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From Hunters to Herders in Northeastern and Southwestern Africa

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From Hunters to Herders in Northeastern and Southwestern Africa See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265365677 Climate, culture, and change: from hunters to herders in northeastern and southwestern Africa Chapter · January 2013 CITATIONS READS 8 329 2 authors: Ralf Vogelsang Birgit Keding University of Cologne University of Cologne 49 PUBLICATIONS 924 CITATIONS 18 PUBLICATIONS 193 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Settlement history of the Eastern Sahara (BOS) View project FOR 2358: The Mountain Exile Hypothesis - How humans benefited and re-shaped African high altitude ecosystems during Quaternary climate changes. Project P1: Archaeology and Archeozoology View project All content following this page was uploaded by Ralf Vogelsang on 22 September 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Comparative Archaeology and Paleoclimatology Socio-cultural responses to a changing world Edited by Maximilian O. Baldia Timothy K. Perttula Douglas S. Frink BAR International Series 2456 2013 Published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England [email protected] www.archaeopress.com BAR S2456 Comparative Archaeology and Paleoclimatology: Socio-cultural responses to a changing world © Archaeopress and the individual authors 2013 ISBN 978 1 4073 1064 0 Printed in England by Information Press, Oxford All BAR titles are available from: Hadrian Books Ltd 122 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7BP England www.hadrianbooks.co.uk The current BAR catalogue with details of all titles in print, prices and means of payment is available free from Hadrian Books or may be downloaded from www.archaeopress.com Chapter 5 CLIMATE, CULTURE, AND CHANGE: FROM HUNTERS TO HERDERS IN NORTHEASTERN AND SOUTHWESTERN AFRICA Ralf VOGELSANG and Birgit KEDING Universität zu Köln, Forschungsstelle Afrika, Köln, Germany Abstract: We focus on the process of economic change during the Holocene in northeastern and southwestern Africa. Both areas show roughly similar economic sequences with a transition by adoption from foraging to pastoralism. However, differences in the transition are observed in the process of change. In the Sudanese Saharan region of northeastern Africa a complete change of an economic system is suggested. This contrasts with southwestern Africa, where only some elements of the pastoral lifestyle have been adopted. The background for these diverse developments will be discussed based on two case studies, each situated in areas with different climatic conditions. The first study is from the Wadi Howar region in the eastern Sahara. It is an ecologically favored area in a geographically key position, but characterized by dramatic climatic changes during the last 10,000 years. The second case study is from the Opuwo District in northwestern Namibia with a more stable climate. However, the differences of economic transition processes observed in both areas can only partly be explained by different intensities of climatic and environmental changes. In the Wadi Howar region, the transition from foragers to cattle pastoralism seems to be less stimulated by climatic change than by social, demographic, and other factors. However, a second, later change, resulting in increasing economic diversification, seems to be mainly an adaptation to growing aridity. The slower and selected adoption of a new economic system in Namibia can be partly explained by the more static conditions in southwestern Africa. In this area, stimuli like strong climatic and environmental change, as well as intense regional and inter-regional contacts with groups exhibiting different subsistence patterns and social structures, are missing, and new ideas seem to take more time to be fully adopted. INTRODUCTION making social units, that encourage cultural and economic change (e.g. Dobres and Robb 2000). The discussion focusing on the internal and external factors that stimulated cultural and economic change in In Europe the term Neolithic is closely tied to the debate prehistoric societies can be traced back at least to the 19th over economic change. Coined for the Near East, this century. Changing theoretical approaches have been term is used to define cultures associated with a food- formulated and tested. These include the ecological producing economy, pottery, and ground-stone approach, which understands culture as human adaptation production (Lubbock 1865). However, in a global to the social and natural environments. Archaeological perspective, especially with respect to Africa, this term is studies conducted in arid regions concentrate particularly increasingly avoided (Sinclair et al. 1993; see Sadr 2003 on the influence of climatic and environmental conditions for a critical point of view). The expanding on the adoption or development of a food-producing archaeological database shows a wide range of different economy (e.g. Clark and Brandt 1984). Social change is economic developments, circumstances, and associated attributed to external pressures rather than to forces material culture, making this term inappropriate for most inherent in the system itself. In contrast to this regions. deterministic environmental approach, other archaeologists look to historical materialism for their Based on two case studies conducted in arid regions of explanations. They argue that the reasons for cultural and northeastern and southwestern Africa, some of the economic change must focus on social relations of differing processes involved in economic change and production and the competitive nature of human society their possible prime movers will be discussed in this (Bender 1978; Lourandos 1988; Zvelebil 1986:10; chapter. The regions are the Wadi Howar, Sudan, and the Hayden 1990). Finally, the post-processual approach Opuwo District, Namibia. Data for the research stem concentrates on the cognition of man and its influence on from archaeological projects taking place in Egypt, culture and culture change. The “natural environment” is Sudan, and Namibia. The projects are run by the interpreted as a construct of man (Ingold 1996:118). multidisciplinary collaborative research centre SFB 389. The research is entitled Arid Climate, Adaptation and Nevertheless, even today neither the “why” nor the Cultural Innovation in Africa (ACACIA). The centre was “how” – the initiation of cultural change and its established by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft subsequent development – are fully understood. Attempts (DFG) at the University of Cologne in 1995. The to develop a universal theory seem to have been concentration on economic change in arid environments abandoned. The current debate focuses increasingly on during the Holocene is common to both projects. The defining combinations and interactions of prime-movers, interrelations of economic and social processes are of the specific prevailing conditions (e.g. Gebauer and Price particular interest. Environmental conditions raise the 1992:3), and the importance of the role of decision- following question: Are there significant indicators for 43 M. BALDIA, T. PERTTULA AND D. FRINK : SOCIO-CULTURAL RESPONSES TO A CHANGING WORLD Figure 5.1. Northwestern Sudan and the location of four key areas of investigation of the SFB 389 in the Eastern Sahara: 1: Lower Wadi Howar, 2: Middle Wadi Howar, 3: Ennedi Erg, 4: Djebel Tageru interaction between climatic change and cultural Nile opposite Old Dongola, south of the Third Cataract development, and, if so, are these common features in (Pachur and Kröpelin, 1987; Kröpelin 1993). both northern and southern Africa? Based on geomorphological, hydrological, and geological The focus is mainly on the process of pastoral adaptation. criteria, the wadi can be subdivided into three sectors Pastoralism is a phenomenon, which began in North (Gabriel et al. 1985). Sector 1 consists of the Upper Wadi Africa at least 5000 years earlier than in the south of the Howar and comprises the 250 km long source area in the continent. In both case studies, it is assumed that animals west. Today it consists of drainage channels in the thorny were not domesticated in an autochthonous process, but bush savannah. Sector 2 is the middle Wadi Howar, were introduced by migration or diffusion. comprising the adjoining 400 km to the east as far as Djebel Rahib. It is a broad sandy plain with dunes and vegetation (Fig. 5.2). The third is the morphologically RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT less pronounced lower Wadi Howar, which stretches over a further 400 km to the Nile Valley. It is almost void of Wadi Howar vegetation. The Wadi Howar region is situated in northern Sudan, on Research data have been obtained from regional the southern fringe of the eastern Sahara (Fig. 5.1). investigations along the middle and lower sections of the Today, open sand plains, single dune ridges, and the Wadi Howar and from adjacent areas, i.e., from the scarcely pronounced Wadi Howar characterize this Ennedi Erg to the northwest and from the Djebel Tageru landscape. It is located within the fully arid desert and to the south (Keding 1997b, 1998-2002). The Ennedi Erg thorn savannah with rainfall rates of between 25 mm and in the western Nubian Basin is located east of the Ennedi 100 mm per year (Simons 1973:505). Mountains and northwest of the middle Wadi Howar. This former lake region is now a featureless area with Nowadays, the Wadi Howar borders the Eastern Sahara. occasional dune fields, small depressions, and numerous The exact course of this dry, four to 15 km wide river bed yardangs (Hoelzmann 1992, 1993). The Djebel Tageru, is difficult to reconstruct in its entirety. Running in a 40 km south of the Middle Wadi Howar, is a sandstone west-east direction for over 1,000 km, it links its sources, plateau with an elevation of less than 100 m, stretching located in the mountainous regions of Djebel Marra over 160 km from north to south. Its eastern slope is a (Sudan), Borkou, and Ennedi (Chad), with the Nubian hammada. Its western side is a rugged scarp broken by Nile Valley. At this point, the Wadi Howar joins the river several narrow valleys (Hoelzmann 1993). 44 R. VOGELSANG AND B.
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