scholarly journals Foraging potential of underground storage organ plants in the southern Cape, South Africa

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzanne Singels ◽  
Alastair J Potts ◽  
Karen J Esler ◽  
Richard M Cowling ◽  
Curtis W Marean ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Underground Storage ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Return Rates ◽  
Storage Organs ◽  
Minimal Effort

Underground storage organs (USOs) serve as a staple source of carbohydrates for many hunter-gatherer societies and they feature prominently in discussions of diets of early modern humans. While the way of life of hunter-gatherers in South Africa’s Cape is no longer in existence, there is extensive ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers’ use of such plants as foodstuffs. This is to be expected, given that the Cape supports the largest concentration of plants with USOs globally. The southern Cape is the location of several Middle Stone Age sites that are highly significant to research on the origins of behaviourally modern humans, and this provided the context for our research. Here we evaluate the foraging potential of USOs by identifying how abundant edible biomass is in a coastal setting of the southern Cape, how easily it is gathered, and how nutritious it is. We staged a range of foraging events to provide an indication of the potential return rates for selected USOs when a forager is likely to be naïve about foraging for them. Nearly all of the sites sampled (83%) contained edible USOs, and the edible biomass can be highly concentrated in space. The edible USO biomass fell within the range of biomass observed in areas supporting extant hunter-gatherer communities. The six USO species we assessed for nutritional content contained between 40-228 calories/100 g. They also grow near the soil surface, mostly in sandy soils, and were gathered with minimal effort. Some 50% of the foraging events conducted yielded enough calories to meet the daily requirements of a hunter-gatherer of small stature within 2 hours. Thus, we demonstrate that USOs are a readily available source of carbohydrates in the southern Cape landscape and that they likely played a critical role in providing food for early humans.

scholarly journals Foraging potential of underground storage organ plants in the southern Cape, South Africa

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzanne Singels ◽  
Alastair J Potts ◽  
Karen J Esler ◽  
Richard M Cowling ◽  
Curtis W Marean ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Underground Storage ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Return Rates ◽  
Storage Organs ◽  
Minimal Effort

Underground storage organs (USOs) serve as a staple source of carbohydrates for many hunter-gatherer societies and they feature prominently in discussions of diets of early modern humans. While the way of life of hunter-gatherers in South Africa’s Cape is no longer in existence, there is extensive ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers’ use of such plants as foodstuffs. This is to be expected, given that the Cape supports the largest concentration of plants with USOs globally. The southern Cape is the location of several Middle Stone Age sites that are highly significant to research on the origins of behaviourally modern humans, and this provided the context for our research. Here we evaluate the foraging potential of USOs by identifying how abundant edible biomass is in a coastal setting of the southern Cape, how easily it is gathered, and how nutritious it is. We staged a range of foraging events to provide an indication of the potential return rates for selected USOs when a forager is likely to be naïve about foraging for them. Nearly all of the sites sampled (83%) contained edible USOs, and the edible biomass can be highly concentrated in space. The edible USO biomass fell within the range of biomass observed in areas supporting extant hunter-gatherer communities. The six USO species we assessed for nutritional content contained between 40-228 calories/100 g. They also grow near the soil surface, mostly in sandy soils, and were gathered with minimal effort. Some 50% of the foraging events conducted yielded enough calories to meet the daily requirements of a hunter-gatherer of small stature within 2 hours. Thus, we demonstrate that USOs are a readily available source of carbohydrates in the southern Cape landscape and that they likely played a critical role in providing food for early humans.

scholarly journals Ancient genomes from southern Africa pushes modern human divergence beyond 260,000 years ago

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina M. Schlebusch ◽  
Helena Malmström ◽  
Torsten Günther ◽  
Per Sjödin ◽  
Alexandra Coutinho ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genome Sequence ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Genetic Admixture ◽  
Population Divergence ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Hunter Gatherers

ABSTRACTSouthern Africa is consistently placed as one of the potential regions for the evolution of Homo sapiens. To examine the region’s human prehistory prior to the arrival of migrants from East and West Africa or Eurasia in the last 1,700 years, we generated and analyzed genome sequence data from seven ancient individuals from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Three Stone Age hunter-gatherers date to ~2,000 years ago, and we show that they were related to current-day southern San groups such as the Karretjie People. Four Iron Age farmers (300–500 years old) have genetic signatures similar to present day Bantu-speakers. The genome sequence (13x coverage) of a juvenile boy from Ballito Bay, who lived ~2,000 years ago, demonstrates that southern African Stone Age hunter-gatherers were not impacted by recent admixture; however, we estimate that all modern-day Khoekhoe and San groups have been influenced by 9–22% genetic admixture from East African/Eurasian pastoralist groups arriving >1,000 years ago, including the Ju|‘hoansi San, previously thought to have very low levels of admixture. Using traditional and new approaches, we estimate the population divergence time between the Ballito Bay boy and other groups to beyond 260,000 years ago. These estimates dramatically increases the deepest divergence amongst modern humans, coincide with the onset of the Middle Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa, and coincide with anatomical developments of archaic humans into modern humans as represented in the local fossil record. Cumulatively, cross-disciplinary records increasingly point to southern Africa as a potential (not necessarily exclusive) ‘hot spot’ for the evolution of our species.

An overview on therapeutic potential of Iris Persica

2020 ◽  
Vol 06 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faiq H. S. Hussain ◽  
Hawraz Ibrahim M. Amin ◽  
Dinesh kumar Patel ◽  
Omji Porwal
Keyword(s):  
Therapeutic Potential ◽  
Biological Activities ◽  
Folk Medicine ◽  
Underground Storage ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Traditional Medicines ◽  
The Family ◽  
Storage Organs ◽  
Radical Generation ◽  
Perennial Herbs

: The family Iridaceae contains 92 genera and more than 1800 species, mostly perennial herbs with underground storage organs called rhizomes (bulbs). Some genera are important in traditional medicines, especially Iris and Gladiolus. The genus Iris belongs to this family and comprises about hundreds species among them, 12 species are found in Iraq. It has been widely used various medicines worldwide especially Iris persica is used in folk medicine in the Kurdistan region of Iraq as an effective treatment against tumours, antibacterial, antifungal and treating inflammation. Earlier finding confirmed that Iris persica and its constituents play role in the scavenging of free radical generation and prevention of disease pathogenesis. Each part of the Iris persica herb has some medicinal property. This review gives a eagle eye view mainly on the biological activities of the Iris persica and some of their compounds isolated, pharmacological actions of the Iris persica extracts and products, and plausible medicinal and therapeutically applications.

Shooting a Tiger

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Forest Legislation ◽  
Imperial Governance ◽  
North And South

The main contention of Shooting a Tiger is that hunting during the colonial period was not merely a recreational activity, but a practice intimately connected with imperial governance. The book positions shikar or hunting at the heart of colonial rule by demonstrating that, for the British in India, it served as a political, practical, and symbolic apparatus in the consolidation of power and rule during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book analyses early colonial hunting during the Company period, and then surveys different aspects of hunting during the high imperial decades in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book draws upon an impressive array of archival material and uses a wide range of evidence to support its contentions. It examines hunting at a variety of social and ethnic levels—military, administrative, elite, princely India, Indian professional hunters, and in terms of Indian auxiliaries and (sometimes) resisters. It also deals with different geographical contexts—the plains, the mountains, north and south India. The exclusive privilege of hunting exercised by the ruling classes, following colonial forest legislation, continued to be extended to the Indian princes who played a critical role in sustaining the lavish hunts that became the hallmark of the late nineteenth-century British Raj. Hunting was also a way of life in colonial India, undertaken by officials and soldiers alike alongside their everyday duties, necessary for their mental sustenance and vital for the smooth operation of the colonial administration. There are also two final chapters on conservation, particularly the last chapter focusing on two British hunter-turned-conservationists, Jim Corbett and Colonel Richard Burton.

Farm, Town, and Country in American Folklore and Folklife

2018 ◽  
pp. 538-556
Author(s):  
R. Troy Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Social History ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Rural Landscape ◽  
Rural Setting ◽  
Rural Culture ◽  
Family Farms ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Folk Belief

Seeking remnants of verbal traditions they thought were being lost to industrialization and urbanization, the earliest folklore scholars took to the countryside. Analyzing folk culture in a fuller context, a generation of folklife scholars in the twentieth century set out to identify patterns in the rural landscape in materials, such as traditional artifacts and folk belief, that would illuminate the old traditional way of life and expand the purview of American history. A vital subject requiring more study and that connects to all other aspects of rural culture is traditional farming practices in the agricultural year. With regard to social history, folklife scholars have a critical role in the debate concerning the effect of commercialism on preindustrial farming that have implications for the valuation of family farms, rural communities, and sustainability into the twenty-first century. Among the topics in the rural setting that call for further folklife research are narratives of loss, the creation of local economies, and sense of place.

scholarly journals Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manvir Singh ◽  
Luke Glowacki
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human History ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Variation

Many researchers assume that until 10-12,000 years ago, humans lived in small, mobile, relatively egalitarian bands composed mostly of kin. This “nomadic-egalitarian model” informs evolutionary explanations of behavior and our understanding of how contemporary societies differ from those of our evolutionary past. Here, we synthesize research challenging this model and propose an alternative, the diverse histories model, to replace it. We outline the limitations of using recent foragers as models of Late Pleistocene societies and the considerable social variation among foragers commonly considered small-scale, mobile, and egalitarian. We review ethnographic and archaeological findings covering 34 world regions showing that non-agricultural peoples often live in groups that are more sedentary, unequal, large, politically stratified, and capable of large-scale cooperation and resource management than is normally assumed. These characteristics are not restricted to extant Holocene hunter-gatherers but, as suggested by archaeological findings from 27 Middle Stone Age sites, likely characterized societies throughout the Late Pleistocene (until c. 130 ka), if not earlier. These findings have implications for how we understand human psychological adaptations and the broad trajectory of human history.

Mode 3 Technologies and the Evolution of Modern Humans

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Foley ◽  
Marta Mirazón Lahr
Keyword(s):  
Strong Association ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Biological Models ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Mode 3 ◽  
Tool Technology

The origins and evolution of modern humans has been the dominant interest in palaeoanthropology for the last decade, and much archaeological interpretation has been structured around the various issues associated with whether humans have a recent African origin or a more ancient one. While the archaeological record has been used to support or refute various aspects of the theories, and to provide a behavioural framework for different biological models, there has been little attempt to employ the evidence of stone tool technology to unravel phylogenetic relationships. Here we examine the evidence that the evolution of modern humans is integrally related to the development of the Upper Palaeolithic and similar technologies, and conclude that there is only a weak relationship. In contrast there is a strong association between the evolution and spread of modern humans and Grahame Clark's Mode 3 technologies (the Middle Stone Age/Palaeolithic). The implications of this for the evolution of Neanderthals, the multiple pattern of human dispersals, and the nature of cognitive evolution, are considered.

Marginalisation of the Waata Oromo Hunter–Gatherers of Kenya: Insider and Outsider Perspectives

Africa ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneesa Kassam ◽  
Ali Balla Bashuna
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
National Parks ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Northern Kenya ◽  
British Colonial

AbstractThis paper examines how the way of life of a little known group of hunter–gatherers, the Waata Oromo, was brought to an end through British colonial wildlife conservation laws and the creation of national parks in Kenya. Through this policy and that of the containment of ethnic groups to ‘tribal reserves’, the Waata lost their place in the regional economic system and suffered loss of cultural identity. It also meant that when Kenya gained independence, the Waata were not recognised as a distinct entity with rights to their own political representation. Instead, they became appendages of the dominant pastoral groups with which they had been associated. They were thus doubly marginalised, in both economic and political terms. The paper describes how this situation has led some Waata in northern Kenya to claim separate ethnic status. It discusses the problem from the point of view of a Waata social activist and of an anthropologist. These two perspectives raise further issues for the etic/emic debate in anthropology.

Teaching and Learning Subsistence Skills: Did Premodern Hominins Use Language to Do It?

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Botha
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Cultures ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour

Two recent studies—the first by MacDonald & Roebroeks (2013), the second by Tallerman (2013)—draw inferences about the social use of language by premodern hominins from data about the linguistic behaviour of modern hunter-gatherers and other modern people with traditional cultures. Such inferences cannot be sound, though, unless they meet a particular requirement: they need appropriate warrants. These have to serve as conceptual bridges that span the ontological gap between the behaviours and capacities of modern humans and those of the premodern hominins concerned. Interestingly, both MacDonald & Roebroeks and Tallerman make a serious attempt to support their respective inferences with the aid of such conceptual bridges. The present article inquires whether these bridges are strong enough to serve this purpose, and argues that both bridges have components that are harmful to their solidity. In the process of arguing this, the article pursues the question of the conditions under which uniformitarian assumptions can be used as components of the substructure of the conceptual bridges needed for underpinning inferences about the use of language in the teaching and learning of subsistence skills by premodern hominins. More generally, the article elucidates an important limitation of the ethnographic record as a putative window on the evolution of language.

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