and
through the ensuing centuries in other areas of Central Africa,
until by perhaps AD 800 iron was being used throughout Central
Africa (except on Bioko, as noted above, and perhaps by isolated
foraging groups elsewhere). Over this same period, the use of stone
tools for the most part ceased, presumably replaced by iron. In
general, this parallels the introduction of iron into East Africa,
although the exact routes by which that introduction took place are
unknown.
Over the ensuing centuries, as iron technologies became established
through the region, we see the development of larger-scale
societies, the extension of trade networks and evidence for
increasing social complexity in some parts of Central Africa. This
is most strikingly demonstrated in the Upemba Depres- sion of
southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a remarkable
series of high-status grave
Great Lakes Area Augustin F C Holl, The University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, MI, USA
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
earthwork Any early structure built from a mound or bank of earth,
often created as fortification.
forager Someone who hunts for food or provisions.
iron smelting A process of heating and melting iron ores and
concentrates and then separating the desirable molten metals
such as copper from other elements.
kingdoms Peak periods of development in ancient history.
4 AFRICA, CENTRAL/Great Lakes Area
sites, dating to between the eighth and eighteenth cen- turies AD,
indicate the processes of social differentia- tion and ideological
development that culminated in the historically known Luba state.
There is scattered archaeological evidence for significant trading
net- works and iron and copper production in western Democratic
Republic of the Congo at the same time period, as well. In other
areas – the Central African Republic and northwestern Democratic
Republic of the Congo, for example – the village-level societies
that developed in the first millennium BC and early first
millennium AD remained the dominant eco- nomic and political units
into the colonial period. As in much of the rest of Africa, there
has been little archaeological investigation of recent centuries,
and still less of the period of European contact. Over the last two
millennia, archaeological data
are increasingly supplemented by data from linguis- tic and
historical research. These sources provide information on social
and cultural processes that are not easily approached
archaeologically – the details of the expansion of Bantu languages,
the developing relations between farmers and foragers (Pygmy/BaTwa)
in Central Africa and the interplay between ideology and
sociopolitical relations across the region as a whole, for example.
Only through such integrated approaches will researchers be able to
approach a more complete picture of the Central African past.
The Interlacustrine area is flanked on both east and west by
important freshwater lakes; Lake Victoria,
See also: Africa, Central: Great Lakes Area; Africa, Historical
Archaeology.
L. Tanganyika, L. Kivu, and L. Albert. It is stretched over the
eastern boundary of the Democratic Repub- lic of Congo, Uganda,
Rwanda, Burundi, Northern Tanzania, and the western fringe of
Kenya. Several important Stone Age sites have been excavated at
Matupi cave, Katanda sites of the Semliky valley, as well as
Munyama cave in Uganda. Late Stone fora- gers using microliths were
spread out in small groups over this vast area. The arrival of
iron-using Bantu- speaking farmers in the first millennium BC
triggered significant long-term increase in settlement size and
density. The volcanic soils in this highly humid area are fertile,
productive, and support some among the highest population density
of Africa today. Evidence for iron smelting dating from the first
half to the middle of the first millennium BC (900–500BC) is
documented at Gasiza I and Mirami III in Rwanda and the BuHaya
region in Northwestern Tanzania. These Urewe farming communities
were later joined by livestock herders from the Nile watershed.
Bananas and other Southasian species took root and prospered in the
fertile Interlacustrine zone. Bananas, one of the Malayo-Polynesia
plants, were thought to have
Further Reading
Clist B (2005) Des premiers villages aux premiers Europeens autour
de l’estuaire du Gabon: Quatre millenaires d’interactions entre
l’homme et son milieu. Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de
Bruxelles.
Cornelissen E (2002) Human responses to changing environments
in Central Africa between 40,000 and 12,000 BP. Journal of World
Prehistory 16: 197–235.
de Maret P (1999) The power of symbols and the symbols of
power
through time: probing the Luba past. In: McIntosh SK (ed.)
Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa, pp. 151–165.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Klieman KA (2003) ‘The Pygmies Were Our Compass’. Bantu and Batwa
in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to c. 1900 CE.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Lanfranchi R and Clist B (eds.) (1991) Aux origines de l’afrique
centrale. Libreville/Paris: Centre Culturel Francaise de
Libreville, Sepia.
Lavachery P (2001) The Holocene archaeological sequence of Shum
Laka Rock Shelter (Grassfields, Western Cameroon).
African Archaeological Review 18: 213–248.
Lavachery P, MacEachern S, Bouimon T, et al. (2005) Kome to
Ebome: archaeological research for the Chad Export Project,
1999–2003. Journal of African Archaeology 3: 175–193.
Mbida CM, van Neer W, Doutrelepont H, and Vrydaghs L (2000)
Evidence for banana cultivation in central and animal hus-
bandry during the first millennium BC in the forest of
southern
Cameroon. Journal of Archaeological Science 27: 151–162. Vansina J
(1990) Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History
of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. Series. Madison,
Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Zangato E (1999) Societes
Prehistoriques et Megalithes Dans le
Nord-ouest de la Republique Centrafricaine. Oxford: Archaeo-
press.
Sudan, Nilotic Kathleen Nicoll, University of Utah, Salt Lake City,
UT, USA
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
artifact Any object manufactured, used, or modified by
humans.
Common examples include tools, utensils, art, food remains, and
other products of human activity.
Aterian A stoneworking tradition that is considered an
evolved
style of the Palaeolithic of North Africa; it includes
distinctive
tools with shanks (i.e., tangs) for mounting to a handle, and
basically worked leaf-shaped points.
calcareous Containing calcium carbonate minerals.
chert A very fine grained rock formed in ancient ocean
sediments. It often has a semi-glassy finish and is usually white,
pinkish, brown, gray, or blue-gray in color. It can be shaped
into
arrowheads by chipping. It has often been called flint, but
true
flint is found in chalk deposits and is a distinctive blackish
color. dispersal The process in which an organism spreads out
geographically.
flint A hard, brittle microcrystalline form of quartz
commonly
found in sedimentary limestone or in chalk deposits, or otherwise
any kind of stone that can be flaked.
lithic Stone tools or projectiles.
AFRICA, CENTRAL/Sudan, Nilotic 5
reached Africa during the first millennium BC or very beginning of
the first millennium AD. Bananas (Musa sp.) phytoliths from a core
drilled at Munsa in Uganda and dated to the fourth millennium BC
point to an earlier than thought introduction (see Africa, Central:
Foragers, Farmers, and Metallurgists; Sudan, Nilotic). The Great
Lakes region and the Savanna-land south
of the equatorial rainforest witnessed the development of complex
chiefdoms and kingdoms during the second millennium AD. In the
Great Lakes region, the devel- opment at Ntusi, Munsa, Bigo,
Kibiro, Mubende, and other earthworks sites is remarkable.
Large-scale cattle husbandry is documented at Ntusi. Kibiro
witnessed an impressive intensification in the production of salt
from the local brackish springs. An agricultural colo- nization
took place in western Uganda. However, tracing the precise
evolutionary trajectory of any of the Great Lakes, past polities is
still hampered by the lack of sustained long-term archaeological
research and terminological uncertainties. Archaeolog- ical survey,
and the analyses of the ceramic material collected was used by
Robertshaw to develop a model of the development of social
complexity. Four areas, Nyantungo in the west, Kibale in the north,
Munsa/ Kakumiro in the Northeast, and Kasambya in the southeast,
were sampled to document variations in settlement patterns and
pottery shapes, design, and decoration. Most of the surveyed sites
(>90%) are small homesteads/hamlets measuring less than 1 ha in
size. Large sites without earthworks seem to have been positioned
at defensive locations. While, with a certain range of variation,
earthworks sites may have been part of small and competing
polities. After the sixteenth century AD, these rival and competing
polities came to be united under the rulership of the Bito dynasty
that created the Nyoro kingdom inWestern Uganda. Rwanda and Burundi
on thewest- ern side of the Interlacustrine zone also developed
rival but small chiefdoms. In general and all over the Lacustrine
zone, iron working was strongly associated with rulership.
lithic scatter A spatially discrete, though sometimes
extensive,
scatter of lithic artifacts recovered from the surface, for
example, by fieldwalking, rather than from a particular
archaeological
context.
See also: Africa, Central: Foragers, Farmers, and
Metallurgists; Sudan, Nilotic; Zimbabwe Plateau and
Surrounding Areas.
possibly aligned.
microlith Small tools that may be any of a variety of shapes,
and
which have been produced from microblades. These are too
small to have been used without hafting, some were set edge to edge
in a groove in a bone or wood shaft and so served as cutting
tools, while others would have been functional as barbs.
Neolithic Refers to the first era of village farmers in any
region.
nomad A member of a group of people who move according to the
seasons from place to place in search of food, water, and
grazing land.
Further Reading
Connah G (1996) Kibiro: The Salt of Bunyoro, Past and Present.
Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa.
Ehret C (1998) An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern
Africa in World History, 1000BC to AD400. Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press.
Lejju BJ, Robertshaw P, and Taylor D (2006) Africa’s Earliest
Bananas? Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 102–113. Reid A
(1997) Lacustrine states. In: Vogel JO (ed.) Encyclopedia of
Precolonial Africa, pp. 501–507. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Robertshaw P (1994) Archaeological survey, ceramic analysis,
and
state formation in Western Uganda. The African Archaeological
Review 12: 105–131.
Robertshaw P (2003) Explaining the origins of state in East
Africa.
In: Vogel (ed.) East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters,
Smiths, and Traders, pp. 149–166. Philadelphia: The University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Schoenbrun DL (1998) A Green Place, A Good Place: Agrarian Change,
Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th
Century. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
6 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sudan, Nilotic
geologic age-dating technique used to determine the
depositional
age of sediments by considering mineral grains as dosimeters
that
‘accumulate’ energy over time as a function of natural
environmental radiation. The technique is based on the
solid-state properties of mineral grains rather than isotopic
decay
of constituent elements (like K–Ar or radiocarbon dating).
pastoralism The form of agriculture specifically known as
animal husbandry; it includes the tending and use of animals
such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It
also
contains a mobile element, moving the herds in search of fresh
pasturelands and water resources.
Pleistocene A geologic period, usually thought of as the most
recent Ice Age, which began about 1.8million years ago and
ended with the melting of the large continental glaciers creating
the modern climatic pattern about 11 500 years ago.
pluvial A term commonly used to refer to a time period
characterized by increased precipitation and reduced
evaporation, resulting in enhanced moisture conditions. prehistoric
The period prior to written records for a given area;
note that the absolute date for the prehistoric period varies
from
place to place. social complexity Refers to patterns in society at
levels from
the individual to the group, as it relates to various human
adaptive systems both comprising and surrounding a society.
Complexity can refer to the rituals, culture, and practices of
communities, regional systems, or empires.
stratified A term that refers to sediments with primary
(undisturbed) characteristics, that have been deposited or
laid
down in successive layers. Often the succession of layers can
provide a relative chronological sequence, with the earliest at
the
bottom and the latest at the top.
Today the central African landscape west of the Nile River is
hyperarid, with <10mm annual rainfall; the modern Saharan region
generally lacks sufficient sur- face water to sustain nomadic
pastoralism, and settle- ment is localized around permanent oases
and wells. The prehistoric records discovered in the desert land-
scape are sparse (Figure 1), and sites are commonly associated with
ancient sources of water, including streams, springs, and lakes
relict from ‘pluvial’ time periods of enhanced rainfall.
Palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that the region has remained
arid with occasional semi-arid periods when the region received
around 300mm annual rainfall, and the Sudano-Sahelian vegetation
zone extended northward. The changing climatic conditions and ready
availabi- lity of water resources were key factors in determining
when this marginal region could sustain life and cul- tural
activities. The geoarchaeological record informs the emerging
spatial and temporal reconstruction of the alternate aridification
and peopling of the Sahara since the Later Pleistocene, the period
250000– 10000 years ago.
A Brief History of Explorers and Archaeologists
Some of the first artifactual finds from the region called the
‘Western’ or ‘Libyan’ Desert and ‘the
Sudan’ were documented by Ralph A. Bagnold and members of the Long
Range Desert Group, a British army unit active during World War II.
In the 1930s, excavations on Lake Qarun-Fayum and the Kharga Oases
by Gertrude Caton-Thompson and Elinor Gardiner provided the first
integrated investigations into the prehistory and palaeoenvironment
of the region; ironically these women were not granted membership
into the Royal Geographical Society, al- though their reports have
stood the test of time and paved the way for later researchers.
Field studies in the 1970s by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition
discovered some important stratified sites of Middle Stone
Age–Early/Middle Palaeolithic typology, which predate the last
phase of glaciation. Aterian artifacts at the site at Br Tirfawi,
for example, are interstrat- ified with calcareous lake beds that
likely date to the period 125 000–90 000 years ago. Farther to the
north, the Dakhleh Oasis Project has studied the remains of several
prehistoric periods (Aterian through Graeco-Roman) since the 1980s.
Acheulian hand ax finds older than 300 000 years were docu- mented
in the Br Kiseiba and Selima Sand Sheet regions by Smithsonian
Institution researchers con- ducting fieldwork in the 1990s. Today,
various inter- national teams of scientists continue to decipher
prehistoric archives from the Gilf Kebir, the defunct former
tributaries of the Nile in northern Sudan, the Tibesti and Fezzan,
and the Niger and Chad Basin.
The Fossil Record
Although the Fayum is famous for its Oligocene fossil ape-like
primates such Aegyptopithecus, no hominid fossils have been
discovered from the broader region. Isolated Late Pleistocene
lithic scatters and work- shops exist, but related skeletal remains
are extremely rare from Saharan North Africa. One of the most
significant finds dating to the Middle Palaeolithic is an early
anatomically modern human (H. sapiens sapiens) skeleton discovered
along the Nile Valley 250miles south of Cairo. At Taramsa, an
anatomi- cally modern child (aged 8–10 years) was deliberately
buried in an open-air chert extraction site, which places the
skeleton in direct context with worked tools and the quarry rock. A
series of optically stimu- lated luminescence (OSL) dates from
correlative eo- lian sands suggests an age for the burial between
49 800 and 80 400 years ago, with a mean age of 55 000. As one of
the few well-dated sites in the region, Taramsa provides insight
regarding origin of modern humans as preserved within the Nilotic
re- gion, one of the likely passageways ‘Out of Africa’ as modern
humans dispersed from East Africa to Eurasia.
Kiseiba Nabta
Tirfawi
Figure 1 Location of key sites mentioned from the northeastern
Sahara, an area covering 92000000 km, and including the
Western
Desert of Egypt, northwest Sudan, and the adjacent parts of Libya
and Chad, which together are about the size of western
Europe.
AMERICAS, NORTH/Sudan, Nilotic 7
Geoarchaeological Records from the NE Saharan Region
Spatiotemporal patterns of prehistoric occupation suggest changes
in the loci where people congregated, possibly as a function of
changing water resource availability over time as the environment
fluctuated between a habitable savanna and an inhospitable desert.
The earliest occupation is associated with the artifacts of the
Acheulian tradition of the Lower Pa- leolithic, and these finds are
commonly associated
with groundwater-fed lakes, springs, and streams (wadis) with
headwaters at higher elevations in the Plateaux escarpments. The
chronology is inferential and not well constrained, but likely
spans the period before 500 000 to 300 000 years ago, and is
distinct from the Acheulian tradition of the Nile Valley.
The archaeological record of the Middle Palaeo- lithic is better
known, and several sites contain in situ living floors and diverse
faunal assemblages, which reflect favorable climatic conditions.
Much of
8 AMERICAS, NORTH/Sudan, Nilotic
the Middle Palaeolithic chronology is relative, and is based on
taxonomic comparisons with diagnostic artifacts defined in units
dating from 250 000 to 38000BP. The two oldest units, the
Mousterian and the Aterian, occur in both the Western Desert and
Nile Valley, but the comparative local eco- nomic patterns are
markedly different. Lithics and faunal remains recovered from
valley sites suggest reliance on fishing and Bos hunting.
Alternately, in the Western Desert, hunting of large game was pre-
ferred over the capture of smaller animals. Large
groundwater-supported lakes at Br Tirfawi and Br Sahara were
favored settlement locales, although other environmental settings
also were exploited and reoccupied. Within theWestern Desert, the
Aterian technocom-
plex is associated with the latest Pleistocene wet period, which
preceded a long hyperarid episode that persisted until the early
Holocene. The precise duration of the hyperarid interval remains
uncon- strained. There is no evidence for local rainfall or spring
activity in the region west of the Nile be- tween 40 000 and 11
000BP, and human activity was confined to the valley, as preserved
in Khormu- san variants of the latest Middle Palaeolithic and other
Late Palaeolithic complexes. The region beyond the Nile Valley was
not reoccu-
pied until the onset of suitable climate condi- tions 12 000BP,
when effective precipitation was enhanced due to the incursion of
monsoonal rains from tropical Africa. Occasional rains created
season- al ponds and sustained vegetation that attracted game and
people to a region that was otherwise desert. Savanna grasses,
trees, and bushes enabled the sub- sistence of hares, gazelle, and
a few small carni- vores. Even during the Early Holocene climatic
optimum 11 000–5500 cal BP, however, the region remained quite dry
and drought prone (see Africa, South: Late Pleistocene and Early
Holocene Fora- gers). Characteristic tools and microliths, pottery,
and ostrich eggshell beads are present at wadis, springs, and small
depressions known as pans and playas, places where rainwater ponded
after storms. Most of the terminal Paleolithic/Neolithic assem-
blages are located alongside water features fed solely by
rainfall.
Neolithic Pluvials and the Emergence of Social Complexity: Examples
from Nabta Playa
Evidence across the northeastern Sahara suggests discrete phases of
Neolithic activity during the Holo- cene climatic optimum. The
sequence at Nabta Playa
reveals three wet–dry phases bracketed by radiocarbon dates. The
accompanying stratigraphic and cultural record reflects critical
transitions from foraging to food production strategies involving
domestication and animal husbandry, and points toward emerging
traditions of social complexity.
The first settlements at Nabta Playa date between 11 000–9300 cal
years ago, and include herders of domesticated(?) cattle who
carried distinctive ceram- ic vessels decorated with wavy impressed
patterns; this pottery is among the oldest known in Africa. In a
similar manner to modern West African peoples, the Nabtans may have
regarded their cattle as eco- nomic units of power, social status
and prestige, as well as ‘walking larders’ that supplied milk and
blood, rather than meat. Once the playa dried up, people migrated
to areas with more water, possibly to the Nile in the east or areas
further south (see Africa, West: Herders, Farmers, and Crafts
Specia- lists; Africa, South: Herders, Farmers, and Metallur- gists
of South Africa).
After 9000 years ago, larger settlements were estab- lished at
Nabta; small huts were arranged in straight lines, and walk-in
wells were dug to supply the Nabtan residents with enough water to
stay for longer periods. People survived on a number of wild edible
plants (sorghum, millets, legumes, tubers, fruits) and small
animals, including hares and gazelles. Around 8800 years ago
(7800BP, uncalibrated), pottery was produced locally. Around 8100
years ago, there is evi- dence for the domestication of larger
animals, goats and sheep (see Animal Domestication).
Between 8000 and 7000 years ago, Nabta was abandoned during two
major droughts. As hyperarid conditions developed, the water table
dropped, defla- tion persisted, and conditions became
uninhabitable. The people returning to Nabta after the droughts
were a complex society with an enhanced degree of organization and
control, possibly centered around some ritualistic belief system
associated with live- stock. Excavated items supporting this
inference include sacrifices of young cows and their burial in
clay-lined and roofed chambers covered by stone slabs. Nabtans also
constructed 25þ complex build- ing structures with surface and
subterranean features, including a shaped stone that could
represent the old- est sculpture in Egypt. They also erected
megaliths, alignments of large stones, and an astronomical ‘cal-
endar circle’ like Stonehenge that marked the solstice at
6500BP.
Another significant find near Nabta is the first Neolithic cemetery
in Egypt. A series of richly furn- ished graves date to 6400 and
6000 radiocarbon years BP (uncalibrated), and demonstrate patterns
of local pastoralists who practiced transhumance during
animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without
significant
recourse to the domestication of either.
Indian Ocean trade Monsoon based trade linking the Indian
sub-continent with coastal regions of east Africa and the southern
African hinterland.
slash-and-burn agriculture The cutting and burning of
AMERICAS, NORTH/Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas 9
the later Neolithic period. In this manner, the Nabtan culture once
again reflects that Saharan people had affliations with, and
profound effects upon, the incip- ient Egyptian civilization that
emerged from the Nile Valley as the region progressively
aridified.
forests or woodlands to create fields for agriculture or pasture
for livestock, or for a variety of other purposes.
Zimbabwe Culture Refers to the states and material culture
linked with the ancestral Shona speakers between AD 1100 and
1900. Mapungubwe is the earliest Zimbabwe Culture State, followed
by Great Zimbabwe, and the Torwa-Changamire and
Mutapa states. Drystone walls (known as Dzimbahwes – houses
See also: Africa, North: Nubia; Sahara, Eastern; Africa, South:
Herders, Farmers, and Metallurgists of South
Africa; Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Foragers;
Africa, West: Herders, Farmers, and Crafts Specialists;
Animal Domestication.
Introduction
The Zimbabwe plateau and adjacent regions (Fi gu re 1 ) form part
of the southern African subcontinent, south of the Zambezi, north
of the Limpopo Rivers. In phys- iographic terms, it is part of High
Africa, with eleva- tions ranging from 500 tomore than 2500m above
sea level. A moist savannah woodland biome dominates the plateau,
and gives way to a dry woodland scrub further west, which becomes
the Kalahari semidesert. The climate is largely tropical, although
the higher escarpments to the east could be described as montane
(see Africa, South: Kalahari Margins).
Hunter-Foragers
Further Reading
Burroughs WJ (2005) Climate Change in Prehistory: The End of the
Reign of Chaos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kuper R and Kropelin S (2006) Climate-controlled Holocene
occu-
pation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa’s Evolution. Science 313:
803–807.
Midant-Reynes B (1992) The Prehistory of Egypt. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Nicoll K (2004) Recent environmental change and prehistoric human
activity in Egypt and northern Sudan. Quaternary Sci- ence Reviews
23: 561–580.
Phillipson DW (1998) African Archaeology, 2nd edn. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Rice M (2003) Egypt’s Making. The
Origins of Ancient Egypt
5000–2000BC, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Shaw T, Sinclair P, Andah B, and Okpoko A (eds.) (1995) The
Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns. London:
Routledge.
Wendorf FA and Schild RA (1980) Prehistory of the Eastern Sahara.
New York: Academic Press.
Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas Innocent Pikirayi,
University of Pretoria, Tshwane, South Africa Shadreck Chirikure,
University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
agro-pastoral A mode of production that combines field
culture and husbandry with the use of pasture areas. colonization
The act or process of establishing a colony or
colonies. Colonization encompasses all large-scale
emigrations
of an established population to a ‘new’ location, such as
immigration, the establishment of expatriate communities, and
the use of guest workers.
hunter-gatherer society A society whose primary subsistence
method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and
and post-Acheulian traditions represent evidence of
hominid/hominoid hunter-forager activity in south- ern Africa. Homo
sapiens or early modern humans populated this region from the
Middle Pleistocene up to about 40 000 years ago. They are
associated with the development of abstract forms of human behavior
such as the use of ochre, ostrich egg shell containers, and
distinctive stone tool technologies. Tool assem- blages
representative of the Bambata (Stillbay) tradi- tion have prepared
cores, rare crescents, bifacial and unifacial points, denticulates,
and multifaceted strik- ing platforms. Related traditions include
Tshangula and Zombepata in the western and northern parts of the
plateau. Similar developments occur in the adjacent Zambezi valley,
in the Batoka gorge and the Gwembe Valley.
The emergence of modern humans 40 000 years ago witnessed a change
toward advanced stoneworking techniques, evidenced by microlithic
technologies. Such tools robustly assisted humans to cope with in-
creasingly colder climatic conditions culminating with the Last
Glacial Maximum around 18000years ago. Also, they were adapted to
the complex hunting and gathering practices that developed since
then.
TORWA STATE
State capitals
Figure 1 Map of the Zimbabwe plateau showing archaeological sites
associated with important cultural developments from the
Middle
Pleistocene.
10 AFRICA, EAST/Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas
An important development during the terminal Pleistocene and
continuing into the Holocene relates to hunter-forager artistic and
ritual traditions. These are paintings and engravings, found in
caves, rock shelters, and open spaces. This ‘art’ is a product of
shamanistic rituals and ceremonies connected with healing and
rainmaking (Figure 2). Some of this art played a role in
instructive teachings during certain ceremonies such as initiation,
while other art may have expressed the local cosmological world of
myths and symbolism. Some depict intergroup rivalries or conflicts.
A majority of the art was authored by San hunter-gatherers, and
depicts paintings dominated by the eland, an animal important to
their ritual life. Other painting traditions are attributed to
herder Khoekhoen and Bantu agro-pastoralists, and these continue
into recent historical periods.
Early Herders
In the western regions of the plateau and adjoining Kalahari
sandveld, sheep, goats, and cattle were known earlier than the
permanent settlements asso- ciated with the first crop farmers, and
have been recovered in some later Holocene forager-hunter con-
texts. They date 2000–3000 years ago and, given the absence of
their wild prototypes, may have been introduced in the region from
further north.
Events associatedwith early pastoral societies in the region are
attributed to ancestral San and Khoekhoen communities, whose
languages are related to those of some hunter-forager groups in
eastern Africa. The spread of their language and other aspects of
culture are, however, still in dispute. The archaeological hori-
zons of sites with Bambata pottery have no signs of
Figure 2 Late Stone Age rock art from Diana’s Vow, in eastern
Zimbabwe. The painting depicts a Shaman in trance. Photo:
P. Taruvinga. (National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe).
Figure 3 Example of pottery made by agro-pastoralist farmers
between cal CE 400 and 600. This Happy Rest potsherd was
recovered from an extensive village site on the margins of
the
plateau in the Tswapong Hills of Botswana. Photo: P.
Fredrikson.
AFRICA, EAST/Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas 11
experimentation like those in northern parts of the continent.
Presumably, processes of complex interac- tion and shifting
identities between resident hunter- foragers and pastoralists and
hunter-herders have formed the archaeological record that we see.
The depiction of domestic animals on rock art not only attests to
some of these events, but also signifies their importance in early
pastoral economies (see Animal Domestication).
Agro-pastoral Communities
Settled farmers identified with the speakers of ances- tral Bantu
languages were established in much of southern Africa, including
the Zimbabwe plateau by the early first millennium CE. Their
origins lie some- where in the northern Equatorial rain forests. It
remains unclear how they spread over much of the region in a fairly
short period of time. The process may have involved
‘slash-and-burn’ agriculture where- by after few years, communities
would abandon a piece of land due to marginal fertility of the
soils, and move on to another. This process is dated from the third
century BCE and continues throughout the first and early second
millennium CE, attesting
to the expansion and spread of farming activities and iron
production in southern Africa.
Archaeological sites yielding well-fired, thick- bodied ceramics
decorated with either grooved or comb-stamped designs identify the
expansion and spread of agro-pastoral societies (Figure 3). Most
sites exhibit metalworking, the keeping of livestock, and
pole-and-daub structures of permanent settlement. This pottery has
been recovered from the Lake Victoria interior and coastal regions
of eastern Africa, much of central Africa, the northern highveld
and the eastern coastal zones of South Africa. This pottery is
identical in both structure and design. Archaeologists have
ascribed it to traditions or cultures which are further divided
into time segments (phases), and geographical areas (facies). On
the Zimbabwe plateau, such tra- ditions include Gokomere-Ziwa,
Zhizo, Kadzi, and Chinhoyi and they are all associatedwith early
farming and iron-using communities who grew Bambara groundnuts,
cucurbits, sorghum, and cow peas. They supplemented these with wild
grasses and plant foods, wild animals, and marine resources. Cattle
were very important in the sociopolitical and economic organiza-
tion of these societies. This significance was expressed through a
binary-coded settlement system known as the Central Cattle Pattern.
Residential units sur- rounded cattle byres, which were the domain
of men. Archaeologists unveiled this settlement pattern at
Tabazingwe in western Zimbabwe, Kgaswe on the margins of the
Kalahari and Schroda in northern South Africa (see Plant
Domestication).
From CE 600, these early farmers established large village
settlements in the plateau and adjacent areas. Mainly situated
along fertile agricultural soils and river basins, village sites
covered areas averaging at least 5 ha in extent. Archaeological
evidence from sites
12 AFRICA, EAST/Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas
such as Kadzi and Swart Village in northern Zimbabwe, Schroda in
the Limpopo Valley, and vari- ous sites in the Tswapong Hills of
Botswana attest to these villages as hubs of religious, economic,
and political activities. Craft specialization was well developed
as shown by the ubiquity of concentrated remains of iron- (Figure
4) and ivory-working. This was strongly interwoven with the
development of in- traregional trade and the integration of the
Zimbabwe plateau area into the world system through the Indian
Ocean long-distance trade that connected the interior
Figure 4 Multiple fused tuyeres from a possible specialist
iron
smelting village, Tswapong Hills, Botswana.
Figure 5 Photograph of the Great Enclosure and Valley
enclosures
of southern Africa with parts of Asia and the Persian Gulf. In this
long-distance trade network, local pro- ducts including ivory and
iron were exchanged for exotic goods such as glass beads.
The Development of Social Complexity and the Zimbabwe Culture
States
During the late first millennium CE, intensive agricul- tural
production and long-distance trade saw the rise of powerful elites
who dominated the economy and politics of the region. The interplay
of these factors with ideology and ritual led to the establishment
of the early states or kingdoms. Mapungubwe, located in the
Shashe-Limpopo Basin is but one example. Mapungubwe has
dry-stone-walled areas that housed the elite on the hilltop. Ritual
objects were used as insignia for political office while
prestigious gold objects and glass beads expressed their wealth.
Craft specialization was a hallmark of these early kingdoms
withmetal-working, bead-making, andweaving flour- ishing. After
close to a century of prospering, environ- mental degradation and
shifting trade opportunities occasioned the rise of amore powerful
system atGreat Zimbabwe some 300 km to the north.
After eclipsing Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe controlled long-distance
trade with the Indian Ocean
at Great Zimbabwe.
AFRICA, EAST/Zimbabwe Plateau and Surrounding Areas 13
while the Swahili traders acted as intermediaries in a world system
that linked widely separated geographi- cal areas of the world.
Local products such as gold, cattle, agricultural produce, and
ivory, among others, were exchanged for exotic Persian wares,
Chinese blue-on-white porcelain, and glass beads. The power and
wealth of the ruling elite was invested in very impressive
dry-stone-walled structures, the largest stone structures south of
the Egyptian pyramids (Figure 5). Religion was important in the
governance of the
state and the recovery of skillfully made soapstone birds and
ritual objects demonstrates this. The exis- tence of abundant
exotic and status goods at Great Zimbabwe when contrasted with the
paucity of craft manufacturing evidence adduces that the elites
con- trolled the distribution rather than primary produc- tion of
goods. Such mechanisms were well supported using tributary modes of
production. In a question of history repeating itself, the factors
largely responsible for the rise of Great Zimbabwe led toward its
demise. A rapidly deteriorating environment and the shifting trade
routes led to the emergence of two successor states, the Mutapa in
the north and Khami in the southwest by the end of the fifteenth
century. The Mutapa state occupied the northern Zimbabwe
plateauandadjacentZambezi valley lowlands.Archae- ology and oral
history attest to a continuation of Great Zimbabwe influence. Early
Mutapa kings had access to large and exploitable quantities of
alluvial and hydrothermal gold, which became an important part of
the economy of the state. The gold wealth was invested in
monumental architecture and former Mutapa capitals – Zvongombe,
Mutota, Kasekete, and Nhunguza – were built in the architectural
styles of Great Zimbabwe. The predatory activities of mer- chant
capital represented by the Portuguese traders became the Mutapa’s
nemesis. The state ceased to be a significant political player by
the late eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth century, was
clearly just a mere chiefdom, largely subservient to Portuguese
whims. Another successor state to Great Zimbabwe devel-
oped at Khami in the southwestern plateau area. The Torwa state was
built and operated along the lines of Great Zimbabwe with the kings
living on elabo- rate dry-stone-walled terraces and in
enclosures.
Long-distance trade was an important part of the state and exotic
goods have been recovered there. A civil war and Portuguese
meddling sounded the death knell to the state leading to the rise
of the Rozvi-Changamire state based at Danangombe in the late
seventeenth century. The Rozvi-Changamire state was an important
political entity, which at one time played the power broker in the
Mutapa state. One of its leaders Changamire Dombo is credited with
expelling the Portuguese from the plateau, for their gluttonous and
belligerent behavior in the Mutapa state. Like most states that
arose on the plateau, civil wars caused by succession disputes
gradually weakened the state. Successive groups of Nguni people
leaving southeastern Africa hastened the collapse of the state with
the Ndebele occupying the vacuum arising from the aftermath. On its
part, the Ndebele state was highly militarized to prevent
annihilation by numerically superior opponents. Using advanced
methods of warfare, they managed to subjugate some groups on the
plateau. However, the influx of guns from the Portuguese meant that
such groups could resist the Ndebele whose state ended with the
colonization by the British South Africa Company in CE 1890.
See also: Africa, South: Kalahari Margins; Animal Domestication;
Modern Humans, Emergence of; Plant Domestication.
Further Reading
Blackwell.
Huffman TN (1996) Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in
Ancient Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University
Press.
Pikirayi I (2001) The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline in
Southern Zambezian States.Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira
Press.
Pwiti G (1996)Continuity and Change: An Archaeological Study of
Farming Communities in Northern Zimbabwe, AD 500–1700. Studies in
African Archaeology 13. Uppsala, Sweden: Depart- ment of
Archaeology, Uppsala University.
Walker N (1995) Late Pleistocene and Holocene Hunters- Gatherers of
the Matopos: An Archaeological Study of Change and Continuity in
Zimbabwe. Studies in African Archaeology 10. Uppsala, Sweden:
Department of Archaeology, Uppsala
University.
AFRICA, EAST
The Horn of Africa
Ethiopia and Eritrea Augustin F C Holl, The University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
Aksum A kingdom formed from at least the first century AD in
southwestern Ethiopia which developed into an empire
including
northern Ethiopia, Sudan, and southern Arabia.
forager Someone who gathers food or provisions, especially
forcibly.
Horn of Africa A peninsula of East Africa that juts for
hundreds
of kilometers into the Arabian Sea, and lies along the
southern
side of the Gulf of Aden. Tigray The northern-most of the nine
ethnic regions (kililoch) of
Ethiopia.
Paleontological and Stone Age research is particularly dynamic in
Ethiopia. Major Australopithecus sites are found along the
Ethiopian part of the East African Rift Valley, from the Omo Valley
in the south to the fossils’ bearing formations of Djibouti in the
North- east. Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands are nonetheless
considered as important centers of African plant do- mestication
and agricultural innovation but archaeo- logical research on this
and related topics, even if seriously improved during the last two
decades, is still lagging behind. Teff (Eragrostis teff ), noog
(Guizotia abyssinica), as well as finger millet (Eleusine coracana)
are part of the locally domesticated plants grown in association
with Near Eastern crops such as wheat, barley, chick pea, lentil,
and fava bean. Food-producing societies combining agricultural
production with live- stock husbandry lived in the lowland and
Eritrean plateau as well as Tigray from the Middle Holocene onward.
During the firstmillenniumBC, SouthArabic culture
and influence expanded across the Red Sea and took roots in
Ethiopian highland areas of Eritrea and Tigray. Archaeologically,
this new situation is indicated by
the sudden appearance of writing, monumental stone architecture,
and sculpture. Iron technology may have been part of this new
‘cultural package’ that triggered the sixth to seventh century BC
process of urbanization in Highlands Ethiopia. Urban centers
emerged at such places as Yeha surrounded by at least 30 other
known sites among which the Hawelti–Melazzo complex. Yeha grew out
of an earlier mixed farming village and became the main urban
center of the Daamat kingdom in the fifth to fourth century BC. It
was a relatively small town, 7.5 ha in size, with however
spectacular stone monuments, the temple, and the Great Beal Gebri.
The former is a massive rectangular building, 18.5m long, 15m wide,
with preserved plain walls measuring 11m in height. The latter
consists of a series of square-section massive monolithic pillars
that may have been part of a cultic complex with some affinities to
the Moon Temple at Marib.
The Daamat kingdom collapsed during the later part of the first
millennium BC but very few is in fact known about the causes and
consequences of its demise. Smaller polities emerged. Stelae were
used to mark elite burials, and exchanges seem to have been
predominantly with the Nile Valley. Aksum was one of these small
polities that developed in the area during the later part of the
first millennium BC and the early centuries of the first millennium
AD. Aksum appears to have been settled in the first centu- ry AD. A
few centuries later, in the third–fourth cen- tury AD, it achieved
regional primacy, controlled great amount of wealth, developed a
centralized mo- narchical system, adopted Christianity as state
reli- gion, and launched an extensive expansionist policy. As
suggested by Phillipson and Anfray, Aksum’s political control
extended at several times to regions beyond the modern borders of
Ethiopia and Eritrea. Large areas of southern Arabia were ruled
from Aksum at intervals between the third and sixth centu- ry AD.
It is likely that Meroe in the Sudanese Nile Valley was conquered
by an Aksumite army under King Ezana, but the nature and
consequences of this episode remain poorly understood.
Foragers Sibel Barut Kusimba, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb,
IL, USA
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
Eburran An East African obsidian industry of the central Rift
Valley, Kenya.
forager Someone who hunts for food and provisions. hunter-gatherer
A member of a people subsisting in the wild
on food obtained by hunting and foraging.
Later Stone Age The third and final phase of Stone Age
technology in sub-Saharan Africa, dating from more than c.30000
years ago until historical times in some places.
Middle Stone Age The second part of the Stone Age in
sub-Saharan Africa, dating from c. 150000–30000 years ago
and roughly equivalent to theMiddle Paleolithic elsewhere in the
Old World.
Pastoral Neolithic A general term for the pre-Iron Age
food-producing societies of East Africa.
Introduction
The concept of the forager is derived from ethno- graphic examples
of hunting-and-gathering people.
AFRICA, EAST/Foragers 15
The town of Aksum, at the foot of two hills, Beta Giyorgis in the
west and May Qoho in the east, was extended in a deep gorge
oriented north–south. The surrounding land was rich, water
abundant, building stone ubiquitous. The town itself was stretched
along approximately one mile west–east with its width along the
north–south axis measuring no more than 500m. Massive architectural
complexes have been excavated. Some were storage facilities, elite
resi- dences, and religious buildings. Elite and royal burials
carved in the bedrock and marked by lavishly sculpted stelae were
located in a central position overlooking the rest of the town
complex. The largest stelae appear to mark the graves of the kings
of Aksum immediately prior to their adoption of Christianity in the
mid- fourth century. These stelae are the most remarkable monuments
of the Aksum ‘skyline’. Now fallen and broken, the largest of
these, was originally 33m long, and 520 tons in weight, probably
the largest single block of stone which people anywhere, at any
time, have attempted to stand on end according to Phillipson (see
Africa, East: Foragers; The Horn of Africa). Very early in its
history, Aksum became a trade hub
linking the Red Sea to the Nile Valley and the Roman world from the
north to the rest of the continent. It was visited by merchants
from Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and even India. Adulis was its main and
only harbor on the Red Sea. The economic growth and expansion of
the Romans was one of the key factors for the quick pace of
development of Aksum as a thriving economic metropolis. At the peak
of its power and influence, the core of the ‘Aksumite civilization’
ex- tended over a territory measuring 300 by 160 km, from 13/17
latitude north and 38/40 longitude east, with an access to the Red
Sea at Adulis. Aksum kingdom collapsed during the eighth cen-
tury AD partly because of the success and fast expan- sion of Islam
and its corollary political and economic isolation in a
predominantly Muslim world. The overexploitation of local
resources, intensive erosion of the deforested land, as well as a
short arid spell may have accelerated the depopulation and demise
of the Aksumite metropolis in the eighth–ninth century AD.
These lifeways are based on the exploitation of wild plant foods
and in Africa, ethnographic cases include people from the Botswanan
Desert, the San, and also various Central African groups associated
with
See also: Africa, East: Foragers; Madagascar and
Surrounding Islands; Swahili Coast; The Horn of Africa;
Asia, West: Arabian Peninsula; Plant Domestication.
tropical forests. Archaeological hunter-gatherers are different
from ethnographic examples, even in the same environments. Because
of the diversity of cultures bundled under the hunter-gatherer
rubric, rejection of the term ‘hunter-gatherer’ has been suggested.
It is possible that our trusted cubby holes
Further Reading
Anfray F (1990) Les Anciens Ethiopiens: Siecles d’Histoire. Paris:
Armand Colin.
Bard KA, Coltorti M, DiBlasi MC, Dramis F, and Fattovitch R
(2000) The environmental history of Tigray (northern
Ethiopia)
in the Middle and Late Holocene: A preliminary outline. African
Archaeological Review 17: 65–86.
Brandt SA (1984) New perspectives on the origins of food
produc-
tion in Ethiopia. In: Clark JD and Brandt SA (eds.) FromHunters to
Farmers: The Causes and Consequences of Food Production in Africa,
pp. 173–205. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Brandt SA (1986) The Upper Pleistocene and Early Holocene
pre-
history of the Horn of Africa. The African Archaeological Review 4:
41–82.
Butzer KW (1981) Rise and Fall of Axum, Ethiopia: A geo-
archaeological interpretation.American Antiquity 46(3): 471–495.
Phillipson D (1998) Ancient Ethiopia: Aksum: Its Antecedents
and
Successors. London: British Museum Press. Phillipson D (2000)
Archaeology at Aksum, Ethiopia, 1993–1997.
London: The British Institute in Eastern Africa.
16 AFRICA, EAST/Foragers
for ‘hunter-gatherers’, ‘pastoralists’, or ‘farmers’ mis- represent
a prehistoric world frequently less economi- cally specialized than
that of the ethnographic present. Nevertheless, few would argue
that terms like hunter- gatherer be rejected. Instead, we can try
to appreciate how environment and history have created variability
in hunting-and-gathering societies. Three basic time periods of
African Foragers will be reviewed in East Africa, including the
Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, and transition to food
production.
Middle Stone Age
To some archaeologists, Middle Stone Age (MSA) shows the gradual
accumulation of the modern hunter-gatherer repertoire. The
repertoire, as far as the MSA is concerned, might include:
diversity in the style of lithic artifacts and projectile weapons,
backed microliths and composite tools, bone tools and bone points,
hunting success, exploitation of fish, and other smaller resources
which could represent the beginnings of a broad-spectrum or
intensification process in the case of evidence of fishing, land
use patterns characterized by a San-like aggregation and dispersal
and repeated occupation of rock shelters, cultural use of space and
activity areas within sites, increased artifact trade, and the
making of beads and use of ochre. These behaviors and artifact
types are thought to be related to ways of thinking, including
symbolic behavior, innovation, and planning that are ‘modern’, in
the sense that they are associated with Homo sapiens. At Blombos
Cave on the southern coast of South Africa, MSA levels dating to
77000 years ago have yielded more than 30 worked bone awls and
points and 8000 pieces of worked ochre, two of which are incised
with parallel lines as well as beads. However, other sites of the
African MSA also show evidence of artifact design and geographic
diversity; use of microliths, backed tools, and hafted tools; hunt-
ing proficiency; worked bone; fishing, mollusk gathering, and small
animal procurement; and use of symbolic artifacts such as beads and
ochre. The MSA is characterized by Levallois and other
prepared core methods of stone tool manufacture. A common tool type
in the East African MSA is the Stillbay point, or points from
discoidal core reduc- tion. Important MSA sites include the ones in
North- ern Tanzania, such as Nasera Rockshelter and Mumba
Rockshelter, Mumba Hohle, Olduvai Gorge, and a recent excavation
from Loiyangalani near Olduvai Gorge, where bone artifacts and fish
bone have been reported. Southwestern Tanzania also has MSA
localities reported along the Songwe River. In Kenya, sites have
been found in the Kenya Rift Valley, including Prospect Farm and
Lukenya Hill, and in
Ethiopia at Porc Epic Cave and Aduma. The East African MSA is
rarely found with ostrich eggshell beads, as reported from Mumba
and the Loiyanga- lani site, but is quite often associated with the
so-called ‘Kenya Stillbay’ industry which includes small and large
points which may be spear points.
Later Stone Age
The Later Stone Age (LSA) is marked by the transi- tion from the
discoidal and Levallois core reduction methods to leptolithic or
small tools. The sequence of LSA lithic industries at Lukenya Hill,
Kenya docu- ments the appearance and increasing proportions of time
of microlithic tools, also associated with modern human behavior.
Other early LSA sites show increas- ing use of bone tools, the
exploitation of fish using specialized technology, and the use of
bored stones for plant food gathering. LSA sites also contain early
evidence of artifacts related to personal adornment. Often these
are blade tools. Lukenya Hill contains at least five early LSA
archaeological sites, including GvJm 62, GvJm 46, GvJm 22, and GvJm
16. Analysis of these sites shows that the proportions of
microlith- ic tools and the use of nonlocal obsidian from the
Central Rift Valley of Kenya, about 150 km from Lukenya Hill,
increase over time. Other important early LSA sites include
Enkapune ya Muto, whose assemblages show that ostrich eggshell
beads, hafted microliths, and small round steep scrapers similar to
those made at GvJm62 were made and used there (seeAfrica, Central:
Foragers, Farmers, andMetallur- gists; Africa, West: Early Holocene
Foragers).
Other significant LSA industries are found in the Eburran Industry
of the Central Rift Valley in Kenya. The Eburran Industry
represents hunter-gatherers well-adapted to Rift Valley highlands
and lake basins in East Africa, who used abundant obsidian to make
microlithic tools and hunted a variety of ungulates associated with
woodlands and forests. After 3000BP, many Eburran sites appear to
be associated with the origins of food production, in particular
the keeping of goats, such as at the site of Enkapune ya Muto. LSA
people are also associated with fish exploitation and the making of
pottery, as evidenced in the Kansyore midden sites of Lake
Victoria.
The Transition to Food Production
The problem of the transition from hunting and gathering to food
production has been approached by examining how economies changed
through diffu- sion and innovation of domesticated plant and ani-
mal species and the interactions of hunters and others who were
herders/farmers. Many reviews of the
Madagascar and Surrounding Islands Douglas William Hume, University
of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary
Bantu language Group belonging to the Niger-Congo family. By one
estimate, there are 513 languages in the Bantu grouping.
Borneo Located at the center of the Malay archipelago and
AFRICA, EAST/Madagascar and Surrounding Islands 17
origins of domesticated plants and animals in Africa have
emphasized on the early and indigenous devel- opment of food
production, the impact of cattle- borne disease, patterns of
indigenous development and diffusion, the role of arid and
unpredictable envi- ronment, and the evidence of early domesticated
plant foods in Africa. Several scholars have compared the
ethnographic record of hunter-gatherers and food producers, both
from the perspective of understand- ing the process of the adoption
of food production and understanding hunter-gatherer–food producer
interaction. Important cases of food-producer/farmer interac-
tion include that of Eburran and Pastoral Neolithic sites in the
Central Rift Valley, that indicates the association of Eburran
sites with domestic stock and in lower altitude locations, which
presumably reflects interaction with plains pastoralists; the Tsavo
case of southeastern Kenya, where hunter-gatherers known as the
Waata persisted until the twentieth century by exchanging hunted
meat and ivory tusks with Oromo and Wambisha pastoralists; and the
case of montane hunter-gatherers variously known as Okiek or
‘Ndorobo’ whose interaction with Maasai and other pastoralists
involved exchange of honey and meat for agricultural products and
animal secondary products.
Indonesia. Administratively, this island is divided between
Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Madagascar Island Nation in the
Indian Ocean, off the
southeastern coast of Africa. It is home to 5% of the world’s
plant and animal species (more than 80% of which are
See also: Africa, Central: Foragers, Farmers, and
Metallurgists; Great Lakes Area; Africa, West: Early
Holocene Foragers; Hunter-Gatherers, Ancient.
indigenous to Madagascar).
Current archaeological research in Madagascar is concerned with a
relatively narrow band of time from approximately 2000 year BP, the
generally ac- cepted period of first contact, to the seventeenth
and eighteenth century, the advent of historical records and
European contact. Although the peopling of Madagascar is arguably a
recent event, little is known regarding the early settlements. The
lack of archaeological evidence is due to a variety of factors:
quick environmental decomposition of sites, sparse use of sites by
transient populations, and lack of funding to research the area.
Other forms of evidence, such as linguistics, and genetic and
ethnological data, are also used to develop the chronology of
events during the settlement of Madagascar. Though early arguments
postulated that the first Malagasy inhabi- tants were from one
origin, historical, linguistic, genet- ic, and archaeological
evidence suggests multiregional influences from Southeast Asia,
East Africa, South Asia, and the Near East. A hybridization of
many
Further Reading
Andah B (1993) Identifying early farming traditions of West
Africa.
In: Shaw T, Sinclair P, Andah B, and Okpoko A (eds.) The
Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals, and Towns, pp. 240–254.
London: Routledge.
Bellwood P (2004) The First Farmers: Origins of Agricultural
Societies. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Bollig M (1987) Ethnic relations and spatial mobility in
Africa:
A review of the peripatetic niche. In: Rao A (ed.) Kolner Ethno-
logischeMitteilungen Volume 8, The Other Nomads: Peripatetic
Minorities in Cross-Cultural Perspective, pp. 179–228. Cologne:
Bohlau Verlag.
Burch ES (1998) The future of hunter-gatherer research. In: Gowdy
J
(ed.) Limited Wants, unlimited Means: A Reader in Hunter- Gatherer
Economics and the Environment, pp. 201–217.
Washington, DC: Island Press.
Cronk L and Dickson B (2000) Public and hidden transcripts in
the
East African highlands: A comment on Smith (1998). Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 20: 113–121.
diLernia S and Manzi G (1997) Before Food Production in North
Africa. Forli, ABACO.
Henshilwood C andMarean C (2003) The origin of modern human
behavior: Critique of the models and their test implications.
Current Anthropology 44: 627–652.
Kent S (1996) Cultural Diversity among Twentieth Century Foragers:
An African Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kuhn S and Stiner M (2001) The antiquity of hunter-gatherers. In:
Panter-Brick C, Layton R, and Rowley-Conwy P (eds.)
Hunter-Gatherers, An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 99–142.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schrire C (1980) An inquiry into the evolutionary status and
apparent identity of San hunter-gatherers. Human Ecology 8:
9–32.
influences is therefore probable, in which several waves of
settlement/colonization occurred and each group introduced or
reintroduced technologies or other cultural traits. Prior to
settlement, maritime people, who were
exploiting the area’s offshore resources, visited Madagascar and
traders used Madagascar for tempo- rary shelter and restocking of
supplies. As trading became more important, the camps’ temporal and
spatial existence increased over time. This temporary nature of the
early settlements contributes to the dif- ficulty in tracing the
sequences of events from first settlement to permanent settlements
and finally a formation of a distinct Malagasy culture.
Linguistically, there has been difficulty in deci-
phering the origin of the Malagasy language due to movement of
people, the number of Malagasy dialects created, and the inability
to define a proto- Malagasy language. Through comparative linguis-
tics, analysis of loan words, and the phonology, mor- phology, and
vocabulary of the Malagasy language suggest two possible origins:
the Barito Valley of Borneo and the Bantu language of Eastern
Africa. Genetic analysis shows that both East African and
Indonesian gene frequencies are evident within the general
population at approximately equal ratios throughout Madagascar. The
introduction of the sickle cell gene indicates an infusion of genes
from people of central or east Africa, north of Zambezi. The
ethnological evidence connecting Madagascar and other cultures such
as Southeast Asia, Africa, India, and the Near East that have
similar traits is ambiguous. Many similarities are better explained
by environmental constraints than by direct linkage with a specific
group. There are examples of shared knowledge; for example, growing
of millet in dry areas of Madagascar is thought to have been bor-
rowed from East Africa and the growing of rice in wetter areas
borrowed from Indonesia. Madagascar has had exposure to a variety
of cultural traits, but the existence of a cultural trait does not
imply genetic relationships, but may rather result from either
direct or indirect trade between two geneti- cally distinct groups.
The earliest archaeological evidence of human ac-
tivity in Madagascar are the four radiocarbon-dated dwarf
hippopotamus (Choeropsis madagascariensis) femurs that show human
modification. The femurs, found in southern Madagascar (Lamboharana
and Ambolisatra), yielded two reliable dates, 1970 60 and 1740 50
years BP.What has been most puzzling in Madagascar’s ecological
history is the extinction of Madagascar’s megafauna, such as the
dwarf hippo- potamus, approximately 2000 years ago. Although
a
catastrophic fire event, calamitous drought in south- ern
Madagascar, first-contact overkill, introduc- tion of cattle, and
hypervirulent disease have all been blamed for the extinction of
Madagascar’s megafauna, it is more likely that the causes worked in
synergy: the introduction of exotic and invasive species, cli-
matic changes, and arrival of humans caused these
extinctions.
Another early archaeological site in Madagascar is Sarodrano, 1490
90 years BP. However, this early date is questionable due to site
disturbance and fur- ther study of the site is impossible due to
its destruc- tion by a cyclone. Other early settlements dated to
the ninth–tenth centuries AD include the following: Irodo
(Tafianatsirebeka) – a northeastern coast settlement that produced
shellfish, farming, and chloro-schistite vessel production and
trade; Andransosoa – a south- eastern inland cattle pastoralist;
and Talaky – a south- ern coastal fishing village. During this
early period (first to tenth century AD), only traces of transient
visits have been found, which may be a reflection of the limited
areas surveyed along Madagascar’s coast and not a measure of what
settlement sites are actually there.
After AD1000, permanent occupation sites along the entire
Madagascar coast and one central highland site have yielded
evidence of rice agriculture, bovid herding, fishing, iron
smelting, and local trading, but no direct link to Southeast Asia,
East Africa, South Asia, or the Near East. In addition, it cannot
be determined if the economic and technological diversi- ty in
evidence from sites of this period is the result of in situ
evolution or imported from another area. From the twelfth century
AD, the settlements in the west began to grow to significant size
and duration. Mahilaka was the first major port in the region; its
decline in the fourteenth century AD was followed by settlements
developing along the east coast. Cores taken from lakes and bogs
from this time have found fluctu