Journal
JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 37, Issue 9, Pages 2291-2302Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2010.04.002
Keywords
Shell middens; Mussels; Limpets; Cape rock lobster; Foraging ecology; Resource intensification; Human impacts; South Africa
Funding
- Swan Fund (Oxford, UK)
- University Research Fund (UCT)
- Centre for African Studies (UCT)
- Wenner-Gren Foundation
- ICREA Funding Source: Custom
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Enormous shell middens (megamiddens) dating to c. 3000-2000 BP along the West Coast of South Africa were explained initially within a framework based on the Kalahari San ethnography. The overwhelming dominance of marine shell and low densities of artefacts and vertebrate remains were seen as merely the reflection of processing localities. A far more complex picture has emerged recently, with a trend of raising population densities and longer residential permanence between 3500 and 2500 BP. Successive reformulations of the foraging ecology of both marine and terrestrial prey are apparent, with isotopic values from human skeletons and quantified dietary remains showing increased marine food consumption during the megamidden period when compared to other stages. Shellfish collection shifted from a mix of limpets, whelks and black mussels before 3000 BP to the intensified collection of the later from about 2600 BP, with local impact on marine fauna becoming evident at this time. Coastal groups became also increasingly less reliant on large mobile game and more so on small territorial bovids and tortoises as from 3500 BP, with strongest emphasis on this foraging behaviour after 2700 BP. Read against palaeoenvironmental data, this reconstruction is consistent with hunter-gatherer resource intensification models world-wide. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available