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Laird MF, Sawchuk EA, Kwekason A, Mabulla AZP, Ndiema E, Tryon CA, Lewis JE, Ranhorn KL. Human burials at the Kisese II rockshelter, Tanzania. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2021; 175:187-200. [PMID: 33615431 PMCID: PMC8248353 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2020] [Revised: 12/04/2020] [Accepted: 01/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES The Late Pleistocene and early Holocene in eastern Africa are associated with complex evolutionary and demographic processes that contributed to the population variability observed in the region today. However, there are relatively few human skeletal remains from this time period. Here we describe six individuals from the Kisese II rockshelter in Tanzania that were excavated in 1956, present a radiocarbon date for one of the individuals, and compare craniodental morphological diversity among eastern African populations. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study used standard biometric analyses to assess the age, sex, and stature of the Kisese II individuals. Eastern African craniodental morphological variation was assessed using measures of dental size and a subset of Howells' cranial measurements for the Kisese II individuals as well as early Holocene, early pastoralist, Pastoral Neolithic, and modern African individuals. RESULTS Our results suggest a minimum of six individuals from the Kisese II collections with two adults and four juveniles. While the dating for most of the burials is uncertain, one individual is directly radiocarbon dated to ~7.1 ka indicating that at least one burial is early Holocene in age. Craniodental metric comparisons indicate that the Kisese II individuals extend the amount of human morphological diversity among Holocene eastern Africans. CONCLUSIONS Our findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that Late Pleistocene and early Holocene eastern Africans exhibited relatively high amounts of morphological diversity. However, the Kisese II individuals suggest morphological similarity at localized sites potentially supporting increased regionalization during the early Holocene.
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Affiliation(s)
- Myra F. Laird
- Department of Integrative Anatomical SciencesUniversity of Southern CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Elizabeth A. Sawchuk
- Department of AnthropologyUniversity of AlbertaEdmontonAlbertaCanada
- Department of AnthropologyStony Brook UniversityStony BrookNew YorkUSA
| | | | - Audax Z. P. Mabulla
- Department of Archaeology and Heritage StudiesUniversity of Dar es SalaamDar es SalaamTanzania
| | - Emmanuel Ndiema
- Department of Earth SciencesNational Museums of KenyaNairobiKenya
| | - Christian A. Tryon
- Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Connecticut354 Mansfield Road, StorrsCTUSA
- Human Origins ProgramNational Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian InstitutionWashingtonDCUSA
| | - Jason E. Lewis
- Department of AnthropologyStony Brook UniversityStony BrookNew YorkUSA
- Turkana Basin InstituteStony Brook UniversityStony BrookNew YorkUSA
| | - Kathryn L. Ranhorn
- Institute of Human OriginsSchool of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State UniversityTempe, ArizonaUSA
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Miller JM, Werner JJ, Biittner KM, Willoughby PR. Fourteen Years of Archaeological and Heritage Research in the Iringa Region, Tanzania. THE AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW 2020; 37:271-292. [PMID: 32684659 PMCID: PMC7359695 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-020-09383-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The Iringa Region is famous among archaeologists for the Acheulean site of Isimila, and among historians as the stronghold where Chief Mkwawa led the Hehe resistance against German colonial forces. However, our research reveals that Iringa has a rich archaeological record that spans the period from the Stone Age into the recent past. This article summarizes the results of 14 years of research by our team, the Iringa Region Archaeological Project (IRAP). Since 2006, IRAP members have recorded 67 sites, and this only scratches the surface of the archaeological potential in the area. These sites, some of which were recorded in conjunction with local participants, have archaeological component characteristic of the Early, Middle, and Later Stone Age, the Iron Age, and the recent past. We consider the archaeological and historical value of Iringa to be high and hope that this work inspires future research, tourism, and conservation efforts in the area.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. M. Miller
- Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB Canada
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany
| | - J. J. Werner
- Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB Canada
| | - K. M. Biittner
- Department of Anthropology, Economics and Political Science, MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB Canada
| | - P. R. Willoughby
- Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB Canada
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d'Errico F, Pitarch Martí A, Shipton C, Le Vraux E, Ndiema E, Goldstein S, Petraglia MD, Boivin N. Trajectories of cultural innovation from the Middle to Later Stone Age in Eastern Africa: Personal ornaments, bone artifacts, and ocher from Panga ya Saidi, Kenya. J Hum Evol 2020; 141:102737. [PMID: 32163764 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.102737] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2019] [Revised: 12/10/2019] [Accepted: 12/10/2019] [Indexed: 01/16/2023]
Abstract
African Middle Stone Age (MSA) populations used pigments, manufactured and wore personal ornaments, made abstract engravings, and produced fully shaped bone tools. However, ongoing research across Africa reveals variability in the emergence of cultural innovations in the MSA and their subsequent development through the Later Stone Age (LSA). When present, it appears that cultural innovations manifest regional variability, suggestive of distinct cultural traditions. In eastern Africa, several Late Pleistocene sites have produced evidence for novel activities, but the chronologies of key behavioral innovations remain unclear. The 3 m deep, well-dated, Panga ya Saidi sequence in eastern Kenya, encompassing 19 layers covering a time span of 78 kyr beginning in late Marine Isotope Stage 5, is the only known African site recording the interplay between cultural and ecological diversity in a coastal forested environment. Excavations have yielded worked and incised bones, ostrich eggshell beads (OES), beads made from seashells, worked and engraved ocher pieces, fragments of coral, and a belemnite fossil. Here, we provide, for the first time, a detailed analysis of this material. This includes a taphonomic, archeozoological, technological, and functional study of bone artifacts; a technological and morphometric analysis of personal ornaments; and a technological and geochemical analysis of ocher pieces. The interpretation of the results stemming from the analysis of OES beads is guided by an ethnoarcheological perspective and field observations. We demonstrate that key cultural innovations on the eastern African coast are evident by 67 ka and exhibit remarkable diversity through the LSA and Iron Age. We suggest the cultural trajectories evident at Panga ya Saidi were shaped by both regional traditions and cultural/demic diffusion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesco d'Errico
- UMR 5199 CNRS De La Préhistoire à L'Actuel: Culture, Environnement, et Anthropologie (PACEA), Université Bordeaux, Allée Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, CS 50023 F - 33615 Pessac CEDEX, Talence, France; Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour, Øysteinsgate 3, Postboks 7805, 5020 University of Bergen, Norway.
| | - Africa Pitarch Martí
- UMR 5199 CNRS De La Préhistoire à L'Actuel: Culture, Environnement, et Anthropologie (PACEA), Université Bordeaux, Allée Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, CS 50023 F - 33615 Pessac CEDEX, Talence, France; Seminari d'Estudis i Recerques Prehistòriques (SERP), Facultat de Geografia i Història, Departament d'Història i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Montalegre 6, 08001, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Ceri Shipton
- Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia
| | - Emma Le Vraux
- UMR 5199 CNRS De La Préhistoire à L'Actuel: Culture, Environnement, et Anthropologie (PACEA), Université Bordeaux, Allée Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, CS 50023 F - 33615 Pessac CEDEX, Talence, France
| | - Emmanuel Ndiema
- National Museums of Kenya, Department of Earth Sciences, Box 40658 - 00100, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Steven Goldstein
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07745 Jena, Germany
| | - Michael D Petraglia
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07745 Jena, Germany; Human Origins Program, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 20560, USA; School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Nicole Boivin
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07745 Jena, Germany; School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia; Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada; Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 10th St. & Constitution Ave. NW Washington, D.C. 20560, USA
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Willoughby PR, Compton T, Bello SM, Bushozi PM, Skinner AR, Stringer CB. Middle Stone Age human teeth from Magubike rockshelter, Iringa Region, Tanzania. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0200530. [PMID: 30063742 PMCID: PMC6067719 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200530] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2017] [Accepted: 06/28/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In 2006, six isolated hominin teeth were excavated from Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits at the Magubike rockshelter in southern Tanzania. They comprise two central incisors, one lateral incisor, one canine, one third premolar, and one fourth premolar. All are fully developed and come from the maxilla. None of the teeth are duplicated, so they may represent a single individual. While there is some evidence of post-depositional alteration, the morphology of these teeth clearly shares features with anatomically modern Homo sapiens. Both metric and non-metric traits are compared to those from other African and non-African dental remains. The degree of biological relatedness between eastern and southern African Stone Age hunter-gatherers has long been a subject of interest, and several characteristics of the Magubike teeth resemble those of the San of southern Africa. Another notable feature is that the three incisors are marked on the labial crown by scratches that are much coarser than microwear striations. These non-masticatory scratches on the Magubike teeth suggest that the use of the front teeth as tools included regularly repeated activities undertaken throughout the life of the individual. The exact age of these teeth is not clear as ESR and radiocarbon dates on associated snail shells give varying results, but a conservative estimate of their minimum age is 45,000 years.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Tim Compton
- Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
| | - Silvia M. Bello
- Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
| | - Pastory M. Bushozi
- Department of History and Archaeology, College of Humanities, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
| | - Anne R. Skinner
- Department of Chemistry, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Chris B. Stringer
- Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
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Miller JM, Sawchuk EA, Reedman ALR, Willoughby PR. Land Snail Shell Beads in the Sub-Saharan Archaeological Record: When, Where, and Why? THE AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW 2018; 35:347-378. [PMID: 30956382 PMCID: PMC6413891 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-018-9305-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/07/2023]
Abstract
Shell beads are well established in the archaeological record of sub-Saharan Africa and appear as early as 75,000 BP; however, most research has focused on ostrich eggshell (OES) and various marine mollusc species. Beads made from various land snails shells (LSS), frequently described as Achatina, also appear to be widespread. Yet tracking their appearance and distribution is difficult because LSS beads are often intentionally or unintentionally lumped with OES beads, there are no directly dated examples, and bead reporting in general is highly variable in the archaeological literature. Nevertheless, Achatina and other potential cases of LSS beads are present at over 80 archaeological sites in at least eight countries, spanning the early Holocene to recent past. Here, we collate published cases and report on several more. We also present a new case from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania with the first directly dated LSS beads, which we use to illustrate methods for identifying LSS as a raw material. Despite the long history of OES bead production on the continent and the abundance of land snails available throughout the Pleistocene, LSS beads appear only in the late Holocene and are almost exclusively found in Iron Age contexts. We consider possible explanations for the late adoption of land snails as a raw material for beadmaking within the larger context of environmental, economic, and social processes in Holocene Africa. By highlighting the existence of these artifacts, we hope to facilitate more in-depth research on the timing, production, and distribution of LSS beads in African prehistory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer M. Miller
- Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta Canada
| | | | - Amy L. R. Reedman
- Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta Canada
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Tryon CA, Lewis JE, Ranhorn KL, Kwekason A, Alex B, Laird MF, Marean CW, Niespolo E, Nivens J, Mabulla AZP. Middle and Later Stone Age chronology of Kisese II rockshelter (UNESCO World Heritage Kondoa Rock-Art Sites), Tanzania. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0192029. [PMID: 29489827 PMCID: PMC5830042 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2017] [Accepted: 01/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The archaeology of East Africa during the last ~65,000 years plays a central role in debates about the origins and dispersal of modern humans, Homo sapiens. Despite the historical importance of the region to these discussions, reliable chronologies for the nature, tempo, and timing of human behavioral changes seen among Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Later Stone Age (LSA) archaeological assemblages are sparse. The Kisese II rockshelter in the Kondoa region of Tanzania, originally excavated in 1956, preserves a ≥ 6-m-thick archaeological succession that spans the MSA/LSA transition, with lithic artifacts such as Levallois and bladelet cores and backed microliths, the recurrent use of red ochre, and >5,000 ostrich eggshell beads and bead fragments. Twenty-nine radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshell carbonate make Kisese II one of the most robust chronological sequences for understanding archaeological change over the last ~47,000 years in East Africa. In particular, ostrich eggshell beads and backed microliths appear by 46-42 ka cal BP and occur throughout overlying Late Pleistocene and Holocene strata. Changes in lithic technology suggest an MSA/LSA transition that began 39-34.3 ka, with typical LSA technologies in place by the Last Glacial Maximum. The timing of these changes demonstrates the time-transgressive nature of behavioral innovations often linked to the origins of modern humans, even within a single region of Africa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian A. Tryon
- Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Jason E. Lewis
- Turkana Basin Institute and Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America
| | - Kathryn L. Ranhorn
- Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Amandus Kwekason
- National Museum of Tanzania, Shaaban Robert Street, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
| | - Bridget Alex
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Myra F. Laird
- Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Curtis W. Marean
- Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
- African Center for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
| | - Elizabeth Niespolo
- Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America
- Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, California, United States of America
| | - Joelle Nivens
- Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
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