scholarly journals Systematic Ancient DNA Species Identification Fails to Find Late Holocene Domesticated Cattle in Southern Africa

Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 316
Author(s):  
K. Ann Horsburgh ◽  
Anna L. Gosling
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Species Identification ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Temporal Control ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Domestic Stock

Establishing robust temporal control of the arrival of domesticated stock and the associated husbandry skills and lifeways in Southern Africa remains frustrated by the osteological similarities between domestic stock and wild endemic fauna. We report the results of a systematic ancient DNA survey of appropriately sized bovid remains from Later Stone Age deposits in four South African archaeological sites. We show that none of the tested remains originated in domesticated cattle. The precise date of arrival of domestic cattle in the region awaits further study, although we also report new radiocarbon determinations which further refine the local chronology.

scholarly journals New Radiocarbon Dates and Bayesian Models for Nelson Bay Cave and Byneskranskop 1: Implications for the South African Later Stone Age Sequence

Radiocarbon ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Loftus ◽  
Judith Sealy ◽  
Julia Lee-Thorp
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Individual Site ◽  
Age Sequence ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Cultural Shifts ◽  
Age Estimates

AbstractThe southern African Later Stone Age sequence is widely considered to be well dated based on radiocarbon dates from dozens of archaeological sites, and apparently shows more or less synchronous cultural shifts across an extensive area. Yet, closer examination reveals the inadequacy of many of the decades-old and uncalibrated individual site chronologies that underpin this regional chronology, making robust comparisons of the chronology of technological change across this region impossible. Here, we present 26 new AMS14C dates and Bayesian modeled chronologies for two important archaeological cave sites in southernmost Africa, Nelson Bay Cave and Byneskranskop 1. The results provide more robust age estimates for these cultural and paleoenvironmental sequences and revise interpretations of these sites in several instances. This project demonstrates the necessity of redating key sites, and the value of currently underutilized methods, including calibration and Bayesian modeling, for southern African archaeology.

Changing Patterns in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Prehistory of Southern Africa as Seen from the Nelson Bay Cave Stone Artifact Sequence

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Deacon
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Sensu Stricto ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Stone Artifact

The dating of the Stone Age sequence in southern Africa has been considerably revised over the last decade, and one of the anomalies which has resulted is that the Middle Stone Age, now dated to beyond 30,000 B.P., does not immediately precede the Later Stone Agesensu stricto. The excavation and analysis of occupation horizons dating between the most recent Middle Stone Age assemblages and the Holocene is therefore of particular interest. Nelson Bay Cave, situated on the southern coast of South Africa, contains deposits which partly fill the “gap” between the Middle and Later Stone Ages, and the occupation horizons dating between about 18,000 and 5000 years ago are described in this paper. Changes in the habitat in the vicinity of the site caused by sea-level and vegetation changes coincident with the amelioration of temperatures at the end of the Pleistocene are clearly marked in the faunal remains at the site. Largely correlated with the faunal changes (which includes the introduction of marine resources to the cave at about 12,000 B.P.) are changes in the stone artifact assemblages. Three industries are recognized in the sequence: the Robberg, characterized by microbladelets produced from bladelet cores and a few small scrapers and backed tools; the Albany, characterized by large scrapers and an absence of backed tools; and the Wilton, characterized by a variety of Formal Tools including relatively large numbers of small scrapers and backed tools. These changes in artifact-manufacturing traditions are interpreted as signaling adjustments to changing environmental conditions. An explanation for these adjustments is not sought in a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the environment and the cultural response; artifact changes are seen instead as the result of a twofold process, with the environment acting as an external stimulus to change, and the direction of the artifact change governed by the selection of a range of possibilities offered by the technology of the Later Stone Agesensu latothat was widespread in subequatorial Africa during the last 20,000 years.

scholarly journals Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age

2008 ◽  
Vol 105 (47) ◽  
pp. 18226-18231 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Haak ◽  
G. Brandt ◽  
H. N. d. Jong ◽  
C. Meyer ◽  
R. Ganslmeier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Strontium Isotopes ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Shed Light

New radiocarbon dates for Eastern and Southern Africa

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. G. Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Congo Basin ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa

This article is a follow-up to that of Mr D. W. Phillipson published in this Journal in 1970, and to the six earlier lists compiled for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa by Dr B. M. Fagan. I have endeavoured to include here all radiocarbon dates for archaeological sites of the Iron Age and most of those of the end of the Stone Age in the eastern and southern part of Africa—that is from Ethiopia, the Upper Nile and the Congo Basin southward—which have been published or made available since the preparation of the former articles. Some of these dates are already included in recent numbers of the Journal Radiocarbon, or have been mentioned in publications elsewhere, as indicated in the footnotes. A large proportion of these new dates, however, have not yet been published, and are included here through the agreement of the various individual archaeologists and research bodies, all of whom I wish to thank for their cooperation. In particular, I am indebted to Mr David Phillipson for his willing assistance in providing a number of contacts and relaying information from southern Africa.

The late Quaternary landscape at Sehonghong in the Lesotho highlands, southern Africa

Antiquity ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 70 (269) ◽  
pp. 623-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Glacial Maximum ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
The Last Glacial ◽  
Rock Shelters

In the rough and rugged country of the Lesotho highlands, rock-paintings and archaeological deposits in the rock-shelters record hunter-gatherer life-ways; at Sehonghong, a long sequence runs from recent times to and through the Last Glacial Maximum. Survey of the region's Middle and Later Stone Age sites shows a pattern of concentrations that likely applies to other parts of the Lesotho highlands.

Milk not Meat: The Role of Milk amongst the Khoe Peoples of Southern Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlize Lombard ◽  
Isabelle Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Historical Sources

Historical sources emphasise the different uses of livestock in southern African Khoe societies. Here we review the role of milk gained from livestock amongst the Khoe, as recorded over the last few centuries, and demonstrate that it was of greater subsistence value than the meat of livestock. In addition, we highlight the recorded technological, social and ritual importance of milk amongst the Khoe. Finally, attention is drawn to recent genetic research that suggests the dependence of southern African Later Stone Age herders on milk.

A Southern African Perspective on the Contribution of Charcoal Analyses to Archaeology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Chikumbirike ◽  
Marion K. Bamford
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Woody Species ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Climate Reconstructions ◽  
Medicinal Use ◽  
African Perspective

Southern Africa has a long and rich archaeological record, ranging from the Oldowan lithics in the Sterkfontein valley and Wonderwerk Cave (about 2 Ma) to Iron Age smelting (less than one thousand years ago) in Zimbabwe. A brief overview of charcoal analyses indicates applications in such areas as dating, vegetation and climate reconstructions, fuel use, medicinal use, and the interpretation of human behavior. Some of the research done in the 20th century mainly focused on charcoal for the purpose of dating, but this has diversified in the 21st century to include other applications. The focus is on South African sites, but research from Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe is included. Southern Africa has a very diverse woody component with more than fifteen hundred species from a flora of more than twenty-five thousand species so the establishment of regional modern reference collections of charcoalified woods has been instrumental in improving identifications of the archaeological taxa. Early Middle Stone Age charcoal records show that a diversity of woody species was burned. By Middle Stone Age times, records show the selection of woods for fuel, tinder, and medicinal use as well as cooking of starchy rhizomes. Late Stone Age and Iron Age records, in addition, show the use of woods for smelting and intense fires.

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