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