Elisabeth Hildebrand

Early herders and monumental sites in eastern Africa: dating and interpretation

Using excavation and radiocarbon dating, the authors show that construction of megalithic pillar sites begins in eastern Africa by the fifth millennium BP, and is contemporary with the earliest herding in the region. Mobile herders and/or hunter-gatherers built and used these sites in a dynamic context of economic and social change. We are more familiar with monumentality as an adjunct of cereal cultivators—but this study demonstrates a relationship between early herding and monuments, with clear relevance to pre-cultivation monumentality of very much earlier periods elsewhere.

The context of early megalithic architecture in eastern Africa: the Turkana Basin c. 5000-4000 BP

Megalithic ‘pillar sites’ built by middle Holocene peoples of the Turkana Basin in northwestern Kenya provide eastern Africas earliest known example of monumental architecture. Radiometric dates place pillar site construction and use ~5000-4000 cal. BP. This social innovation occurred during a period of marked environmental and economic change: the level of Lake Turkana dropped dramatically, vast plains opened between the lake and neighbouring volcanic ridges and herding was added to the previous local subsistence repertoire of fishing, gathering and hunting. Material culture recovered from the pillar sites suggests that they supported diverse commemorative practices including, but not limited to, the mortuary sphere, and that they may have been built and used by multiple social groups.

Is monumentality in the eye of the beholder? Lessons from constructed spaces in Africa

Archaeological investigations in Africa have revealed numerous structures and other architectural features whose purposes transcended daily domestic activities. Compared to prototypical instances of monumental architecture (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, the Andes), many public structures in Africa appear in unusual economic circumstances (herding without farming) or amidst less extreme social differentiation. Although often smaller in scale and employing different structural elements, African constructions combine open and restricted spaces to shape human experience. Examining these public structures and spaces is leading Africanist archaeologists, like those on other continents, to reconsider definitions of monumentality, the causes for its inception and the purposes that it served.

An archaeological survey of the tropical highlands of Kafa, Southwestern Ethiopia

The cool, moist, tropical highlands of southwest Ethiopia contrast dramatically with arid environments in the rest of the Horn of Africa. They have seen little archaeological research due to their remote location, wet conditions, and acidic soils and volcanic rocks thought to harbor few shelters or open-air sites capable of organic preservation. In 2004–2005, the Kafa Archaeological Project documented 27 shelters of diverse height, configuration, and formation processes; ten merited test excavations. Three have late Holocene cultural deposits, while another has high densities of ceramics, lithics, bone, and dried plant remains extending back to the middle Holocene. These sites suggest that the tropical highlands of Kafa contain numerous previously occupied caves and rockshelters with good organic preservation. Therefore, they have the potential of 1) establishing the region’s first Holocene cultural chronology that can be compared with better-studied areas of the Horn and eastern Africa; 2) contributing to a regional environmental record; and 3) reconstructing hunter-gatherer, farming and/or herding economics and social organization during a period of increasing socio-political complexity.

The Middle Stone Age of West Turkana, Kenya

Abstract Research on the origins of Homo sapiens and the development of our species’ unique behavior is focused on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) period in Africa (in comparison with the European Upper Palaeolithic). Although archaeological and paleontological fieldwork in the Turkana Basin in northwestern Kenya has contributed greatly to our understanding of human evolution in Africa, the Basins MSA archaeological record remains poorly known. We report on a reconnaissance of MSA sites in West Turkana, Kenya, which included known archaeological/paleoanthropological localities at Eliye Springs and Kabua Waterhole (Kadokorinyang). A newly-discovered site, Nakechichok 1 (GdJh 5), preserves MSA tools stratified beneath Late Stone Age assemblages. The MSA lithic artifacts from Nakechichok 1 differ from those known from other MSA localities in nearby regions, and, they expand the known scope of MSA variability in the Turkana Basin, demonstrating that the MSA is not “missing” in this region, but just hard to find.

A monumental cemetery built by eastern Africa’s first herders near Lake Turkana, Kenya

Significance Archaeologists have long sought monumental architecture’s origins among societies that were becoming populous, sedentary, and territorial. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, dispersed pastoralists pioneered monumental construction. Eastern Africa’s earliest monumental site was built by the region’s first herders ∼5,000–4,300 y ago as the African Humid Period ended and Lake Turkana’s shoreline receded. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a massive communal cemetery with megalithic pillars, stone circles, cairns, and a mounded platform accommodating an estimated several hundred burials. Its mortuary cavity held individuals of mixed ages/sexes, with diverse adornments. Burial placement and ornamentation do not suggest social hierarchy. Amidst profound landscape changes and the socioeconomic uncertainties of a moving pastoral frontier, monumentality was an important unifying force for eastern Africa’s first herders. Monumental architecture is a prime indicator of social complexity, because it requires many people to build a conspicuous structure commemorating shared beliefs. Examining monumentality in different environmental and economic settings can reveal diverse reasons for people to form larger social units and express unity through architectural display. In multiple areas of Africa, monumentality developed as mobile herders created large cemeteries and practiced other forms of commemoration. The motives for such behavior in sparsely populated, unpredictable landscapes may differ from well-studied cases of monumentality in predictable environments with sedentary populations. Here we report excavations and ground-penetrating radar surveys at the earliest and most massive monumental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) constructed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m2 mortuary cavity accommodated an estimated minimum of 580 individuals. People of diverse ages and both sexes were buried, and ornaments accompanied most individuals. There is no evidence for social stratification. The uncertainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacerbated by dramatic environmental shifts—may have spurred people to strengthen social networks that could provide information and assistance. Lothagam North Pillar Site would have served as both an arena for interaction and a tangible reminder of shared identity.

Multiscalar Perspectives on Holocene Climatic and Environmental Changes in the Sahara and Nile Corridor, with Special Consideration of Archaeological Sites on Sai Island, Sudan

This multiscalar study explores Holocene environmental changes across the Sahara, within the eastern Sahara, and along the Nile in northern Sudan. The Early Holocene saw increased moisture across most parts of northern Africa after c. 10,000 BC, with peak humid conditions 7800–7000 BC. A short but significant dry interval after c. 7000 BC was followed by wetter conditions around 6000 BC, and then a gradual aridification from 5000 BC. The latter dry phase has continued until present times. The exceptional environments near the Nile are known to have seen impressive variations as climate oscillations and flora left traces in the palaeobotanical record. Multidisciplinary archaeological studies in this area—including analysis of plant macroremains—have focused on the transitions from hunting-fishing-gathering (Khartoum Variant) to pastoralism (Abkan) and later to agro-pastoralism (Pre-Kerma). The palynological data from four Sai Island sites (8-B-10C, 8-B-76, 8-B-81, and 8-B-10A) and the nearby mainland site of Amara West (2-R-66) provide new perspectives on local environmental shifts during this time of profound economic and social change. Despite poor pollen preservation, the high number of samples enables comparisons that show both diachronic changes and synchronic variation. Since the earliest phases, pollen spectra reflect mixed flora from various habitats and some seasonal variability. During the Early Holocene and the initial part of the Middle Holocene, dramatic floods on Sai’s east side and seasonal desiccation on Sai’s west side together created an ecological mosaic that exposed people to several different habitat types within a short distance. These included swamps and marshes, wooded savannas, grasslands and desert savanna, providing access to plants used for food, medicine, and other purposes. Documenting localized patterns of vegetation variation and change can lay important groundwork for explaining changes in subsistence and social organization.

Small things and big news at the 2016 SAfA meetings in Toulouse, France: News

The 2016 Society for Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) meetings hosted by the University of Toulouse, France, was the 23rd biennial SAfA meeting. “What pasts for Africa?” was the theme of this year’s conference, aimed at capturing an assortment of contemporary approaches and topics in the increasingly diverse field of African archeology. A preconference workshop on identifying and describing microliths provided a robust preamble to the conference. Common themes for both events were the role of science and scientific approaches in African archeological investigations, building more robust interdisciplinary research frameworks, and revisiting the chrono-cultural structure of the African past.

New archaeological investigations at the Lothagam harpoon site at Lake Turkana

The Lothagam harpoon site in north-west Kenyas Lake Turkana Basin provides a stratified Holocene sequence capturing changes in African fisher-hunter-gatherer strategies through a series of subtle and dramatic climate shifts (Figure 1). The site rose to archaeological prominence following Robbinss 1965–1966 excavations, which yielded sizeable lithic and ceramic assemblages and one of the largest collections of Early Holocene human remains from Eastern Africa (Robbins 1974; Angel et al. 1980).