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ARKAMANI Sudan Electronic Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology |
February 2005
EARLY
HOLOCENE SITES AND THE EMERGENCE OF SEDENTISM IN THE ATBARA REGION
Randi
Haaland
The
Demographic
implications of sedentism
Fieldwork in the
Fieldwork was carried out by Anwar Abdel Magid, Ali Tigani el Mahi and myself. We have had five field seasons (Ali Tigani el Mahi did not
participate during the last field season ), and the most interesting data that
we have got so far is from three sites dated from the Early Holocene. Sites
which have given us new insight into the problems related to transition to a
broad spectrum type of economy and the emergence of sedentism.
We did not locate habitation sites dated to the Mid-Holocene i.e. Neolithic
sites. This is probably due to the fact that the sites in the area are all very
heavily deflated. There appears to have been a later Neolithic occupation on
most of the Early Holocene sites. This can be seen as a very thin eroded layer
of Neolithic material on top of the Early Holocene settlement mounds and as
material washed down on the surrounding plain. The other factor which has
influenced the absence in our survey of Neolithic sites,
is due to the change in the course of the rivers. Decrease in rainfall from Early
to Mid-Holocene changed the floodplains which became more
narrow and settlements are most likely to have been within areas which
today are heavily populated or irrigated. The three
sites that we have been excavating are: Abu Darbein, El Damer
and Aneibis. The sites are all located on old river
gravels along the rivers
The excavated
material shows that the people inhabiting the sites exploited a broad spectrum
of resources: fishing and collection of molluscs,
hunting big and small game and gathering plants.
The main
emphasis appears to have been on aquatic resources. As many as 30 different
fish species were exploited and 3 different types of molluscs.
Among the types of fish caught were floodplain dwellers ( Clarias, Barbus, Tilauia) as well as open water forms (Bagrus,
Synondotis, Lates). According
to Joris Peters, who has identified the faunal
remains, the latter are predominant. This indicates that the inhabitants focused
on fishing in the main river channel (Peters manuscript n.d.).
Based on the
fish species caught, Peters suggests that nets were used, although no such
remains have
been found. Some disk-shaped pottery artifacts that are frequently recovered on all the sites, might have been net-sinkers. It is interesting to
note the presence of striped
The remains of bone harpoons and spears suggest that fish
were "hunted" with these tools. Stewart has argued that with them one
could pursue the fish "by applying hunting methodology and technology to
fish whose behaviour and ecology made them
susceptible to such techniques" (Stewart 1989:233). The exploitation of aquatic resources
is expected to have been mainly a dry season activity. The inshore species are
easier to catch at the beginning of the inundation, when the fish enter the
alluvial plain to spawn or when the water starts to recede and the alluvial
plain dries out. Fishing in the main river channel is also easier during the
low waters in the dry season (Peters manuscript n.d. ).
Three types of mollusc shells were recovered, freshwater bivalves (Aspatharia, Etharia), freshwater
snails (Pila and landsnails
(Limicolaria). Peters identifies these as food refuse
except for Limicolaria, whose status he thinks is
uncertain. Since the aquatic resources were mainly exploited during the dry
season, it is highly likely that the inhabitants practiced some form of fish
processing. The abundance of large pots recovered on the sites suggests that
these could have been used to store dried and /or smoked fish.
Mammalian remains are abundant on the sites and show that
a wide range of animals were hunted. The faunal samples yielded bones from
large mammals such as elephants and giraffe, and from small mammals like
mongoose. However, the most frequently hunted animals were, according to Joris Peters, different types of wild bovides such as African
buffalo and small didik (gazelle). When looking at
the artifacts it is
striking, that no projectile points were found. We only have microlithic tools, such as lunates.
which could have been used as hunting weapons. For
these tools to have been effective for hunting large animals such as elephants,
I wi11 suggest that poison was part of the hunting technology. Peters concludes
that the archaeofauna did not yield evidence for
hunting outside the
Remains of three types
of plant taxa have been recovered. These are Celtis (which is the most numerous), Zizyphus and Setaria.
The first two types can be consumed unprepared, while Setaria
needs to be processed before being eaten. Plant remains were found both in the settlement debris and
as imprints on pottery. The
imprint of Setaria on pottery makes quite clear that
the plant is contemporary with the settlement. The presence of Setaria is interesting, its seeds
are still used and cultivated widely among people in SubSaharan
Africa, such as the Azande people in southern
The
presence of numerous grindstone fragments indicates the importance of plant
food. Grinding stones could have been used for grinding non-food substances
such as ochre as suggested by Arkell (Arkell 1949). This is supported by
the presence of red ochre on the sites. This activity is however. considered unlikely to have been the main function of
numerous grinding tools. The gathering of plants would have been seasonal and
is expected to have taken place at the end of the rainy season and the
beginning of the dry season.
Pottery
Ceramic
material is quite abundant on the sites. In some squares (one sq. meter three
to four kilograms of potsherds were recovered. The pots were globular in shape
and rim-sherds indicate that they varied in size from large vessels with a
diameter of 50-70 cm, to smaller sized vessels of
20-30 cm. Probably the larger pots were used primarily for storage purposes and
the smaller pots for cooking. In the manufacturing of the vessels, a coil
technique was employed. The bases of the pots were rounded or pointed. The rims
very often show decoration, such as punctuation or lines which were sometimes
made into a criss-cross pattern. The pots do not have
a burnished surface but are well smoothed or polished, mainly on the inside.
The potsherds show frequent reuse in the form of abrading or grooves. The
pottery belongs to the typical Early Khartoum Mesolithic complex (Arkell 1949;
Caneva 1983). Decoration covers almost all the surface
except for the bottom part of the pot. It consists mostly of impressed dots
executed with a rocker-stamp technique; frequently these are made into a dotted
wavy-line pattern. Incised decoration made into a wavy-line pattern occurs very
seldom. The wavy line pattern is typically associated with the Mesolithic sites
in the
The
excavations in 1989 and 1990 yielded skeletal remains of eight human
individuals from the site of El Damer. These graves
were found within a restricted area of the settlement. The dead were buried in
a contracted position, but there does not appear to have been a fixed pattern
as regards the orientation of the dead. One grave needs
special attention. The skeleton is buried in an east-west orientation with the
head to the west facing north. In association with the grave, at a distance of
c. 50 cm from it, was found a gazelle head with horn-cores
preserved, also facing north. Similar finds have been recovered from a
Mesolithic settlement with graves at the site of Buur
Heybe in
From the site of Aneibis one grave has been excavated; containing a skeleton
buried in a tightly contracted position. This one grave was also found on the
outskirts of the settlement and it is likely that further excavations will
document the presence of more graves in this area. No graves have yet been
found at the site of Abu Darbein.
Dates
The 38 14C dates from the three sites are somewhat
problematic. They are presented in table l and diagram l. It is apparent that
they cover a long timespan. For the site of Abu
Darbein six dates range between 8640+/-120 and 7700 ± 140 bp, but with a concentration on 8640 to 8330 from the centre of the
settlement. For the site of El Damer, 13 dates range
from 8390 ± 50 to 7260
± 110 bp, nine concentrate around 8040 to 7780
bp seven which are based on river-shells found in graves. They are listed from
No. 4 to No. 10 on table 1. From the Aneibis site we
have the widest range of dates: 17 dates which span from 8230
± 120 to 6820
± 170 (again with a concentration on 8090 to
7290 bp).
I interpret the dates in
the following way. The sites are located in a favourable
riverine habitat. They were occupied intermittently on and off for a long
period of time. I will however, hypothesize that we have the remains of a
sedentary population during the period when we have the concentration of dates.
It is evident that the dates from the El Damer site are
more in support of a sedentary population than those from the two other sites.
The
The archaeological
material presented shows that fishing, shell collecting, hunting and plant
gathering were subsistence activities carried out by the people inhabiting the
sites excavated. Hunting was probably practiced during the whole year. while the other activities were mainly dry season activities
with an emphasis on the utilization aquatic resource. Another important
activity which probably took place during the dry season was pottery making,
since it would be
easier to dry and fire the pots during this period.
It is likely that the technology of pottery production was
independently invented in
The importance of pottery lies in the fact that allows for
the utilization of broader and wider range of food resources.
The archaeological material presented here shows that fishing, shell collecting, hunting and plant gathering were
important subsistence activities carried out by the people inhabiting the sites
excavated. Hunting was probably practiced during the whole year, while the
other activities were mainly dry season activities. The evolution of such a
complex multi-resource adaptation has several critical aspects which need to be
discussed further. Adaptations involving a multitude of productive tasks would
have required some kind of division of labour. My
thesis is that gender was a basic organizational principle in these early
Mesolithic communities. The archeological material provides no direct evidence
for the structuring of the production units by a division of labour based on gender. Comparative ethnographic material
from people engaged in similar activities under tropical conditions does,
however, support the hypothesis that the division of labour
was based on gender (Murdock and Provost 1973). Conkey
and Gero argue that any hypothesis about gender in
prehistory must to a lesser or greater extent be based on ethnographic analogy
(Conkey and Gero 1991). I shall here mainly
focus on subsistence activities which I have reasons to expect were carried out
by women (Haaland 1981; 1987). I will start with
the most visible material on these Mesolithic sites, the pottery. If the
assumption that plant gathering was mainly a female activity is correct, I
think the making of unburnt clay for storage bins was
probably also a female activity. The important step however, took place when
the idea of a clay jar for food storage was developed to the idea of a clay jar
for cooking food. On the basis of ethnographic analogy.
I assume that food preparation was a female activity (Gerro 1992) Archaeological
material shows that the use of fire for transformation of raw food into food
for human consumption had been practiced for a long time. Ethnographic analogy and
archaeological material makes it reasonable to assume that it was
within the female sector of activities that the important innovation of
applying fire in carder to transform clay jars for storage to clay pots for
cooking. This hypothesis has forcefully been argued by Wright, who on the basis
of the work done by Amiran (1965), pairs the making / cooking of bread / porridge with
pottery production. (Wright 1991
based on Amiran 1965). Pottery making and food
preparation by cooking, involve activities which, in many respects, are
similar: grinding, the use of water, kneading and firing. Wright argues further
that "from its earliest appearance it very likely involved women's labour and its development occurred hand in hand with other
economic activities such as the domestication process" (Wright 1991). With these
technological innovations it is also likely that the labour
input became greater for women. Harris and Ross have argued that pottery
production and the increased consumption of boiled food lead to increasing
intensification of female labour in food procurement.
This was probably substituted by the increased importance of children's labour in these activities and within a broad spectrum type
of economy (Harris and Ross 1987). Plant gathering was part of the inhabitants'
subsistence activities. The evidence for this are the
plant remains and grinding stones. Among contemporary foraging peoples,
gathering of plant food is generally a female activity. It is also a highly
social activity in which several women and their children participate (Lee 1972). There is a
cross-cultural pattern among food gatherers that women not only gather the
plant food but process it by grinding and cooking as referred to above. Under
tropical conditions the plants gathered are usually of much greater subsistence
importance than the game hunted (Lee 1972).
Grinding stones seem closely related to female activities.
In the ethnographic survey done by Murdoch and Provost 1973 above, it is argued
that production of lithic tools is a strictly male
activity. However, from my own ethnographic fieldwork from
Among the Fur tribe, in
Based on informants from the Fipa
tribe of
The material from these sites indicates that we have remains of a
sedentary population. The broad spectrum of resources exploited (with an
emphasis on aquatic species), abundant and predictable resources which could be
stored, permitted a sedentary way of life. The most visible artifacts found on
the sites were the large quantities of pottery material. The pottery technology
would imply constraints on mobility and would probably have operated as a
factor favouring increased sedentism.
Several pieces of wattle and daub recovered on the sites suggest the presence
of more permanent hut or house constructions. That these types of sites are
indicative of a sedentary mode of life has previously been argued by various
archaeologists (Phillipson 1985; Stewart 1989).
Another set of data which supports this interpretation is the presence of
graves in a formal disposal area for the dead, which indicates permanence in
site occupation. Brandt has looked at the ethnographic data on mortuary
practices among African hunter/gatherers and although these data are meagre, they do support the interpretation that formal
disposal areas for the dead occur among sedentary hunter/gatherer/fishing
people and not among mobile hunter/ gatherers (Brandt 1988). I consider
the configuration of material inventory (pottery, grinding stones, fishing
technology, more permanent houses, graveyard) indicative
of a sedentary
way of life.
Why Sedentism emerged
To understand the emergence of sedentism one
must consider the benefits, and those who would benefit. With the presence of more
material items, such as pottery, the inconvenience involved in frequent migrations
would increase. Sedentism would reduce this
inconvenience as well as the problems involved in moving around the old, infirm
and young (Rafferty 1985). Women have the main responsibility for child
care among food gatherers. This includes the strain of being pregnant, giving
birth, and nursing; and carrying young children when collecting plant food.
Thus at least half of the adult population
would benfit from a more sedentary way of life where food
resources permitted it. This argument is supported by the large amount of
archaeological remains from the sites which appear to have been the product of
women's activities. While I have found few data in existing ethnographic
records which can support my hypothesis about the role of women in the process
of becoming sedentary. I think this is partly due to the fact that most of the
ethnographic work has been done within a male-biased setting in which this type
of issue has not been addressed or has been seen from a male perspective. There
has been an emphasis on the reluctance of hunter / gatherers to become
sedentary, and on the negative effects of sedentism
on activities such as hunting, which generally seems to be highly valued among
males in hunter-gatherer communities. A conflict of interest between males and
females with respect to sedentism, with the much
greater importance of the women's contribution to subsistence making it likely
that over time plant gathering may have favored women's interests.
Patricia Draper has collected 13
life histories (1992) from elderly !Kung men and women. In these
interviews people reflected on the difference between the old days when people
were mobile foragers, and today's settled situation. When analyzing these
interviews Draper found that women, much more than men remembered the old days
of mobility in terms of hard work. Women repeatedly said that they liked their
current settled life and that drinking water and not moving around all the time
was much better. Men, when talking about the old days, emphasized how much game
there used to be and stressed their ability as hunters. There was a strong
theme in the narratives by men that they had lost a valued role as hunters and
providers of meat. On the basis of these few life history interviews one might
conclude that old women interviewed have a more positive view about settled
life and more negative views of nomadic life than the old men interviewed
today. However Draper stresses that we do not know what opinions the women and
men in general had 50 or more years ago when they were experimenting with the
process of settling down (Draper 1992 and personal communication). Studies of this type, where the female
dimension is taken into account, will provide important insight into the
factors influencing the process of change from a mobile, foraging type of life
to one of sedentism.
Demographic implications of sedentism
The unintended consequence of sedentism is, generally population growth. Several studies
have documented population increase when formerly nonsedentary
groups settle down (Rafferty 1985). Generalizing from the !Kung , Lee argues that a greater population
growth is directly related to decreased mobility and it results in closer
spacing between child birth (Lee 1972; 1979): Binford
and Chasko argue from their study of the Nunamiut that it is related to less seasonal variability in
caloric intake (Binford and Chasko 1976). Roth, in his
study of Kutchin Athapascan
populations argues that increased birth rates were a result of prolonged
reproduction periods (Roth 1981). In addition, in the case of these Mesolithic societies, the evidence
points to the exploitation of new aquatic resources and I would expect the
productivity of a previously unoccupied niche to be high, thus allowing a rapid
population growth. As discussed above, pottery production and the use of boiled
food would serve to increase fertility. Mothers could feed infants boiled
substitutes for milk, breast feeding would tend to decline earlier in a child's
life and birth intervals would be shortened (Harris
and Ross 1987). The problems attendant on population
increase can be solved by intensified use of existing resources or geographical
expansion.
Conclusion
To sum up; invention of pottery
is considered a critical technological event and generated processes with wider
implications; the emergence of sedentism, demographic
growth, intensified resource utilization and population expansion.
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للترجمة العربية لهذا الكتاب أضغط هنا For the Arabic Translation of this Book by O.A.R.Elnur
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Translated into Arabic by Osama Elnur
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