FIRST FARMERS IN AFRICA
Yams in Chad Agriculture developed independently in many places. At least 11 separate regions have been identified as independent centers of origin. Some of the earliest known domestications were of animals. Pigs were domesticated from wild boar about 10,500 in several places.In the Sahel region of Africa, local rice and sorghum were domesticated by 5000 B.C. Kola nut and coffee were domesticated in Africa.
Watermelon originated in Africa. Domesticated watermelon seeds dated to 4000 B.C. were found in the 1980s in southern Libya. Dorian Fuller of University College London told the New York Times, “The wild watermelon is a horrible, dry little gourd that grows in wadis of the northern savannahs but it has seeds you can roast up and eat." The watermelon we eat was not developed until Roman times.
Rafael M Martínez Sánchez wrote: While the Mesolithic was developing in Europe, North African communities also subsisted through hunting and gathering. Genetically, they were very similar to groups from several thousand years earlier, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, remains of which have been discovered in the Taforalt cave in Oujda, Morocco. These groups did not seem to have pottery, at least not those in the northern Maghreb. Further south, the Sahara looked very different to how it does today. It was damper, and even boasted areas of savanna, forest, rivers and lakes. There, the hunter gatherer population did seem to have pottery, specifically in areas such as present day Mali, Niger and Sudan. [Source: Rafael M Martínez Sánchez, Prehistoria, Universidad de Córdoba, The Conversation, January 30, 2024]
Around 7,500 years ago, signs of agriculture and animal husbandry began to appear in Northern Morocco, along with Cardium imprinted pottery that bore many similarities to pieces found in Mediterranean Iberia. These have principally been found in the Tingitana peninsula, near present day Tangier. Agricultural innovations included cereal crops (wheat and barley) and legumes (beans, peas and lentils), as well as rearing sheep and goats. Along with the appearance of ceramics, there is evidence of beads decorating small marine gastropods, as well as beads made from ostrich eggshells, which were widespread at earlier sites, and throughout ancient Africa more generally.
Websites and Resources of Early Agriculture and Domesticated Animals: Britannica britannica.com/; Wikipedia article History of Agriculture Wikipedia ; History of Food and Agriculture museum.agropolis; Wikipedia article Animal Domestication Wikipedia ; Cattle Domestication geochembio.com; Food Timeline, History of Food foodtimeline.org ; Food and History teacheroz.com/food ;
Good Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/ ; Food Timeline, History of Food foodtimeline.org ; Food and History teacheroz.com/food
Early Agriculture and Animal Domestication in Africa
The development of agriculture and livestock was different in Africa than it was elsewhere in the world. In Africa it seems that the domestication of cattle, which was first documented in Chad in 5900 B.C., preceded the development of agriculture by several thousand years and spread sporadically in fits and starts across the continent. [Source: Brenda Fowlers, New York Times, July 17 2004]
Why agriculture was so late in developing sub-Sahara Africa---the first cultivated grain, pearl millet, was first farmed around 2000 B.C. in Mauritania and Ghana--- was the subject of intensive research in the early 2000s. One theory was that grain was so abundant everywhere that there was no need to settle down and farm.
Dr. Angela Close, an archaeologist at the University of Washington, told the New York Times, the first pastoralists in Africa probably captured wild animals to provide insurance as the Sahara, partly covered with grasslands in ancient times, began to dry. They then moved south and evolved into “cattle-assisted hunter gatherers” and took meat, milk and blood from their cattle for food. Pastoralism gradually spread west across the southern Sahara and reached the equator around 2000 B.C. and South Africa by the first centuries A.D. These African also developed pottery and settled communities before agriculture.
Ankole cattle
Domesticated wheat, barley, sheep and goats reached ancient Egypt by 5500 B.C. Goats and sheep were adopted by pastoralists in the southern Sahara but grains did not take hold probably because they required winter rain---in most of Africa the rains come in the summer. At ancient sites in sub-Saharan Africa cattle bones turn up with domesticated millet , suggesting pastorialists practicing agriculture. Sometimes these farmers lived in villages.
Dr. Katharina Neumann, an archeobiologist at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt and author the book Food, Fuel and Fields---Progress in African Archeobotany (2003), said the evidence suggests that cattle in Africa were domesticated independently of the Near East about 9000 years ago and Africans found no need to develop agriculture because grasslands covered 80 of sub-Saharan Africa and many varieties of wild grasses, fruits, tubers and game could be hunted and gathered. In article in the journal African Archaeology she wrote that there has been an implicit assumption among archaeologists that “agriculture is superior to the foraging of wild plants and that with the invention of agrarian practices, economies based on wild resources are no longer competitive."
The first domesticated plant in Africa was not a grain but rather was watermelon. Domesticated watermelon seeds dated to 4000 B.C. were found in the 1980s in southern Libya. Dorian Fuller of University College London told the New York Times, “The wild watermelon is a horrible, dry little gourd that grows in wadis of the northern savannahs but it has seeds you can roast up and eat." The watermelon we eat was not developed until Roman times Fuller and other archaeologists hypothesize.
Entomologists Say There was Farming in the Sahara 10,000 Years Ago
By analyzing a prehistoric site in the Libyan desert, a team of researchers from the universities of Huddersfield, Rome and Modena & Reggio Emilia has been able to establish that people in Saharan Africa were cultivating and storing wild cereals 10,000 years ago. [Source: University of Huddersfield, March 17, 2018]
The team has been investigating findings from an ancient rock shelter at a site named Takarkori in south-western Libya. It is desert now, but 10,000 years ago, it was part of the “green Sahara” and wild cereals grew there. More than 200,000 seeds — in small circular concentrations — were discovered at Takarkori, which showed that hunter-gatherers developed an early form of agriculture by harvesting and storing crops.
“But an alternative possibility was that ants, which are capable of moving seeds, had been responsible for the concentrations. Dr Stefano Vanin, an entomologist at the University of Huddersfield, analyzed a large number of samples, now stored at the University of Modena & Reggio Emilia. His observations enabled him to demonstrate that insects were not responsible and this supports the hypothesis of human activity in collection and storage of the seeds.
“The investigation at Takarkori provides the first-known evidence of storage and cultivation of cereal seeds in Africa. The site has yielded other key discoveries, including the vestiges of a basket, woven from roots, that could have been used to gather the seeds. Also, chemical analysis of pottery from the site demonstrates that cereal soup and cheese were being produced. The research and findings were published inthe journal Nature Plants under the title “Plant behaviour from human imprints and the cultivation of wild cereals in Holocene Sahara” by Anna Maria Mercuri, Rita Fornaciari, Marina Gallinaro, Savino di Lernia and Dr Vanin.
Farming Introduced to North Africa by Immigrants 7,500 Years Ago DNA Says
Farming was introduced to North Africa by immigrants from present-day Spain around 7,500 years ago DNA from burials in Morocco indicates. These immigrants evolved from people who originated in Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and worked there way across Europe over many generations rather than from people who went directly from Anatolia to North Africa.
Rafael M Martínez Sánchez wrote: Analysis of ancient DNA from four individuals — discovered in Kaf Taht el-Ghar, near Tétouan in Morocco, dating from between 7,400 and 7,100 years ago — tells a tale of interbreeding and transcontinental crossings. In contrast to previous findings, the Neolithic inhabitants of this cave were genetically similar to European Neolithic people, mostly of Anatolian heritage (from the area roughly corresponding to present day Turkey), with contributions from ancient European Mesolithic hunter gatherers. The local population only made up 15-20 percent of the gene pool. [Source: Rafael M Martínez Sánchez, Prehistoria, Universidad de Córdoba, The Conversation, January 30, 2024]
This indicates a Neolithic population in the area that we could define as “Creole”. It was genetically similar to that present at the same time in the Iberian Peninsula, and very different from the one that had inhabited the region a few centuries before. By contrast, in a 7,100 year old necropolis not even 200km to the south — the Ifri N'Amr Ou Moussa cave — an entire community of farmers was discovered. Though they had imprinted ceramics, their genetic profile was entirely indigenous to the region. This appears to be evidence of the local population simply adopting neolithic practices without assimilating into a new society.
One thousand years later, some 6,500 years ago, new types of ceramics appeared at Neolithic sites on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. These had mottled decorations and, often, rope impressions similar to those seen in the Sahara. Genetic analysis of three individuals who were linked to this type of pottery — found at the necropolis of Skhirat-Rouazi, near Rabat — once again reveals a process of change. They seem to be descended from Neolithic populations, not from Anatolia but from the Mediterranean Levant (Middle East). It is believed that they travelled from the Sinai, crossing a much wetter, more hospitable Sahara than today, and accompanying herds of animals. Known as pastoralist groups, their genetics also include a small percentage of local hunter gatherers.
Finally, 5,700 years ago, towards the end of the Neolithic era, human DNA discovered at the site of Kelif el Baroud, also near Rabat, seems to close the circle, with evidence of interbreeding between all the previous groups. The genome found there is a mix derived from indigenous North African hunter gatherers, Anatolian farmers mixed with European hunter gatherers, and the pastoralist groups from the Levant. In the general context of the Western Maghreb, this forms the basis of an ancestral melting pot of cultures that is now shared by most of its inhabitants. The gene pool of the region’s present population is a union — formed over millions of years — of three continents.
Evidence of Barley and Wheat Consumption 7,000 Years Ago Found Sudan and Nubia
A research team successfully identified ancient barley and wheat residues in grave goods and on teeth from two Neolithic cemeteries in Central Sudan and Nubia, showing that humans in Africa were already exploited domestic cereals 7,000 years ago and thus five hundred years earlier than previously known.The results of the analyses were recently published in the open access journal PLOS ONE. Dr. Welmoed Out from Kiel University said, “With our results we can verify that people along the Nile did not only exploit gathered wild plants and animals but had crops of barley and wheat.”[Source: Ancientfoods, March 4, 2015]
These types of crops were first cultivated in the Middle East about 10,500 years ago and spread out from there to Central and South Asia as well as to Europe and North Africa — the latter faster than expected. “The diversity of the diet was much greater than previously assumed,” states Out and adds: “Moreover, the fact that grains were placed in the graves of the deceased implies that they had a special, symbolic meaning.”
The research team, coordinated by Welmoed Out and the environmental archaeologist Marco Madella from Barcelona, implemented, among other things, a special high-quality light microscope as well as radiocarbon analyses for age determination. Hereby, they were supported by the fact that mineral plant particles, so-called phytoliths, survive very long, even when other plant remains are no longer discernible. In addition, the millennia-old teeth, in particular adherent calculus, provide evidence on the diet of these prehistoric humans due to the starch granules and phytoliths contained therein
Oldest Domesticated Sorghum (5,500-Year-Old) Found in Sudan
Archaeologists examining plant impressions within broken pottery have discovered the earliest evidence for domesticated sorghum in Africa. The evidence comes from an archaeological site (known as KG23) in eastern Sudan, dating from 3500 to 3000 B.C., and is associated with an ancient archaeological culture known as the Butana Group. [Source: University of Chicago, September 28, 2017]
Sorghum is a native African grass that was utilized for thousands of years by prehistoric peoples, and emerged as one of the world’s five most important cereal crops, along with rice, wheat, barley, and maize.For a half century scholars have hypothesized that native African groups were domesticating sorghum outside the winter rainfall zone of the ancient Egyptian Nile Valley (where wheat and barley cereals were predominant) in the semi-arid tropics of Africa, but no archaeological evidence existed.
This new discovery in eastern Sudan reveals that during the 4th millennium B.C., peoples of the Butana Group were intensively cultivating wild stands of sorghum until they began to change the plant genetically into domesticated morphotypes. Along with the recent discovery of domesticated pearl millet in eastern Mali around 2500 B.C., this latest discovery in eastern Sudan pushes back the process for domesticating summer rainfall cereals another thousand years in the Sahel, with sorghum, providing new evidence for the earliest known native African cultigen.
Green Sahara Agriculture Revealed in 4,000-Year-Old Sudan Rock Art of Boats and Cattle
Jennifer Nalewicki wrote in Live Science: Deep in the Sahara, ancient rock art depicts a fleet of boats and cattle, providing a glimpse of the desert's green past before climate change transformed the region thousands of years ago. Archaeologists were surprised to discover the out-of-place artworks from 16 new rock sites in the middle of the Eastern Desert (also known as the Atbai), a sandy and barren landscape that is part of the Sahara and stretches across eastern Sudan, according to a study published Nov. 28, 2023, in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. [Source: Jennifer Nalewicki, Live Science, June 6, 2024]
The site's location is surprising for two reasons: It's far from the nearest body of water, Lake Nubia, which sits more than 60 miles (97 kilometers) away, and the arid landscape is not ideal for raising livestock like the large-horned cattle featured in the drawings, the study authors said. "The cattle rock art is very significant, as cattle can no longer live in this hyper-arid desert," lead author Julien Cooper, an Egyptologist, Nubiologist and archaeologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, told Live Science in an email. "It tells us that the people that made the art had a close connection to cattle."
However, researchers think the artworks' subject matter — particularly a single drawing of a cow being led by a herder — provides clear evidence that this harsh landscape was once a far more hospitable grassland."This is one of the best classes of evidence for establishing climate change in the region, a period which scientists call the 'African humid period,'" Cooper said. "In this period before 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was much wetter, and cattle herders roamed the deserts in search of pasture. Today only hardier animals like camels and goats can survive in this desert."
Because many of the drawings were chiseled into the rock, archaeologists think that whoever created them was likely in the area for a while. "The boat art is quite different, and we think it has something to do with people from the Nile River who journeyed into the desert," Cooper said. "Some of these people may have also been riverine pastoralist herders who temporarily made the desert their home, while others may have journeyed into the desert in search of mineral wealth, particularly gold. At this stage we cannot know for sure."
Archaeologists think the rock art was made prior to the "African monsoon," which transformed the area into the desert it is today, forcing people to move to greener pastures along the Nile, according to the study. After 3,000 B.C., the "local desert became too dry for regular cattle herding," Cooper said. "Scholars think that this was a watershed moment in the history of the wider region — some of these cattle herders remained in the desert but exchanged their cattle for hardier animals like goats, while others left the desert for the Nile where they would play part of the story of the formation of urban states in Egypt and Nubia. In short, this drying period is the most wide-reaching historical event in the prehistory of North Africa and changed societies irrevocably."
Ancient Farmers Linked to Disappearing African Rainforests
Jeremy Hance wrote: Three thousand years ago (around 1000 B.C.) several large sections of the Congo rainforest in central Africa suddenly vanished and became savannah. Scientists have long believed the loss of the forest was due to changes in the climate, however a new study in Science implicates an additional culprit: humans. The study argues that a migration of farmers into the region led to rapid land-use changes from agriculture and iron smelting, eventually causing the collapse of rainforest in places and a rise of grasslands. The study has implications for today as scientists warn that the potent combination of deforestation and climate change could flip parts of the Amazon rainforest as well into savannah. [Source: Jeremy Hance, Mongabay, February 9, 2012]
“To some extent, this large scale deforestation event shaped the African rain forest into its present-day vegetation patterns,” writes the paper’s authors, adding that “the consensus is that the forest disturbance was caused by a regional climate change. However, this episode of forest clearance occurred contemporaneously with the migration of Bantu-speaking peoples from near the modern Nigeria-Cameroon border.”
Archeological evidence has found ceramics, stone tools, and the remnants of domestic agriculture, such as oil palm nuts. Iron-working furnaces, which would have been fueled by felled trees, have also been found. But, the researchers wonder what came first: the savannah or the farmers?
In order to determine if the ancient farmers, who lived during the time when David became King of the Israelites, had impacted the rainforest, researchers turned to the sediments of the Congo River. Retrieving a sediment core going back 40,000 years, the researchers found a sudden intensification of chemical weathering that peaked around 1,500 BCE. The weathering event was higher than anytime over the core’s 40,000 record. Chemical weathering is usually connected to natural patterns, such as precipitation and physical weathering, however soil erosion caused by intensive agriculture and deforestation can also cause spikes in chemical weathering. In addition, if climate were solely responsible, researchers would expect to see a drop, not a rise, in chemical weathering due to a drying climate. Instead they found the opposite, pointing to human influence.
The researchers write that they are not yet able to determine to what extent the decline of rainforests was due to human deforestation and how much to climatic changes, but the sudden apex in chemical weathering “clearly suggest(s) that the environmental impact of human population in the central African rainforest was already significant.”
Research has warned that the Amazon may be undergoing a similar shift as that of the Congo three thousand years ago. A combination of deforestation for cattle ranching and soy, forest degradation due to extractive industry and roads, purposefully-set fires, and climate change appears to be weakening the resilience of the Amazon rainforest. Scientists fear that the combined impacts could lead to dieback in portions of the Amazon ecosystem, turning over 40 percent of the primary rainforest into savannah. This could have drastic impacts on biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and regional weather patterns as the Amazon produces much of its own rain. Already, in 2005 and 2010 the Amazon rainforest suffered unprecedented droughts with warmer temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean reducing rainfall for the Amazon basin.
“Considerable uncertainty remains surrounding the impacts of climate change on the Amazon,” Dr. Simon Lewis, who has studied the droughts, said, adding there is “a body of evidence suggesting that severe droughts will become more frequent leading to important consequences for Amazonian forests. If greenhouse gas emissions contribute to Amazon droughts that in turn cause forests to release carbon, this feedback loop would be extremely concerning. Put more starkly, current emissions pathways risk playing Russian roulette with the world’s largest rainforest.”
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated June 2024