Steven Goldstein

The histories of African crops remain poorly understood despite their contemporary importance. Integration of crops from western, eastern and northern Africa probably first occurred in the Great Lakes Region of eastern Africa; however, little is known about when and how these agricultural systems coalesced. This article presents archaeobotanical analyses from an approximately 9000-year archaeological sequence at Kakapel Rockshelter in western Kenya, comprising the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from the interior of equatorial eastern Africa. Direct radiocarbon dates on carbonized seeds document the presence of the West African crop cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp) approximately 2300 years ago, synchronic with the earliest date for domesticated cattle (Bos taurus). Peas (Pisum sativum L. or Pisum abyssinicum A. Braun) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) from the northeast and eastern African finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) are incorporated later, by at least 1000 years ago. Combined with ancient DNA evidence from Kakapel and the surrounding region, these data support a scenario in which the use of diverse domesticated species in eastern Africa changed over time rather than arriving and being maintained as a single package. Findings highlight the importance of local heterogeneity in shaping the spread of food production in sub-Saharan Africa

Novel trajectories of food production, urbanism, and interregional trade fueled the emergence of numerous complex Iron Age polities in central and southern Africa. Renewed research and re-dating efforts in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and along the Swahili Coast are transforming models for how interregional interaction spheres contributed to these patterns. While societies in present-day Zambia played an important role in the trade of copper, ivory, gold, and other resources between central and southern Africa, little is known about lifeways during the rise of social complexity in this region. This paper reports the results of re-excavation at Kalundu Mound on the Batoka Plateau of southern Zambia, one of the iconic mound sites of the Iron Age "Kalomo Culture." New radiocarbon dates were combined with the original dates in a series of Bayesian models, indicating that previous Afr Archaeol Rev

Africa hosts the greatest human genetic diversity globally, but legacies of ancient population interactions and dispersals across the continent remain understudied. Here, we report genome-wide data from 20 ancient sub-Saharan African individuals, including the first reported ancient DNA from the DRC, Uganda, and Botswana. These data demonstrate the contraction of diverse, once contiguous hunter-gatherer populations, and suggest the resistance to interaction with incoming pastoralists of delayed-return foragers in aquatic environments. We refine models for the spread of food producers into eastern and southern Africa, demonstrating more complex trajectories of admixture than previously suggested. In Botswana, we show that Bantu ancestry post-dates admixture between pastoralists and foragers, suggesting an earlier spread of pastoralism than farming to southern Africa. Our findings demonstrate how processes of migration and admixture have markedly reshaped the genetic map of sub-Saharan Africa in the past few millennia and highlight the utility of combined archaeological and archaeogenetic approaches.

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 differ- ent 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 monu- mental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) con- structed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m2 mortuary cavity accommo- dated 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 uncer- tainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacer- bated 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.

The later Holocene spread of pastoralism throughout eastern Africa profoundly changed socioeconomic and natural landscapes. During the Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 5000–1200 B.P.), herders spread through southern Kenya and northern Tanzania — areas previously occupied only by huntergatherers — eventually developing the specialized forms of pastoralism that remain vital in this region today. Research on ancient pastoralism has been primarily restricted to rockshelters and special purpose sites. This paper presents results of surveys and excavations at Luxmanda, an openair habitation site located farther south in Tanzania, and occupied many centuries earlier, than previously expected based upon prior models for the spread of herding. Technological and subsistence patterns demonstrate ties to northerly sites, suggesting that Luxmanda formed part of a network of early herders. The site is thus unlikely to stand alone, and further surveys are recommended to better understand the spread of herding into the region, and ultimately to southern Africa.

The East African Rift system created one of the world's most obsidian-rich landscapes, where this volcanic glass has been used to make tools for nearly two million years. In Kenya alone, there are > 80 chemically distinct obsidians along a 800-km north-south transect. Recently Brown et al. (2013) published their Kenyan obsidian database assembled since the 1980s. Specifically, they report elemental data measured by EMPA, ICP-MS, and WDXRF, providing a rich basis for future sourcing studies. Here we report our use of portable XRF (pXRF), calibrated specifically and directly to the database in Brown et al. (2013), to examine interactions between Later Stone Age forager-fishers and pastoralists near Lake Victoria. Regarding our calibration to the WDXRF and EMPA datasets of Brown et al. (2013), the elements of in- terest have very high correlations (R2 = 0.96–0.99) to our pXRF values, which show, on average, only a 2–5% relative difference from the published values. Use of pXRF data specifically calibrated to the datasets from Brown et al. (2013) greatly expands the impact of their work over three decades to catalog and characterize a multitude of Kenyan obsidians. Our focus here is investigating social contacts and exchange between late Holocene populations that included Kansyore forager-fishers and Elmenteitan pastoralists. Similarities and differences in their obsidian access provide new insights into long-term interactions between foragers and food producers in eastern Africa. We report new sourcing results for obsidian artifacts from six late Holocene rock shelters along the Winam Gulf of Lake Victoria. The patterns in obsidian access are consistent with changing interaction spheres that are relevant to understanding forager-fisher social identities and subsistence strategies during periods of economic and demographic change.

The high Andes of South America were among the last environments that Homo sapiens colonized during its Pleis-tocene dispersion out of Africa. The peopling of this high-elevation environment was constrained by atmospheric hypoxia, cold stress, and resource availability. Here we report archaeological and geoarchaeological analyses from Cueva Bautista, a dry rock shelter, located at 3933 m above sea level in southwestern Bolivia. We focus on a well-preserved occupation surface containing hearths and high-quality stone tools AMS dated to 12,700– 12,100 cal BP. Geoarchaeological resolution of the site supports its stratigraphic integrity and archaeological analyses indicate that the early human occupation was formed as a temporary camp by mobile foragers relying on a curated technological strategy. Regional paleoenvironmental reconstructions suggest that Cueva Bautista's occupation was synchronous with humid conditions and its abandonment with increased aridity. Our findings suggest that mobile hunter-gatherers explored – albeit not colonized – the high Andes during the late Pleistocene and provides further support that a combination of biological, behavioral, and environmental constraints affected human adaptation to this extreme environment.

The high Andes of South America were among the last environments that Homo sapiens colonized during its Pleis-tocene dispersion out of Africa. The peopling of this high-elevation environment was constrained by atmospheric hypoxia, cold stress, and resource availability. Here we report archaeological and geoarchaeological analyses from Cueva Bautista, a dry rock shelter, located at 3933 m above sea level in southwestern Bolivia. We focus on a well-preserved occupation surface containing hearths and high-quality stone tools AMS dated to 12,700– 12,100 cal BP. Geoarchaeological resolution of the site supports its stratigraphic integrity and archaeological analyses indicate that the early human occupation was formed as a temporary camp by mobile foragers relying on a curated technological strategy. Regional paleoenvironmental reconstructions suggest that Cueva Bautista's occupation was synchronous with humid conditions and its abandonment with increased aridity. Our findings suggest that mobile hunter-gatherers explored – albeit not colonized – the high Andes during the late Pleistocene and provides further support that a combination of biological, behavioral, and environmental constraints affected human adaptation to this extreme environment.