A story of colourful diggers and grinders:
the Sangoan and Lupemban at site 8-B-11, Sai Island, Northern Sudan

Philip Van Peer, Veerle Rots, Jeanne-Marie Vroomans
Prehistoric Archaeology Unit, Physical and Regional Geography Research Group and Department of Archaeology, University of Leuven, Redingenstraat 16bis, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium
philip.vanpeer@geo.kuleuven.ac.be
veerle.rots@geo.kuleuven.ac.be
maria.vroomans@arts.kuleuven.ac.be

Keywords: Sangoan, Lupemban, modern behaviour, ESA/MSA transition, Middle Nile Valley, Sai 8-B-11

Abstract

The site of Sai 8-B-11 in northern Sudan contains a succession of occupation levels comprised within a sedimentological sequence that spans the end of the Middle and the early Upper Pleistocene. Located on the southeastern pediment of a Nubian Sandstone inselberg, the site reveals itself at the present surface by a large concentration of artefacts eroding out of Nilotic silt deposits. Our excavations have shown that this Upper Pleistocene floodplain covers a sequence of alternating gravels and sands filling up an ancient depression of Middle Pleistocene age in which early Middle Stone Age assemblages are stratified. The two lowermost can be attributed to the Sangoan because of the presence of core-axes and distinctive flake reduction strategies. Given the evidence of systematic blade production and the presence of a lanceolate in addition to small and regular core-axes, the upper assemblage of this sequence is qualified as Lupemban. The Sangoan levels are interstratified with late Acheulean clusters. In contrast to the latter, the behaviours documented in the Sangoan including pigment exploitation, grinding activities, specialised lithic production and possibly symbolic uses of colour, show a remarkable degree of complexity. We interpret this interstratification of two very different behavioural systems as an indication of population intrusion in the area. It follows that Sai 8-B-11 is a site of significant consequence with regard to the origin and dispersal of Homo sapiens and of modern behaviour.

ref: Before Farming 2004/3 article 2

Feasting on Kasteelberg?
Early herders on the west coast of South Africa

Karim Sadr
School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa
sadrk@geoarc.wits.ac.za

Keywords: Feasting, transegalitarian hunter-gatherers, livestock, Cape coast, southern Africa

Abstract

The late 15th century Europeans who landed at the southern tip of Africa encountered herders whom they later named Hottentots. Currently, the majority view is that the ancestors of the Hottentots were Khoe-speakers who came from the middle Zambezi basin, and who introduced livestock to southernmost Africa 2000 years ago. Archaeological evidence for such an early migration of Khoe herders, however, has not been forthcoming. In the absence of evidence for an early Khoe migration, it has been argued that around 2000 years ago, small livestock may have arrived at the southern tip of Africa not in the company of a wave of immigrant herders, but through a process of 'down-the-line' trade, or gift exchange from one group of autochthonous hunter-gatherers to the next. Here, evidence from the west coast of South Africa is used to promote an idea, borrowed from European Neolithic studies, that indigenous hunter-gatherers may have initially adopted small livestock as a source of prestige and status. This proposition seems supported by evidence showing that in the later first millennium AD a prominent hill on the western Cape coast, Kasteelberg, was used as a location for mutton feasts.

ref: Before Farming 2004/3 article 3

Environmental changes and hunter-gatherers in southern Patagonia:
the cases of Lago Argentino and Cabo Vírgenes (Argentina)

Nora Viviana Franco
CONICET (IMHICIHU, Departamento de Investigaciones Prehistóricas y Arqueológicas), Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
nvfranco@ciudad.com.ar

Luis Alberto Borrero
CONICET (IMHICIHU, Departamento de Investigaciones Prehistóricas y Arqueológicas), Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina y CEQUA, UMAG, Chile
laborrero2003@yahoo.com

María Virginia Mancini
Laboratorio de Paleoecología y Palinología. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina
mvmancini@hotmail.com

Keywords: Hunter-gatherers, Southern Patagonia, archaeology, palaeoenvironment, Patagonian steppe

Abstract

The aim of this work is to integrate archaeological and palaeoenvironmental information obtained for the last 5000 years in the areas of Lago Argentino and Cabo Vírgenes, southern Patagonia.
In the semi-desert conditions of southern Patagonia slight changes in the availability of moisture may have importance for the distribution of human populations. A number of archaeological settlement patterns are presented that are synchronous with variations in the availability of water. These patterns reflect the sensitivity of hunter-gatherers living in semi-desertic environments to slight, but critical changes in the distribution of resources. Exploratory research suggests that during periods of higher levels of moisture hunter-gatherers extended their home ranges to incorporate the area of Lago Argentino, and during drier phases the area was sparsely populated or abandoned. Future research at a supra-regional scale as well as more intensive archaeological sampling will be useful for the evaluation of the ideas and hypotheses presented in this paper.

ref: Before Farming 2004/3 article 4

Latitudinal trends in hunter-gatherer diets and the 'tropical exception'

Paul Roscoe
University of Maine, Department of Anthropology, South Stevens Hall, Orono, Maine, USA
Paul.Roscoe@umit.maine.edu

Keywords: Hunter-gatherer subsistence, latitude, insolation, tropics, Ethnographic Atlas

Abstract

A number of studies have used the Ethnographic Atlas to examine how latitude affects the composition of hunter-gatherer diets. At a general level, these studies find that forager diets do exhibit latitudinal trends, but at a more detailed level they also reveal unexpected complexities. In particular, they show what might be termed a 'tropical exception': dietary patterns in the tropics diverge from trends apparent in higher latitudes. This 'tropical exception' remains something of a puzzle. Analysing the forager societies of the Ethnographic Atlas, this paper argues that the 'tropical exception' may be a misinterpretation of discontinuities in the observed latitudinal trends. These discontinuities, in turn, appear to be the product of biases in the representation of forager societies in the Atlas - in particular, of marked latitudinal variations in access to water and hence to aquatic resources.

© Western Academic & Specialist Press Ltd 2004