Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18, 165–200 (1999)
Article ID jaar.1998.0335, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on
Hunter–Gatherer Land Use Patterns in Later Stone Age East Africa
Sibel Barut Kusimba
Department of Anthropology, Field Museum, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605
E-mail: [email protected]
Received February 28, 1998; revision received August 17, 1998; accepted September 8, 1998
This paper discusses land use patterns of hunter– gatherers inhabiting arid grasslands of later
Pleistocene East Africa, inferred from an analysis of raw material economy in five Later Stone
Age (LSA) lithic assemblages from Lukenya Hill, southern Kenya. Later Stone Age lithic
assemblages at Lukenya fall into two groups, one based predominantly on the use of quartz to
manufacture scrapers and other flake tools, and the second using greater amounts of rarer chert
and obsidian lithic materials to manufacture microliths. Aspects of raw material use, coupled
with ethnographic data on how food and water abundance affects Kalahari forager land use,
indicate that the first group of sites had longer occupations by groups with smaller home ranges.
The second group of sites had shorter occupations by more mobile groups with larger home
ranges. The paper compares the land use patterns of arid grassland LSA foragers, like those at
Lukenya Hill, with those in woodland and forest areas of Central and Southeastern Africa.
Improvements in the ability to procure food, such as the development of fishing and fowling
technologies or better hunting projectiles, allowed grassland groups to become more mobile in
the later LSA, while foragers in wetter parts of Africa, including woodlands, riverine areas, and
lakeshores, seem to have intensified the procurement of fish and plant foods. The processes of
economic specialization taking place in both grassland and woodland areas of Later Stone Age
Africa may have parallels in other parts of the Old World. © 1999 Academic Press
major impetus to technological and cultural evolution (Avery 1995).
Ethnographic and ecological studies
have illuminated some of the strategies
of pastoralists and early hominids in
adapting to constraints of tropical grasslands, which include seasonal drought
(Blumenschine 1987; Fratkin 1991; Fratkin and Smith 1994; Harris 1980; Marshall 1994; Speth 1987). Little is known,
however, about the adaptations of modern hunter– gatherers in African grasslands. During the Neolithic, most East
African grassland hunter– gatherers
were displaced or incorporated by food
producers (Bower 1991). Archaeology is
thus an important source of information
on grassland foragers. This paper develops models of forager land use in arid
African grasslands and evaluates them
INTRODUCTION
In East Africa, the Later Stone Age
(LSA) began as early as 42,000 B.P. (Ambrose 1998; Manega 1993:103). Because the
LSA marks the first widespread use of
microlithic tools, bone tools, art and personal adornment, and economic specializations around fish and plant foods, it is
usually considered Africa’s first fully
modern culture (Brooks and Smith 1987; J.
Deacon 1984; Klein 1992; Robbins et al.
1996). In most parts of sub-Saharan Africa,
this period was cooler and drier than today (Deacon and Landcaster 1988; Hamilton 1982). Forests shrank and grasslands
were more widespread than at present. In
fact, dry grasslands have posed major
challenges to African hominids throughout the Pleistocene and may have been a
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SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 1. Location of major LSA sites in East Africa.
against the LSA archaeological record
from Lukenya Hill, Kenya, one of the
largest early LSA localities in East Africa
(Barut 1997; Gramly 1976; Merrick 1975;
Fig. 1). It examines the role of grassland
environments in the development of
modern hunter– gatherer adaptations
during the East African LSA.
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
THE GOALS OF THIS ANALYSIS
In this paper I review previous archaeological models of hunter– gatherer land
use in African grasslands and then examine the ethnographic literature on foragers in similar environments, including the
East African Hadzabe and Kalahari hunter– gatherers. I describe variation in LSA
lithic assemblages from Lukenya Hill and
examine the roles of time, function, and
raw material use in determining differences among the assemblages. I then use
the differences in raw material use in the
assemblages to interpret prehistoric land
use patterns (M. Nelson 1992) and explain
changing land use patterns at Lukenya
Hill by examining how water availability
determines mobility and exchange relationships in similar African environments,
especially the Kalahari Desert (Barnard
1992). Finally, I compare land use patterns
at Lukenya Hill with those at contemporaneous African sites to identify some
land use pattern differences between
grasslands and other African environments.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL MODELS OF
HUNTER–GATHERERS IN AFRICAN
GRASSLANDS
Gifford et al. (1980) proposed that
hunter– gatherers in East African grasslands moved across the landscape following herds of migratory ungulates. This
high-mobility strategy would require
large home ranges and maintenance of
contact with herds through either predictable movements or visual sightings from
lookouts on high terrain. Herd followers
may have inhabited sites seasonally or
briefly. A herd-following adaptation has
also been ascribed to makers of the South
African Robberg Industry (18,000 –12,000
B.P.). Robberg sites are ephemeral rockshelter occupations including unretouched bladelets and faunal remains of
167
large migratory grazers (Klein 1978, 1980).
H. Deacon (1976) proposed that Robberg
peoples were herd followers of migratory
antelope who had large group sizes, low
population densities, and large, overlapping territories.
Some aspects of a herd-following scenario are plausible. An arid climate may
have necessitated greater reliance on animal foods (Jacobson 1984:77). Plentiful,
scavengeable sick and drowning animals
are left in the wake of a migration path
(Capaldo and Peters 1995). Lions travel up
to 25 km/day when migrating animals enter their territories (Schaller and Lowther
1969:329). Some humans might match this
distance for a limited period. Ambrose
and Lorenz (1990) also argue that LSA foragers placed much emphasis on animal
foods, which involved higher mobility
(but not necessarily herd following). Further, they argue that the superior hunting
technologies of LSA groups, relative to
those of Middle Stone Age (MSA) peoples, allowed them to hunt and eat more
large game animals. Superior technologies may have included more accurate or
longer-flying projectiles, more reliable
multibarbed weapons that could be easily
repaired, and poison arrows (Clark 1970:
154; Mitchell 1988, 1992).
Critics of the herd-following hypothesis
stress its inefficiency. Burch (1972:345)
cautions that humans are too slow to follow herds at this pace over long distances.
Herd following requires moving at night,
which would expose humans to predators
(Schaller and Lowther 1969:334). Human
groups were probably too slow and, like
social carnivores, had young too small and
helpless to allow whole groups to follow
long migrations. Ambushing and driving
are more efficient hunting methods
(Burch 1972:345; H. Deacon 1995; Schaller
and Lowther 1969:334). Grassland herbivores often have little fat, especially in dry
seasons (Sinclair 1975), and a diet based
on such animals would be physiologically
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SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
TABLE 1
Environment and Territoriality among Four Groups of Kalahari Hunter–Gatherers
Territorial at level of
Nharo
!Kung
G/wi
!Xo
Rainfall
(mm)
Resource
patches
Family?
Band?
Band
cluster?
Gift
exchange
400
400
345
325
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Sometimes
Yes
Yes
Homerange
Yes
Yes
Yes
—
—
Yes
ilai
Hxaro
No
No
Source. After Barnard 1992:236.
unsound (Speth and Spielmann 1983).
Other herders of large game, such as the
paleo-Indians of the Americas, are known
to have subsisted on plants during certain
seasons (Bamforth 1991; Meltzer 1993).
Recently H. Deacon (1995) has dismissed
the possibility of Robberg herd following
and suggested that large grazers either
were not migratory at all or culled along
migration routes at certain seasons.
ETHNOGRAPHIC MODELS OF
DESERT HUNTER–GATHERERS
In spite of the importance placed on
hunting and animal foods by archaeologists, ethnographic data show that foragers in dry, tropical environments rely
mostly on plant foods for subsistence.
Both Kalahari hunter– gatherers (Barnard
1992; Lee 1979) and Hadzabe of northern
Tanzania (Woodburn 1968, 1972) eat
mostly plant foods. Furthermore, it is not
the location of animals, but the location of
water sources, that determines much of
individual and group movement.
Cashdan (1983) and Barnard (1979, 1980,
1992) have shown how differences in water availability affect land use and subsistence among !Kung, Gwi, Nharo, and !Xo
hunter– gatherers. Although band area
and group size are highly variable (Hitchcock and Ebert 1989), settlement patterns
are strongly linked to the varying surface
water patterns of each group. Groups
blessed with concentrated or self-renewing food resources tend to stay in an area
longer and form larger groups (Table 1).
Among the Nharo (Barnard 1980), for example, several bands live year-round near
large waterholes on the Ghanzi ridge, a
limestone formation. Nharo families may
disperse during wet seasons, moving often around small water pans. Several
Nharo bands form a social unit called a
band cluster, which is associated with a
particular territory rarely shared with
other clusters. These territories can be as
small as 30 km 2 (Hitchcock and Ebert
1989). The bands within a band cluster are
highly ephemeral and are not associated
with particular territorial areas.
In areas occupied by !Kung, seasonal
variations in water availability are more
marked. !Kung do not form band clusters.
Rather, each !Kung band occupies a home
range that overlaps with that of other
bands; essentially, they recognize territorial claims but share them (Lee 1976).
Bands move across highly variable, overlapping territories of 800 to 4000 km 2
(Hitchcock and Ebert 1989), being dispersed in wet seasons and aggregated at
large water holes in dry seasons. Band
membership is fluid, individual movement is high, and kinship groups are
spread over wide areas in an “anucluate”
pattern (Yellen and Harpending 1972). A
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
particular group claims rights to the resources of an area, but it can allow others
temporary forage rights, and indeed
rarely refuses such rights. Kinship and
friendship are the primary means through
which such rights may be gained. Rights
to land are expressed through gift exchange or hxaro (Wiessner 1982). Hxaro
partners in far away areas, or in areas of
complementary resources, are preferred
(Wiessner 1986:107). Visits to give hxaro
gifts may take from 2 weeks to 2 years;
such visits cause about 20% of !Kung to
emigrate or immigrate every 10 years
(Wiessner 1986). Barnard (1992) records
hxaro among !Kung and Nharo (where it is
called //ai), but not among other groups
(Table I).
Unlike Nharo and !Kung, the Gwi and
!Xo lack large resource patches and reliable water holes and do not share territories. In Gwi and !Xo areas, resources are
few and widely scattered. Group sizes are
small and aggregations are short-lived.
The !Xo live in one of the harshest areas of
the Kalahari (Table 1). Unlike the !Kung,
the !Xo rarely cross territorial boundaries.
Like the Nharo, the !Xo also recognize the
band cluster, a group of bands associated
with an exclusive territory (Barnard 1992:
66 – 67; Heinz 1979). Band cluster boundaries, unlike the overlapping territories of
the !Kung, are separated by unoccupied
strips of no-man’s land. Among the !Xo, at
least, contact with a neighboring cluster,
including foraging or marriage, is rare
(Heinz 1972, 1979:472–3). In times of extreme local scarcity, the !Xo prefer to forage in the land of a neighboring band
belonging to their cluster, but they may be
forced to ask permission. Although cluster
boundaries are occasionally crossed, they
usually mark distinct land use, kinship,
and dialect differences (Barnard 1992). In
conclusion, then, in contrast to the greater
fluidity of !Kung groups, those of the !Xo
are relatively nucleate. The hxaro ex-
169
change system is unknown among !Xo
(Heinz 1972, 1979).
Barnard (1992) and Cashdan (1983) have
used the data on settlement patterns
among different bushman groups to examine the relationship between territoriality and environment, in particular the
distribution of food and water. Cashdan
defines territoriality as “the maintenance
of an area within which the resident controls or restricts use of one or more environmental resources” (Carpenter and
Macmillan 1976:639, in Cashdan 1983:47).
Among Kalahari hunter– gatherers, there
is generally a positive relationship between degree of territoriality and resource
abundance. In Barnard’s (1992) scheme,
territoriality and nucleation are least
among the !Kung and Nharo but increase
among the Gwi and especially the !Xo
(Barnard 1992:234; Cashdan 1983). Although one can conceivably imagine an
environment with resources so scarce that
territoriality is absent, environments of
scarce resources generally inspire greater
territoriality. The more productive environments of large resource patches and
waterholes, on the other hand, are associated with greater sharing of rights to territory, with the presence of exchange systems, with less nucleate kinship groups,
and, possibly most important for archaeologists, with longer occupational stays
around patches.
Cashdan (1983) notes that !Kung, rather
than defending territory itself like animals
do, defend socially recognized rights to
forage in particular areas. This “social
boundary maintenance” does not incur
increasing costs with territory size, because band membership is being defended, rather than land itself. On the
other hand, benefits of territoriality will be
greater in the harshest environments, like
that of the !Xo, where people face the
greatest competition. Thus territoriality is
greatest in the sparest environments of
the Kalahari. Further, the highly localized,
170
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
rich patches of resources in the !Kung and
Nharo areas make widespread alliances
advantageous. In situations of local scarcity, resources may be abundant in other,
nearby areas. In contrast, the conditions of
regional, as well as local, scarcity among
the !Xo and Gwi negate the risk-reducing
function of gift exchange.
Barnard’s and Cashdan’s ethnographic
comparisons are not based on qualitative
information; indeed, Hitchcock and
Ebert’s (1989) literature review shows that
quantitative measures of Kalahari forager
group size, range size, and length of camp
residence are highly variable. Further,
many Kalahari groups practice some clientship or exchange with pastoralists or
ranchers and have been coevolving with
food producers for millennia (Wilmsen
1989). For modern hunter– gatherers,
trade and work opportunities, rather than
plants or animals, are the major influence
on residence patterns (Laden 1992;
Mabulla 1996). Their ethnic identities and
relationships with the environment and
with neighboring groups have changed
much over the centuries and change
greatly from year to year, despite the short
field seasons of many ethnographers.
Some of these reasons may explain the
remaining contradictions in understanding Kalahari forager land use. Why, for
example, do both the Nharo and !Xo recognize relatively endogamous band cluster groups in spite of their contrasting environments?
In spite of remaining questions, the correlations between food and water distributions and human land use that emerge
from the ethnographic literature probably
also prevailed prehistorically in similar
environments. The chief pattern that
emerges from the Kalahari data is the influence of water on human movements.
On the one hand, environments with relatively large or self-renewing water and
resource patches allow longer occupational stays (Hitchcock and Ebert 1989). In
patchy environments, people and exchange items move across overlapping
band territories following the changing
availability of resource patches across
time and space. The East African Hadzabe
behave like the !Kung in this way. Occupations are relatively long when large
patches of mongongo nuts, baobab, berries, or tubers are fruiting (Lee 1976;
Mabulla 1996). On the other hand, when
resources are few, small, and scattered,
rather than patchy, such as among /Gwi
and !Xo, groups move residences much
more often. Further, they move within exclusive territories, rarely crossing into
their neighbors’ lands. In nonpatchy environments, groups do not practice exchange. Exchange is not beneficial because resources are uniformly scarce.
LUKENYA HILL—ENVIRONMENT
AND PALEOENVIRONMENT
The Lukenya Hill inselberg in southern
Kenya is one of the larger inselbergs in the
Athi–Kapiti plains, a semi-arid Acacia/
Commiphora bushland with erratic, but
roughly biennial, rainfall. The hill is one of
the largest late Pleistocene archaeological
occurrences in East Africa, including five
known sites spanning much of the duration of the LSA (Fig. 2). Weathering has
exposed bedrock on the southeastern side
of the hill and caused large blocks to break
along joints and fall downslope, forming
numerous rock overhangs and shelters
suitable for human use. The five sites,
concentrated on the southeast side of the
hill, are rock overhangs [GvJm19, GvJm22
(Gramly 1973), and GvJm62 (Barut 1997)],
a rockshelter around 80 m 2 in protected
area [GvJm16 (Merrick 1975)], and an
open-air site [GvJm46 (Miller 1979)].
Site Dating
Samples of bone apatite and collagen
from the Lukenya Hill sites have been
FIG. 2. Location of LSA sites on and around Lukenya Hill, Kenya.
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
171
172
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
TABLE 2
Bone Apatite and Collagen Dates for Artifact Levels Selected
for Analysis from Lukenya Hill LSA Assemblages
Site
Levels selected
for analysis
GvJm46
0–180 cm, Pit 3
GvJm62
GvJm22
Level C, 220–315 cm
135–145 cm, Square C
GvJm16
Upper shelter, 0–200 cm
GvJm19
115 –150 cm
Radiocarbon
years B.P.
Material
Depth below
datum of
radiocarbon
dated material
(cm)
19,330 6 945
20,780 6 1050
21,535 6980
13,730 6 430
15,320 6 450
17,670 6 800
17,700 6 760
13,705 6 430
Apatite
Apatite
Apatite
Collagen
Collagen
Collagen
Collagen
Apatite
51–54
87–90
220–230
190–200
180–185
135–140
140–145
115–120
Lab number
GX-5350
GX-5350
GX-5774
GX-3698
GX-3699
UCLA-1709
UCLA-1709
GX-6758
Source. Marean 1990:228; Merrick 1975:35.
radiocarbon-dated to the late Upper Pleistocene (Table 2). 1 Unfortunately, the accuracy of such radiocarbon dates on bone is
problematic. Archaeological bone is prone
to contamination with modern carbon
from soil carbonate and humic acids,
which often makes radiocarbon dates too
young (Taylor 1987). Other East African
LSA sites which have been radiocarbon
dated, using bone, to the late Upper Pleistocene have yielded much earlier dates
using other dating methods. For example,
a bone radiocarbon date from the LSA site
1
Because of the large number of LSA lithic materials available from Lukenya, some of the collections
were sampled by square and depth below surface.
Criteria for sample selection included size, degree of
completeness, and association with a Pleistocene radiocarbon date. Three of 12 excavated pits at GvJm46
(Miller 1979) reached 200 cm in depth, representing a
complete LSA sequence. One of these, Pit 3, was
chosen for analysis. At GvJm62 (Barut 1997), Level C,
which yielded the bulk of excavated artifacts, was
included in this analysis. At GvJm22 (Gramly 1976),
two high-density Pleistocene LSA levels were examined and radiocarbon-dated. One of these, Level E,
square C, was a complete collection and was included in this analysis. At GvJm16 (Merrick 1975),
approximately half the excavated Pleistocene LSA
material was examined. At GvJm19, levels 115–150,
which dated to the latest Pleistocene, were included
in the analysis. Upper levels of this site are dated to
the Holocene (Nelson and Mengich 1984).
at the Naisiusiu Beds, Olduvai Gorge, is
17,550 6 1000 B.P., similar to the dates
from GvJm16 and GvJm22 (Table 2;
Leakey et al. 1972:329). However, the
Naisiusiu Beds site was redated to
42,000 6 1000 B.P. based on single crystal
40
Ar/ 39Ar dating of volcanic tuffs capping
the LSA materials. Such dating discrepancies underscore the unreliability of many
LSA radiocarbon dates on bone (Manega
1993:94).
Although the Lukenya Hill dates are inaccurate in an absolute sense, they were
produced at only two laboratories, and
they link the sites according to relative
dating. They clearly demonstrate that the
analyzed materials come from roughly
two time periods within the LSA. GvJm46
and GvJm62 date to significantly earlier
than 20,000 B.P. (Table 2). The other three
sites, GvJm22, GvJm16, and GvJm19,
formed 10,000 years or more later.
Paleoenvironment of the East African LSA
Marine oxygen isotope records show
that global temperatures were lower than
at present during the last half of the Upper Pleistocene, reaching a minimum at
the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
18,000 –20,000 B.P. (Johnsen et al. 1992;
Martinson et al. 1987). Land-based evidence for this time period shows that lowlatitude climates were cold and dry (Clapperton 1993; Iriondo and Latrubesse 1994;
Rognon and Williams 1977; Vogel 1984).
Despite a bias toward high-altitude areas,
data from lake level studies, sedimentology, palynology, glacial features on East
African mountains, and faunal data support a picture of cold and greater aridity
than today.
From 50,000 to 20,000 B.P., pollen sequences show that climate fluctuated, being colder and dryer than today, especially before 32,000 B.P., but becoming
warmer around 25,000 B.P., when several
East African lakes experienced high
stands (Perrott and Street-Perrott 1982).
During the LGM, East African glaciers
reached their greatest extent. Underlying
vegetation belts of Afroalpine grassland,
ericaceous bushland and thicket, and dry
montane forest shifted 700 –1000 m downward in altitude, expanding grasslands at
the expense of most forest types (Coetzee
1967; Hamilton 1982, 1987; van Zinderen
Bakker and Coetzee 1972). Around the
LGM, most of the Rift Valley lakes in this
zone dried up or reached low stands
(Gasse and Street 1978; Haberyan and
Hecky 1987; Richardson and Dussinger
1986; Street and Grove 1976). Temperatures dropped from 5.1 to 8.8°C at the
LGM, and precipitation decreased
10 –15% below present levels (Hastenrath
and Kutzbach 1983:151). Late Pleistocene
rainfall would have been similar to that of
the Kalahari today (Butzer et al. 1972; Richardson and Dussinger 1986:169).
In spite of overall cold and aridity during this period, faunal evidence shows
that some areas remained well watered.
At Lukenya Hill (Marean and GiffordGonzalez 1991), Pleistocene faunal assemblages are dominated by dry-adapted species, such as an extinct small alcelaphine
with hypsodont teeth, as well as oryx and
173
Grevy’s zebra, both found in dryer environments today (Marean 1992a:238).
Lukenya’s Holocene fauna contains more
closed habitat and water-dependent species. The faunas from Kisese II, however,
imply a contrasting pattern of environmental change. Unlike at Lukenya Hill,
the Kisese sequence shows little change in
the proportions of open- and closed-habitat bovids across the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary (Marean et al. 1990). Kisese II is located on a large hill of closed
woodlands, where more browsing species
could have thrived than in the open surroundings of Lukenya (C. Marean, personal communication, May 1995). Similarly, Upper Pleistocene fauna from
Nasera Rockshelter, presently in semiarid grassland and woodland (White 1983:
123), include species typical of such habitats, as well as water-loving reduncines
and duikers, suggesting more vegetated
areas were nearby (Mehlman 1989). Although average later Pleistocene climatic
conditions were cold and dry, archaeological faunal assemblages show that differences in local habitat were profound.
Some areas, such as inselbergs, mountains, gallery forests, and seasonally
flooded grasslands, may have supported
large resource patches like those so well
exploited today among !Kung and Hadzabe (Lee 1979; Mabulla 1996; Ng’weno
1992). Contemporaneous faunal community differences at Lukenya Hill, Kisese,
and Nasera underscore the importance of
local areas of greater water and resource
availability that were doubtless a magnet
for humans.
Lukenya Hill’s ecotonal location between the open Athi Plains and the more
wooded Machakos Hills to the south, as
well as its relative proximity to the highland areas surrounding and within the
Rift Valley, suggests groups occupying
Lukenya may also have inhabited these
regions seasonally or occasionally. At
present the nature of such habitation is
174
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
unknown, although Enkapune ya Muto
near Lake Naivasha has occupations contemporaneous to the Pleistocene LSA at
Lukenya (Ambrose 1998; Marean 1992b;
Fig. 1). Resources of both these areas may
have complemented those on the Athi
Plains and may have included more plant
foods and small browsing fauna in the
Central Rift Valley (Mwajumwa et al.
1991).
Lukenya Hill Lithic Raw Materials
Obsidian, chert, and quartz are the
main raw materials in the Lukenya assemblages. Obsidian bombs and lapilli were
located on top of, weathering out of, and
embedded within a welded tuff that outcrops over several kilometers on the Athi
Plains about 5 km east of Lukenya Hill.
Most of these bombs are between 1 and 2
cm in diameter (Barut 1997). Chert nodules are also widely scattered throughout
the Athi Plains both in riverbeds and on
the plains. The chert source closest to
Lukenya Hill is GvJm298, the dry bed of
the Stony Athi River, 5 km from GvJm62
(Fig. 2), although localized chert sources
can be found in similar riverbeds around
the Athi Plains. Most chert nodules are
between 2 and 4 cm in diameter.
Unlike chert and obsidian, which are
relatively localized sources on the surrounding plain, quartz is ubiquitous on
both the hill and surrounding plain. Its
distribution thus overlaps that of the chert
and obsidian, but it is more diffuse rather
than clumped. Large quartz veins can be
found in the inselberg bedrock adjacent to
the GvJm62 and GvJm46 sites. Lukenya
Hill vein quartz appears as rounded cobbles or angular fragments that vary in uniformity and grain size, including quartz
crystal.
Chemical analysis (Barut 1997; Merrick and Brown 1984a, 1984b) shows
some Lukenya obsidians are derived
from large flow outcrops around Lake
Naivasha in Kenya’s Central Rift Valley,
150 km northwest of Lukenya Hill (Fig.
3), or from the Kedong Escarpment, 65
km west of Lukenya Hill. These outcrops
yield pieces larger than the local bombs,
and they are easier to flake into a wider
variety of tools.
In this paper I have assumed that land
use strategies are primarily determined
by water availability, according to the ethnographic data reviewed above. For many
hunter– gatherers, however, other factors
such as the need for lithic raw materials
itself motivated human movements (Bamforth 1986; Gould and Saggers 1984). However, such cases of “disembedded” lithic
procurement are always associated with
technologies that require high-quality raw
material sources, such as the large outcrops of unflawed chert paleo-Indians
needed to make fluted points and large
bifaces, to which they made special trips
(Seeman 1994). African LSA microlithic
technologies, however, such as the
Nachikufan (Miller 1969) and Lemuta Industries (Mabulla 1996; Mehlman 1989),
were successfully made using only vein
quartz, despite its many fracture planes.
Where suitable raw materials are common, as at Lukenya Hill, special trips for
raw material are unnecessary, and embedded procurement is more likely. The
larger size of nonlocal obsidians may have
offered knappers a greater degree of flexibility in tool design, but, because microlithic technologies can be made entirely
on quartz, it is unlikely that obsidian and
chert were essential enough lithic sources
to require LSA groups to make special
trips.
DESCRIBING LITHIC ASSEMBLAGES
FROM LUKENYA HILL
Two groups of sites were discerned
based on raw material proportions, tool
and core types, and proportions of nonlocal obsidian (Table 3). Although all site
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
175
FIG. 3. Location of Lukenya Hill, Kedong, and Lake Naivasha (Central Rift) obsidian source
localities in Kenya.
assemblages are dominated by the local
vein quartz, sites GvJm46, GvJm62, and
GvJm19 (“Group 1 sites”) have very large
quantities of quartz artifacts. They also
have higher proportions of vein quartz
relative to chert and obsidian. GvJm16
and GvJm22 (“Group 2”) have moderate
quantities of quartz raw material and thus
have higher proportions of chert and obsidian artifacts. Typologically these assemblages are dominated by either scrapers or microliths and include smaller
numbers of burins, points, percoirs, becs,
and miscellaneous tools (Barut 1997:207).
176
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
TABLE 3
Differences in Raw Material Proportions and Tool and Core Types
in Five LSA Assemblages from Lukenya Hill
Site
Total weight
of quartz (g)
% Quartz
by
number
% Cores
as
quartz
% Scrapers
% Microliths
% Bipolar
cores
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm19
GvJm22
GvJm16
201,155
64,602
47,339
25,433
7,481
92
75
85
68
46
83
49
65
25
21
61
60
53
19
22
14
12
20
44
60
57
42
64
10
18
The quartz-rich Group 1 sites are typologically scraper-based assemblages. Side,
end, steep, convex, and fan scrapers (a
convex end scraper whose sides are “constricted as though for hafting”; Miller
1979) are the most common scraper types
(Fig. 4). Microliths include crescents,
oblique truncations, curved-backed blades,
and miscellaneous microliths (Fig. 5) and
are much more common in the Group 2
sites from GvJm16 and GvJm22.
The two groups of sites also differ markedly in the core reduction methods used.
Bipolar reduction of cores was much more
common in Group 1 than in Group 2,
where bipolar cores are very rare (Table 3,
Fig. 6); this is true of all raw materials
(Table 4). With plentiful raw materials,
particularly those of poor quality like the
local quartz, bipolar reduction is an easy
way to produce unstandardized flakes
(Andrefsky 1994; Masao 1982; M. Nelson
1992; Shott 1989). More controlled bipolar
flaking can also extend the use life of
small raw materials like chert and obsidian by producing many straight flakes
from small cores. Both these strategies
seem to have been important at the Group
1 sites.
The two groups of sites also differ in
proportions of local to nonlocal obsidian. Different East African obsidian
flows can be distinguished chemically
using electron microprobe analysis, a
technique pioneered by Merrick and
% Nonlocal
obsidian
30
47
73
Brown (1984a, 1984b). Barut (1997:264)
determined using the same method that
obsidian from Lukenya Hill can be reliably distinguished from other East African sources using quantitative measures
of chlorine, manganese, and titanium.
FIG. 4. Scrapers from Lukenya Hill. Top, chert
convergent scraper from GvJm62; middle, left and
right, chert fan scrapers from GvJm62; bottom,
quartz steep scraper from GvJm19.
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
177
FIG. 5. Microliths from Lukenya Hill. Top row: left and center, obsidian crescents from GvJm62;
right, obsidian miscellaneous microlith, GvJm46. Bottom row: left, chert oblique truncation; center,
miscellaneous microlith; and right, crescent, GvJm19.
While proportions of local to nonlocal
obsidian vary through time at single
sites like GvJm16 (Merrick and Brown
1984a), in general, the proportion of
nonlocal obsidian is greater in Group 2
than in Group 1. 2
EXPLAINING THE TWO GROUPS
OF SITES: TIME
The GvJm62 and GvJm46 scraper-based
assemblages are older than the microlithic
GvJm22 and GvJm16 assemblages. Similar
typological change through time is found
at many East, Southeastern, and Southern
2
Data on nonlocal obsidian from sites GvJm16 and
GvJm22 is from Merrick and Brown (1984a:143). In
this paper, Merrick and Brown list separately the
artifacts from “Group W,” at that time an unknown
source. Further work with chemical signatures of
East African obsidian, especially looking at withinsource variability (Barut 1997:269), indicates that
“Group W” is a chemical variant of the local Lukenya Hill obsidian source. H. Merrick (personal communication 1992) arrived at the same conclusion at
an earlier date.
African sequences. Scraper assemblages
that are nevertheless LSA in character (including few, if any, MSA types, such as
prepared cores, points, or bifacial pieces,
and sometimes including small numbers
of microliths or blade cores) predate assemblages containing many microliths.
These sequences include Nasera and
Mumba Shelters (Mehlman 1989) and Kisese II in northern Tanzania (Inskeep 1962);
Matupi Cave in Uganda (van Noten 1977);
Nsalu Cave, Zambia (Miller 1979);
Kalemba, Zimbabwe (Phillipson 1976);
and Depression Cave, Botswana (Robbins
1990). Scraper and microlith proportions
in LSA assemblages thus may have some
culture-historical meaning, but other factors are also involved. For example, the
GvJm19 site at Lukenya Hill, the youngest
of the sites, shows patterns of typology
and raw material use more consistent with
the older group of sites. Stylistically, however, the GvJm19 assemblage is distinct
from GvJm62 and GvJm46 and is clearly
not the same industry; its microlithic com-
178
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 6. Freehand and bipolar cores from Lukenya Hill. Top row: left and center, obsidian
freehand cores from GvJm62; right, obsidian bipolar core, GvJm62. Middle: chert freehand core,
GvJm19. Bottom row: chert bipolar cores, GvJm62.
ponent, though small, is much more standardized (Fig. 5; Barut 1997:211). Clearly,
function and raw material use, as well as
culture history or tradition, are influencing the typological differences between
Groups 1 and 2.
EXPLAINING THE TWO GROUPS
OF SITES: FUNCTION
Function is also a determinant of typological differences between Groups 1 and
2. In fact, microlith- and scraper-based
LSA sites have been found in other areas
of Africa. In the LSA of the Dobe area of
Botswana and the Namib Desert, Brooks
(1984:48) and Jacobson (1984:76) have
found both scraper-dominated and microlith-dominated sites. They suggest that
the microlith-dominated sites are hunting-related, while the scraper-dominated
sites were residential bases where food
processing and manufacturing took place.
179
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
TABLE 4
Freehand and Bipolar Cores in the Lukenya Hill Assemblages
Site
Core type
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Total
GvJm46
Freehand
Bipolar
Freehand
Bipolar
Freehand
Bipolar
Freehand
Bipolar
Freehand
Bipolar
45
77
72
87
66
20
67
32
77
194
25
27
64
58
139
5
53
7
49
51
38
43
101
26
109
10
110
11
26
24
108
147
237
171
314
35
230
50
152
269
GvJm62
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
Use-wear studies (Clark 1977; Clark et al.
1976; Moss 1983; Odell 1981:330 –332;
Odell and Cowan 1986; Phillipson 1976:
218; Phillipson and Phillipson 1970) indicate that both scrapers and microliths
were multifunctional, although their functions were probably different. The smaller
edge angles of microliths are much more
efficient for cutting, while the larger edge
angles of scrapers are inefficient cutting
tools (Siegel 1985). Although typology
shows that activity differences distinguish
Group 1 and 2 sites, these differences do
not always imply broad differences in adaptation or economy. J. Deacon (1984:305),
for example, has noted that the proportion
of scrapers, particularly convex scrapers,
in Holocene assemblages is high in areas
where hide clothing is found ethnographically, while scraper proportions are low
in areas where bark cloth was used for
clothing.
EXPLAINING THE TWO GROUPS OF
SITES: RAW MATERIAL USE
The two groups of sites differ not only
in raw material proportions and typology
but also in strategies toward using raw
material. These raw material use differences indicate some differences in site use
strategies of the assemblages’ makers. M.
Nelson (1992) defined two strategies toward raw material. A raw material may be
used expediently, that is, used immediately and then discarded, or it may be
curated, that is, procured and manufactured for future use. Transport, caching,
conservation, and recycling are curated
strategies. Expedient strategies are often
associated with longer occupations or
planned reuse, and curated strategies
with shorter occupations and high mobility (Andrefsky 1994; Kelly 1992; Nelson
1992; Parry and Kelly 1987). Both strategies may be found in the same assemblage (Binford and O’Connell 1984).
Group 1 Sites
The procurement and use of local
quartz at Group 1 sites show several indicators of expedient strategies (M. Nelson
1992). In other words, quartz in these assemblages was procured, used, and discarded on the spot. First, quartz cores appear in a wide variety of sizes and are
larger relative to cores of other raw materials, particularly obsidian, suggesting
they were discarded in various stages of
reduction as part of a continuously reused
natural stockpile of raw material (Fig. 7).
Second, bipolar reduction, a common
marker of expedient strategies toward
180
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 7. Lengths of quartz freehand cores in the
GvJm62 assemblage. The box outlines the middle
50% of the data cases. The solid line in the middle of
each box denotes the median of the data. The lines
extending from each box denote the upper and lower
25% of the data spread and are called the upper and
lower hinge spreads. The stars and open circles denote outliers. The stars are near outliers (beyond the
inner fence, defined as the nearest hinge spread
minus 1.5 times the box width). The open circles are
far outliers (beyond the outer fence, defined as the
hinge spread minus 3 times the box width).
poor-quality, local raw materials, was very
common in quartz cores. Third, quartz
flake size, like core size, was unstandardized and varied widely (Table 5). Fourth,
very little quartz is retouched relative to
other raw materials (Table 6), and fifth, no
relationship existed between quartz tool
size and extent of retouch, showing no
evidence that use life of quartz tools was
lengthened through continued reduction.
Chert scrapers, by contrast, become
smaller as the extent of retouch increases
(Barut 1997:219). While we can assume
that some quartz may have been treated
with curated strategies, for example transported away from Lukenya on foraging
trips in the surrounding plains, much of it
was used and discarded at its source, with
little attention to tool design, size, or
shape.
By contrast, Group 1 chert and obsidian
use was maximized and use life lengthened through a variety of means. First,
bipolar reduction predominates in chert
and obsidian cores. When practiced on
very small raw materials, bipolar reduction maximizes raw material by producing
many small flakes (Parry and Kelly 1987).
In many industries, the bipolar core is the
last stage in core reduction after the core
becomes too small to flake through handheld, freehand flaking. GvJm62 chert and
obsidian bipolar cores are smaller than
TABLE 5
Size Ranges for Flakes in the Lukenya Assemblages
Raw material
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Site
N
Mean length
(mm)
SD
Coefficient of
variation
Range
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm16
GvJm19
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
17
102
140
33
165
183
100
302
216
144
159
100
285
159
32.31
26.87
20.10
34.10
17.25
18.01
18.60
17.80
20.33
14.78
13.91
16.10
16.10
16.01
14.85
14.49
9.90
17.18
6.77
6.33
6.60
7.10
7.47
6.37
5.41
6.30
5.90
4.95
.46
.54
.49
.50
.34
.35
.37
.39
.37
.43
.39
.39
.37
.31
14.90–76.16
9.11–83.82
9.00–70.00
14.20–82.10
6.84–41.30
6.90–42.40
7.00–33.00
7.00–54.00
7.33–54.19
5.48–46.56
6.00–44.33
5.00–38.00
5.00–44.00
7.13–36.50
181
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
TABLE 6
Percentage of Artifacts as Tools, Cores, and Waste, by Raw Material
Site
GvJm46
GvJm62, Level C
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
Raw material
Cores
Debitage
Tools
Total
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
1.5
2.1
5.3
2.2
6.1
9.4
1.0
6.5
8.0
3.0
2.3
7.6
2.6
8.5
6.8
97.6
94.0
91.0
96.2
86.5
85.5
98.0
83.2
80.0
95.6
92.0
85.0
95.6
79.4
83.3
0.8
3.8
2.6
1.2
7.3
3.4
0.7
10.0
11.0
1.3
5.7
6.8
1.4
11.6
6.8
91.6
5.1
3.1
75.2
14.7
9.5
68.2
18.8
12.7
45.7
32.9
20.8
85.0
9.4
5.5
freehand cores (Figs. 8 and 9). Furthermore, chert and especially obsidian cores
of all types were more reduced relative to
cores of other raw materials. The longest
negative flake scars on obsidian cores are
shorter than obsidian flakes, but chert and
quartz core flake scars are equal in size to
chert and quartz flakes (Fig. 10). Obsidian
cores continued to be worked as the flakes
produced from them became smaller than
average, while chert and quartz cores
were not worked beyond this point. The
ratio of a core’s maximum flake scar
length to core length for the three raw
materials (Fig. 11) shows that chert and
obsidian flake release surfaces on cores
are the longest relative to core length,
showing they were the most worked out.
At Group 1 sites, the nonlocal obsidian
was similarly conserved. First, much of it
appears in the assemblage as tools (Table
7). Nonlocal cores also tend to be larger
than local cores (Fig. 12). That many nonlocal obsidian tools are much larger than
cores and whole flakes of the same raw
materials (Barut 1997:282–277, 278) suggests that some nonlocal tools were imported as such. While tools made from
local obsidian bombs tend to be small,
nonlocal tools span a range of sizes and
are almost always larger than local tools
(Fig. 13). Long flakes and blades, whether
retouched or not, are an especially efficient way to transport raw material (Kuhn
1994). Some blades were not only retouched, but segmented (C. Nelson 1980)
into many smaller, usable blade segments
(Fig. 14), which prolongs use life. In sum,
in the Group 1 assemblages, the expedient
use of quartz contrasts clearly with the
curated treatment of chert and obsidian,
even though it was easily available
nearby. The use life of Central Rift obsidian, in particular, was extended through
the transport of relatively large cores and
long tools and blades. These latter raw
materials, found in localized settings like
riverbeds, were much less commonly encountered than vein quartz, which is
widely scattered around inselbegs and
surrounding plains. The expedient use of
large volumes of vein quartz, particularly
at GvJm46, indicates these occupations
were relatively long-term.
Group 2 Sites
In the Group 2 assemblages from
GvJm16 and GvJm22, obsidian and chert
raw materials are more common, and
182
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 8. Lengths and widths of chert freehand (F), bipolar (B), and combination (C) cores, GvJm62
assemblage.
strategies toward their procurement and
use indicate they were more accessible.
First, obsidian, both local and nonlocal,
and chert are more common in Group 2
sites. At Group 1 sites, chert and obsidian
cores were reduced into small bipolar
cores, but at Group 2 sites, freehand reduction predominates in all raw materials
(Table 4). Treatment of local quartz is also
very different. In Group 1 sites, quartz
cores, also mostly bipolar, spanned a wide
range of sizes, just like quartz raw material in the area. In Group 2 assemblages,
mean quartz cores are significantly
smaller than Group 1 quartz cores (Table
8; one-tailed t test, p , .10). Group 2
quartz cores are significantly smaller than
chert cores from the same assemblages
(Table 8; one-tailed t test, p , .10), even
though quartz raw material is much larger
than chert and obsidian raw materials.
The greater amounts of chert and obsidian at GvJm16 and GvJm22, and their
more liberal use, indicate their inhabitants had greater access to obsidian and
chert sources both around the Athi Plains
and farther away in the Central Rift Valley. Accompanying this shift to a more
profligate use of chert and obsidian was a
reduced emphasis on local quartz, which
came to be treated similarly to the other
raw materials, especially in terms of core
reduction. Group 2 foragers had equal ac-
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
183
FIG. 9. Lengths and widths of obsidian freehand (F), bipolar (B), and combination (C) cores,
GvJm62 assemblage.
cess to all of the lithic raw materials found
in these assemblages.
RELATING RAW MATERIAL USE TO
LSA LAND USE PATTERNS
Differences in raw material abundance
and economy at the Lukenya sites show
that bands inhabiting Group 2 sites
moved more widely in the areas around
Lukenya Hill, had more contact with rarer
chert and obsidian sources, and stayed at
Lukenya Hill for shorter periods than
bands inhabiting Group 1 sites. The
Group 1 sites, by contrast, were longer
occupations by groups that moved over
smaller distances and had fewer contacts
with rarer raw material sources. They carried some obsidian as long use-life, seg-
mented blades and large tools, but quartz
artifacts adequately served their technological needs. During longer occupations
of Lukenya Hill, Group 1 knappers used
prodigious amounts of local quartz in an
expedient way.
One might argue that the shift from
Group 1 to Group 2 sites was driven simply by the invention of microlithic technologies, which necessitated the better
chert and obsidian raw materials. According to this interpretation, hunter– gatherers selected these raw materials more often without changing land use patterns.
Indeed, quartz, chert, and local obsidians
have essentially overlapping distributions, although chert and obsidian bombs
are rarer and more localized sources.
184
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 10. Boxplots comparing lengths of whole flakes and lengths of longest flake scars on cores
in quartz, chert, and obsidian, GvJm62 assemblage.
However, the changes in raw material
economy, especially core treatment, between Group 1 and Group 2 show soundly
that raw material use differences in the
two assemblages are a result of changes in
land use. Looking across the African LSA,
one finds that even when chert was available, it was not necessarily preferred or
required to make microliths. At Bimbe wa
Mpalabwe in Zambia, for example, there
was a slight preference for chert over
quartz for the making of microliths. Here,
19.7% of microliths were of chert, 18.4% of
microliths were of quartz, and chert was
overwhelmingly preferred over the common quartz for scrapers (58% of scrapers
being chert and 31% of scrapers being
quartz; Miller 1969:240). Further, at
Lukenya Hill, the appearance of microliths predates the selection of chert and
obsidian for their manufacture (Barut
1994).
By analogy with Kalahari hunter– gatherers, the differences in mobility patterns
at Lukenya Hill may represent adaptations to two different regimes of surface
185
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
FIG. 12. Lengths of GvJm62 obsidian cores from
Lukenya Hill, Kedong, and the Central Rift Valley.
FIG. 11. Histograms showing the ratio of core
length/length of the longest flake scar, for quartz,
chert, and obsidian cores from GvJm62 C. Data are
logged.
water availability. Less arid conditions
and more abundant resource patches during Group 1 times may have allowed these
earlier hunter– gatherers to spend longer
periods at Lukenya Hill exploiting large
and small game and plant foods, as do
!Kung and Hadzabe (Mabulla 1996). They
had less contact with chert and obsidian
sources and preferred to use prodigious
quantities of local quartz, which was adequate for scraper technologies. The Group
2 microlithic sites, on the other hand, may
have been part of settlement patterns similar to those of !Xo and Gwi, who live in
the driest part of the Kalahari, where concentrated food and water is lacking.
Group sizes are small, home ranges are
large, and mobility is frequent. Such
groups occupying Lukenya Hill had fairly
frequent contact with scattered patches of
chert and obsidian, including those from
Central Rift sources. Because their occupational stays were short, they did not
TABLE 7
Tool Classes by Source Area, GvJm62 Obsidian Artifacts
Source
Unflaked
Cores
Debitage
Tools
Total
Highland/variant
Rift Valley/other
Kedong
11
1
0
36
10
2
168
38
33
6
7
2
221
56
37
Total
12
48
240
15
315
186
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 13. Lengths of GvJm62 obsidian tools from Lukenya Hill, Kedong, and the Central Rift
Valley.
build up large quantities of local quartz. It
is possible that high-ranking foods like
migratory animals played an important
role in their diets; microlithic technologies
may have made quest of these animals
more efficient.
Extending the ethnographic analogy to
a consideration of exchange networks, one
might expect the Group 1 occupants, with
a !Kung-like adaptation, to have participated in exchange networks, while Group
FIG. 14. Segment of an obsidian blade, GvJm62.
2 peoples, with a !Xo-like adaptation,
would have lacked exchange networks.
Unfortunately, archaeologists have not
been able to recognize exchanges from
directly procured raw materials in many
contexts. Soffer (1985:438) suggests that
trade can be assumed if source distances
of exotic items are greater than a group’s
likely home range or territory. However,
gift exchanges among !Kung generally
take place within as well as across band
territories. The geographic scale of gift exchanges documented by Wiessner (1986)
was similar to the scale of movement of
LSA Central Rift obsidians, which are
most commonly found up to 50 km from
their source and are found 150 km from
their source at Lukenya Hill itself (Merrick
and Brown 1984a). Of the 510 hxaro partners of 35 !Kung, 18% lived in the same
camp, 25% within 24 km, 25% within
25– 49 km, 24% within 50 –100 km, and 9%
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
187
TABLE 8
Size Ranges for Freehand Cores in the Lukenya Assemblages
Raw material
Quartz
Chert
Obsidian
Site
N
Mean length
(mm)
SD
Coefficient of
variation
Range
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
GvJm46
GvJm62
GvJm22
GvJm16
GvJm19
40
54
10
33
72
22
36
40
32
42
30
78
23
63
26
39.40
39.20
17.60
22.22
36.82
25.98
26.34
25.00
25.30
25.42
17.50
16.13
17.30
14.90
15.65
13.87
22.00
2.70
9.00
19.36
6.70
5.70
4.90
6.90
6.84
3.60
3.47
4.30
2.90
2.50
.35
.56
.15
.41
.53
.26
.22
.20
.27
.27
.21
.22
.25
.19
.16
17.50–66.30
13.40–93.00
12.00–22.00
7.00–44.00
13.60–85.30
14.70–39.20
14.40–38.20
16.00–37.00
14.00–38.00
9.10–41.70
10.60–26.85
8.80–27.75
12.00–27.00
10.00–23.00
9.59–20.00
Note. Data for GvJm16 and GvJm22 are from Merrick (1975).
farther than 100 km. Even though Lukenya and the Central Rift are only 150 km
apart, Central Rift obsidians could have
exchanged hands numerous times before
reaching Lukenya Hill. These networks
may have been an efficient way of cementing alliances, managing the movement of individuals and groups, and procuring lithic raw material. However, one
will have to study more sites to understand the means of LSA obsidian transport at sites like Lukenya Hill.
Differences in Diet between Group 1 and 2
Foragers
Food choice strategies are the primary
influence on forager land use patterns.
What differences in subsistence might underlie the different land use patterns of
Group 1 and Group 2 hunter– gatherers?
Some hunter– gatherers procure highranked, very mobile resources that have
high search and pursuit costs, such as
large game. Bettinger and Baumhoff
(1982) call them travelers. Other hunter–
gatherers concentrate on low-ranked but
predictable sources like plants, although
they procure high-yield foods when they
are available at low cost. These hunter–
gatherers are called processors. Choosing
to be a processor or a traveler depends on
a group’s environment, technology, and
social organization.
In the context of Pleistocene East Africa, foragers practicing a traveler adaptation would concentrate on high-ranking migratory game and would move
more often within larger home ranges.
While high animal speeds might preclude the following of migratory herds
across long distances, travelers would
still move over large areas in search of
high-ranked foods and smaller packages
of water or plant foods. Processors, by
contrast, might concentrate on highranking species when available but
move to low-ranking but more predictable species, such as tubers, fruits, or
nuts, at other times. In general, this is a
more cost-effective strategy (Winterhalder 1981). The Group 1 and Group 2
assemblages may be the correlates of
188
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
processors and travelers and hunter–
gatherers, respectively. The GvJm16 and
GvJm22 may date to colder periods close
in time to the LGM, when plant foods
were less reliable than during the
warmer, earlier part of the LSA. Microlithic technologies, possibly associated
with the use of poison, may have enabled more efficient hunting (Clark 1970;
Mitchell 1988). Unfortunately, no direct
evidence of plant food use was found at
GvJm62, although a bored stone fragment and several dimpled anvils were
found (Barut 1997:222). These artifacts,
which could have been digging stick or
hoe weights, grindstones, or nutting
stones (J. Deacon 1984; Kortlandt 1986),
show that nut and seed processing technology was known to site inhabitants.
Study of Lukenya Hill faunal remains
from MSA and LSA contexts, including
the Group 1 and Group 2 sites, reveals
some evidence of animal foods in these
foragers’ diet, but not the total proportion
of these foods in the diet. Marean’s (1990)
analysis showed that hunters did indeed
concentrate on high-ranking, medium to
large, migratory game species. Faunas
from GvJm46, located at the bottom of a
steep cliff, were overwhelmingly from one
species, a small extinct alcelaphine. Marean (1990:466) suggested that GvJm46 was
a drive site for the alcelaphine during migration season that was used for a variety
of activities at other times of the year.
Seasonal use of tactical hunting techniques like driving may have been coupled with a more catholic hunting and
gathering strategy at other times (Marean
1997).
Alternative Interpretations
It is difficult, of course, to infer the land
use patterns that Lukenya Hill was a part
of without reference to other points on the
landscape that made up the seasonal
round. For example, the Group 1 occupa-
tions may represent longer term, perhaps
dry season, occupations by groups who
were more peripatetic during other seasons when more water sources were available. The anomalous GvJm19 assemblage,
which is like the Group 1 sites in lithic raw
material use but closer to the Group 2
sites in age, may be such a seasonal variant or may represent a period when a
third, and as yet poorly known, settlement
pattern incorporated Lukenya Hill.
LAND USE AND EXCHANGE AT
LUKENYA HILL AND OTHER EAST
AND SOUTH AFRICAN LSA SITES
This paper has demonstrated that culture-historical, functional, and land use
differences all contribute to interassemblage variability at Lukenya Hill, one of
the largest late Pleistocene occurrences in
East Africa, which spans much of the
40,000-year duration of the LSA. Most
likely, these differences are also related to
changes in diet choice from processor to
traveler, although evidence of plant food
use in the African LSA is very rare (H.
Deacon 1993; Opperman and Hydenrych
1990). However, such changes should not
be elevated to the level of an evolutionary
or continentwide transition. Faunal remains from northern Tanzania indicate a
relatively well-watered environment,
while those from Lukenya Hill indicate an
arid climate (Marean 1992; Marean et al.
1990; Mehlman 1989). Around Lake Eyasi
in northern Tanzania, Mabulla (1996)
found no differences in land use or raw
material use during the MSA-to-LSA
transition. Numerous MSA and LSA assemblages around Lake Eyasi are made
almost exclusively on local quartz, even
though prodigious chert sources are available at Olduvai Gorge and Lake Natron,
50 and 100 km to the north.
Although greater mobility may have
characterized settlement around Lukenya
Hill during the GvJm22 and GvJm16 hab-
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
itations, LSA mobility remained limited in
areas like Lake Eyasi. Given that alliance
networks and overlapping territories are
often associated with scarce or unpredictable resources, Ambrose and Lorenz
(1990:18) argue that nonlocal lithic raw
material proportions are “inversely correlated with resource abundance and predictability.” The exclusive use of local
quartz at Lake Eyasi suggests that groups
in the area were territorial and had little
contact with other regions. However,
Cashdan (1983) has pointed out that extreme resource scarcity across broad regions, as well as resource abundance, can
also be associated with greater territoriality and nucleation of hunter– gatherer
groups. The driest parts of the Kalahari
are inhabited by highly territorial groups
who do not exchange gifts (Heinz 1972,
1979). Upper Pleistocene northern Tanzania may have been occupied by !Xo-like
groups, endogamous band clusters occupying exclusive territories and separated
by strips of no-man’s land. However, the
evidence of territoriality at Lake Eyasi is
also consistent with an environment of
stable resources, which may have included fish or snails, which were found
archaeologically at Mumba Rockshelter
on the lakeshore (Mehlman 1989:311). A
better understanding of the regional distribution of resources in East African
grasslands, as well as more survey-based
archaeological research, would inform us
about settlement patterns across broad regions.
Late Pleistocene Africans are often
thought to have lived at very low population densities throughout the last glacial
period, especially at the LGM when aridity became most extreme (Brooks and
Robertshaw 1990; Klein 1989). They may
have formed endogamous territorial
groups similar to the !Xo (Heinz 1979).
Relatively nucleate bands and a lack of
exchange networks would be reflected archaeologically in a lack of exchange items
189
across much of Africa, in accordance with
the !Xo pattern. Indeed, the available data
indicate that exchange items were rare.
Merrick and Brown (1984a) and Merrick,
Brown, and Nash (1994) have studied the
exchange of Kenyan obsidians from the
Oldowan through the Pastoral Neolithic.
Only in the Pastoral Neolithic does obsidian movement outside a 50-km radius become widespread, when it begins to mirror the distribution of other exchange
items, such as pottery (Merrick, Brown,
and Connelly 1990).
LSA ostrich eggshell beads were probably exchange items (Mitchell 1996). Ostrich eggshell beads are absent from many
East African LSA sites, including Lukenya
Hill, although Mehlman (1989:386) reports
ostrich shell pieces in the Lemuta Industry and at the Naisiusiu LSA site at Olduvai Gorge. In South Africa, where grasslands also prevailed in the Pleistocene,
ostrich eggshell beads and marine shells
are again rare (Mitchell 1996; Wadley
1993). Overall, the rarity of exchange items
in the African Pleistocene LSA contrasts
with the Upper Paleolithic of Europe. In
Europe, both shell and lithic raw material
traveled over several hundred kilometers,
particularly in northern Europe, where alliances would have been most adaptive
(Gamble 1986:335–337; Otte 1991; Rensink
et al. 1991; Soffer 1991).
In the Holocene, ostrich eggshell beads
become increasingly common at Nasera
and Lukenya Hill (Mehlman 1989:400, 404;
personal observation). In South Africa,
marine shell, bone beads, and other possible trade gifts also become abundant (H.
Deacon 1995; J. Deacon 1984; Mitchell
1996; Wadley 1993). Ameliorating environmental conditions at the close of the
Pleistocene would encourage the formation of fluid, anucleate groups, more of a
!Kung-like than of a !Xo-like pattern.
Through exchange networks marked archaeologically by beads and shells, these
190
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
Holocene groups shared larger food and
water resources.
GRASSLANDS AND WOODLANDS
IN THE AFRICAN LSA
The archaeological record of East and
South Africa suggests that in many arid
grasslands, population densities were
small and groups highly territorial, as
among the !Xo of the present-day Kalahari. However, the Lukenya Hill sequence
shows that in particular regions land use
patterns changed significantly through
time. At any rate, throughout the late Upper Pleistocene dry grassland environments around sites like Lukenya Hill were
some of the continent’s harshest. By contrast, other parts of the continent offered
much more abundant resources. The
moist woodland areas of southeastern Africa and the forests of Central Africa show
much greater continuity in vegetation
types across the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Even at the LGM, vegetation was
similar to that of today (Elenga et al. 1991,
1994; Livingstone 1971; Vincens 1991).
While grassland hunter– gatherers often
pursued a traveler strategy, those of the
woodlands and forests chose a processor
strategy, intensifying their procurement
of fish and plant foods.
Today, LSA sites like Matupi and Ishango are located in mosaics and transition zones between East African woodlands and Central African rainforests
(White 1983). Later Stone Age fauna from
these sites include many, if not mostly,
forest species, showing that late Pleistocene vegetation was still relatively closed
(Peters 1990; van Neer 1989). By contrast,
the dry grassland areas of East Africa
show greater numbers of dry-adapted
species during the late Pleistocene (Marean 1992a; Marean and Gifford-Gonzalez
1991).
In the wetter areas of Africa, where continuity with present vegetation was
greater, LSA humans encountered more
abundant and less seasonal resources
than in the arid grasslands of East Africa.
Today, more stable foods of woodland and
forest environments include abundant
starchy and fatty fruits and seeds, insects
and mushrooms, underground plant
parts, nutlike oil seeds, large and small
herbivores, and fish (Hall 1992; Hladik
1990; Malaisse and Parent 1985; Pagezy
1990:37; Wickens 1982; Zinyama et al.
1990). These resources were important
hedges against food shortage (Peters 1987:
348). LSA people in woodland and forest
Africa intensified their procurement of
these foods, especially fish and underground plant foods.
Inselbergs, seasonally flooded grasslands, and lakeshores and river shores
were important foci for LSA settlement.
LSA hunter– gatherers of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene intensively procured plant foods on the inselbergs of the
Matopos Hills. The area has year-round
surface water in marshy ponds, a high
density of fruit and marula trees, as well
as numerous small animal resources in its
kopjes, including snakes, insects, turtles,
frogs, hyrax, baboon, and small herbivores (Walker 1995:21). Seasonally flooded
grasslands or dambos are also rich in tubers and fauna. Clark (1980) proposed a
seasonal mobility model for the MSA at
Kalambo, including dry season congregation in the dambos and wet season dispersal, which might also have characterized LSA hunter– gatherer mobility.
Fishing may have been a key dry season
strategy, as among the Ntomba of Zaire
(Pagezy 1990). Botswana and Namibia,
one of the few areas where the late Pleistocene was in fact wetter than today
(Shaw and Thomas 1996), have many archaeological sites attesting to the importance of fishing. White Paintings Rockshelter, Botswana, located near a large
lake in LSA times, demonstrates a long
sequence of continuous fish exploitation
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
beginning in the late MSA and continuing
into LSA levels (Robbins et al. 1994). Catfish and cichlids were caught with bone
harpoons (Robbins et al. 1994). The LSA
habitation of Drotsky’s Cave, Botswana,
was most intense during the terminal
Pleistocene, when the area was becoming
drier and the Cave may have been one of
a few good water sources; tools from this
time period include unretouched bladelets, bladelet cores, and bipolar cores
(Robbins et al. 1996). Associated fauna indicate a varied diet of small mammals,
birds, frogs, and tortoises. Use of
Drotsky’s Cave during the wet Pleistocene, when more water sources were scattered and widely available, was much
more sporadic (Robbins et al. 1996). Procurement of fish and shellfish is also documented at Ishango in Zaire (Brooks and
Smith 1987).
Plant foods also became increasingly
important in the southeastern and central
African LSA. Van Zinderen Bakker (1969:
67) found the pollen of Parinari sp. in samples from Kalambo Falls. Remains of S.
caffra have been found at several sites in
the Matopos (Deacon 1984:246). Marula
remains make up 95% of plant remains at
Matopos archaeological sites (Walker
1995:229). Numerous dimpled anvils at
Nachikufan sites may have been nutcracking stones (Kortlandt 1986; Miller
1969:441). Bored stones are legion in archaeological sites in Zambia and Zimbabwe and are also known from northern
Tanzania, Uganda, and Central and South
Africa (Clark 1974; Cooke 1984:24; J. Deacon 1984:290 –291; Mehlman 1989:73, 321,
359; Miller 1969:484, 119; Musonda 1984;
Phillipson 1982:424; Robbins et al. 1977;
van Noten 1977). Bored stones are usually
interpreted as digging stick weights and
are indirect evidence for the use of tubers
or roots, although they have other uses.
Walker (1990:211) relates the appearance
of bored stones in late Pleistocene LSA
191
sites to the greater importance of underground foods during “climatic stress.”
The larger number of Pleistocene LSA
archaeological sites in southeastern Africa, as compared with arid East Africa
(compare Figs. 1 and 15), suggests that
environments offering stable, less seasonal resources, such as oil seeds, underground plant parts, and fish, whose procurement was capable of being
intensified, may have supported larger
numbers of LGM hunter– gatherers.
Those who remained in grasslands, at
sites like GvJm16 and GvJm22 at Lukenya
Hill, appear to have increased their mobility in order to insure access to the highest-ranking animal and plant foods. Fishing and fowling technology and improved
hunting weaponry and strategies (Marean
1997) were part of a new technological
repertoire that made it possible for grassland groups to be more mobile and rely on
high-quality resources. Meanwhile, the
woodland groups used fishing technology
and bored stones to broaden the diet to
include plants and fish.
In arid East African grasslands, preLGM foragers were less mobile and followed a processor diet strategy at sites like
GvJm46. They were followed around the
LGM by traveler hunter– gatherers who
moved across larger ranges of territory
and occupied sites, like GvJm16 and
GvJm22, more briefly. LGM hunter– gatherers in wetter parts of Africa maintained
a processor strategy, concentrating on fish
and plant foods. Although changes in diet
are not evidenced at all African sequences, they have parallels in other parts
of the Old World. Cachel (1997) argues
that European Upper Paleolithic people
used similar technological innovations to
add fish and more vegetable foods to the
diet. These expansions would have increased dietary quality, lessened human
dependence on fat sources, decreased mobility, lessened selection pressure for skeletal robusticity, and increased population
192
SIBEL BARUT KUSIMBA
FIG. 15. Pleistocene LSA archaeological sites of southern Africa.
size. To Cachel, the appearance of art, ritual, and ceremony and the increasing regional diversity in stone tool traditions
that is characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic reflect this population increase. Like
the Upper Paleolithic, the LSA shows the
first widespread use of art, personal
adornment, and bone tools. However,
these changes appear much more gradually in Africa and only in some regions
(Klein 1992). Most likely, climatic factors
in Africa, including aridity, drought, and
LATER STONE AGE HUNTER–GATHERER LAND USE
disease, were more effective at keeping
overall population densities low relative
to those in Europe (Reader 1997:254).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the government of Kenya for granting permission to conduct this research. I also thank the
members of my dissertation committee, including R.
Barry Lewis (Chair), Jack Harris, Olga Soffer, and
Thomas J. Riley, for their comments on the dissertation on which this paper is based. Dr. Charles M.
Nelson gave invaluable assistance during the dissertation research. Dr. Harry V. Merrick provided samples of obsidian for use in artifact sourcing. Curtis
Marean made helpful comments on an earlier draft
of this paper. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Research
Grant SBR 93-20534, by a Fulbright Award to Kenya,
and by dissertation writing fellowships from the
Graduate College and Anthropology Department at
the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
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