Table Of ContentThe Exploitation of Plant
Resources in Ancient Africa
The Exploitation of Plant
Resources in Ancient Africa
Edited by
Marijke van der Veen
School of Archaeological Studies
University of Leicester
Leicester, England
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Archaeobotany in Northem Africa, held June 23-25, 1997,
in Leicester, United Kingdom
ISBN 978-1-4419-3316-4 ISBN 978-1-4757-6730-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-6730-8
© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Acadernic/Plenum Publishers in 1999
10987654321
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sion from the Publisher
Jack R. Harlan
Dr. Jack R. Harlan, retired professor of agronomy at the University of Illinois, died
on August 26, 1998, of cancer in New Orleans after a long and very distinguished career.
He was 81. Dr. Harlan was born in Washington, D.C. He graduated from George Washing
ton University in Washington and received his Ph.D. in genetics from the University of
California, Berkeley. He worked as a geneticist for the United States Department of Agri
culture from 1942 to 1961 and also taught agronomy at Oklahoma State University from
1951 to 1966. In 1966, he moved on to teach plant genetics at the University of Illinois
until 1984. After his retirement, he worked as an adjunct professor at Tulane University,
where he spent his remaining years.
Dr. Harlan published 275 scientific articles and book chapters and wrote three books:
Crops and Man ( 1975, with a 2nd edition in 1992), Origins ofA frican Plant Domestication
( 1976, edited together with J. M. J. de Wet and A. B. L. Stemler) and The Living Fields: Our
Agricultural Heritage (1995). Many of these publications are referred to repeatedly in the
chapters in this volume, especially his 1971 paper in Science titled: "Agricultural origins:
centers and noncenters." Dr. Harlan played a key role in our understanding of sorghum tax
onomy and many of his articles dealt specifically with the domestication of sorghum and
v
vi Dedication
other African cereals. His extensive fieldwork in Africa has produced a vital record of gene
centers or centers of diversity, which are rapidly disappearing. A theme running through
most of his work is the role crops have played in the evolution of human societies. His inter
est in archaeology is apparent in all his publications and many archaeologists and ar
chaeobotanists have benefited from his experience and knowledge of African plants, as well
as his expertise in the fields of agronomy and genetics.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow and had received the Meyer Medal for plant explora
tion and a Merit Award from the American Grassland Council. He was also an honorary
participant in the first Workshop on the Archaeobotany of North Africa (Krakow, Poland
1994 ). Dr. Harlan will be remembered for his pioneering work on centers of origin of cul
tivated plants and most especially for his keen interest in Africa and African cereals.
Jeff Dahlberg
Marijke van der Veen
CONTRIBUTORS
Dr. Catherine D'Andrea, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby,
British Columbia, V5A 1S 6, Canada
Dr. Hala Barakat, Cairo University Herbarium, Faculty of Science, Cairo University,
Giza, Egypt
Dr. Edward Biehl, Chemistry Department, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
75275, USA
Ms. Sheila Boardman, Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of
Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield S l 4ET, England
Dr. Ann Butler, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon
Square, London, WClH OPY, England
Dr. Rene Cappers, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Vakgroep Archaeologie, Poststraat 6,
9712 ER Groningen, The Netherlands
Dr. Caroline Cartwright, Department of Scientific Research, British Museum, Great
Russell Street, London, WC lB 3DG, England
Dr. Jeff Dahlberg, Tropical Agricultural Research Station, P. 0. Box 70, Mayagiiez, 00681
0070 Puerto Rico
Dr. Ahmed Gamal el-Din Fahmy, Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Helwan
University, Cairo, Egypt
Ms. Stefanie Kahlheber, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-UniversiHit, Seminar fiir Vor- und
Friihgeschichte, Archaologie und Archaobotanik Afrikas, Robert-Mayer Strasse l,
D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Ms. Marlies Klee, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Seminar fiir Vor- und
Friihgeschichte, Archaologie und Archaobotanik Afrikas, Robert-Mayer Strasse 1,
D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Ms. Mary Anne Murray, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34
Gordon Square, London, WClH OPY, England
Dr. Katharina Neumann, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Seminar fiir Vor- und
Friihgeschichte, Archaologie und Archaobotanik Afrikas, Robert-Mayer Strasse 1,
60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Dr. Peter Rowley-Conwy, Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, Science
Site, South Road, Durham DH 1 3LE, England
Dr. Gill Thompson, Dept. of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford,
West Yorkshire, BD7 lDP, England
Dr. Marijke van der Veen, School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester,
University Road, Leicester, LEI 7RH, England
vii
viii Contributors
Drs. Caroline Vermeeren, BIAX Consult, Roeterstraat 8 hs, 1018 WC Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
Dr. Nahed Mourad Waly, The Archaeobotany Laboratory, Cairo University Herbarium,
Giza 12613, Egypt
Professor Krystyna Wasylikowa, W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Lubicz 46, 31 -512 Krakow, Poland
Ms. Ruth Young, Dept. of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford,
West Yorkshire, BD7 1D P, England
Ms. Barbara Zach, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Seminar fur Vor- und
Friihgeschichte, Archaologie und Archaobotanik Afrikas, Robert-Mayer Strasse 1,
60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
PREFACE
This volume presents a completely new and very substantial body of information
about the origin of agriculture and plant use in Africa. All the evidence is very recent and
for the first time all this archaeobotanical evidence is brought together in one volume (at
present the information is unpublished or published in many disparate journals, confer
ence reports, monographs, site reports, etc.). Early publications concerned with the origins
of African plant domestication relied almost exclusively on inferences made from the
modem distribution of the wild progenitors of African cultivars; there existed virtually no
archaeobotanical data at that time. Even as recently as the early 1990s direct evidence for
the transition to farming and the relative roles of indigenous versus Near Eastern crops
was lacking for most of Africa. This volume changes that and presents a wide range of ex
citing new evidence, including case studies from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda,
Egypt, and Sudan, which range in date from 8000 BP to the present day. The volume ad
dresses topics such as the role of wild plant resources in hunter-gatherer and farming com
munities, the origins of agriculture, the agricultural foundation of complex societies,
long-distance trade, the exchange of foods and crops, and the human impact on local vege
tation-all key issues of current research in archaeology, anthropology, agronomy, ecol
ogy, and economic history.
It is a particular pleasure to record that the second meeting of the International
Workgroup for African Archaeobotany was held at the School of Archaeological Studies,
University of Leicester, England, during June 1997. The proceedings of this meeting are
published in this volume, together with two further contributions (Murray and Rowley
Conwy eta/.). I am grateful to the University of Leicester Research Fund for a grant to
wards the cost of preparing the papers for publication. I would especially like to thank
Sean Goddard (Exeter) for drawing and redrawing many of the figures, Caroline Mason
(Durham) for editorial assistance, and Professor R. Kuper (Cologne) for arranging a bur
sary for one of the participants.
Marijke van der Veen
CONTENTS
1. Introduction ...................................................... .
Marijke van der Veen
2. Sorghum in the Economy of the Early Neolithic Nomadic Tribes at Nabta Playa,
Southern Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Krystyna Wasylikowa and Jeff Dahlberg
3. Wild Grasses as 'Neolithic' Food Resources in the Eastern Sahara: A Review of
the Evidence from Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Hala Barakat and Ahmed Gamal el-Din Fahmy
4. The Use of Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry in the Identification of
Ancient Sorghum Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7
Edward Biehl, Fred Wendorf, Warren Landry, Asrat Desta, and
Leilani Watrous
5. Ancient DNA from Sorghum: The Evidence from Qasr lbrim, Egyptian Nubia 55
Peter Rowley-Conwy, William Deakin, and Charles H. Shaw
6. Missing Plant Foods? Where Is the Archaeobotanical Evidence for Sorghum and
Finger Millet in East Africa? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Ruth Young and Gill Thompson
7. Early Plant Food Production in the West African Sahel: New Evidence . . . . . . . . 73
Katharina Neumann
8. The Exploitation of Wild and Domesticated Food Plants at Settlement Mounds
in North-East Nigeria (1800 cal BC to Today) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Marlies Klee and Barbara Zach
9. Indications for Agroforestry: Archaeobotanical Remains of Crops and Woody
Plants from Medieval Saouga, Burkina Faso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Stefanie Kahlheber
xi
