Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Nat Hum Behav. 2020 Aug;4(8):791-799. doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-0859-0. Epub 2020 May 11.
The recovery of Early Iron Age artefacts and domestic animal remains from hunter-gatherer contexts at Likoaeng, Lesotho, has been argued to indicate contact between highland hunter-gatherers and Early Iron Age agropastoralist communities settled in lowland areas of southeastern Africa during the second half of the first millennium AD. However, disagreement between archaeozoological studies and ancient DNA means that the possibility that those hunter-gatherers kept livestock themselves remains controversial. Here we report analyses of pottery-absorbed organic residues from two hunter-gatherer sites and one agriculturalist site in highland Lesotho to reconstruct prehistoric subsistence practices. Our results demonstrate the exploitation of secondary products from domestic livestock by hunter-gatherers in Lesotho, directly dated to the seventh century AD at Likoaeng and the tenth century AD at the nearby site of Sehonghong. The data provide compelling evidence for the keeping of livestock by hunter-gatherer groups and their probable incorporation as ancillary resources into their subsistence strategies.
从莱索托洛依安格的狩猎采集者环境中回收的早期铁器时代文物和家养动物遗骸，据说是在公元 1000 年下半年，高地狩猎采集者与在非洲东南部低地地区定居的早期铁器时代农牧社区之间的接触的证据。然而，考古动物学研究和古代 DNA 之间的分歧意味着，这些狩猎采集者自己饲养牲畜的可能性仍然存在争议。在这里，我们报告了对莱索托高地两个狩猎采集者遗址和一个农业遗址的陶器吸收有机残留物的分析，以重建史前的生计实践。我们的结果表明，莱索托的狩猎采集者利用了家畜的次级产品，这些产品可追溯到公元 7 世纪的洛依安格和附近的塞洪洪遗址的 10 世纪。这些数据为狩猎采集者群体饲养牲畜提供了有力的证据，并可能将其作为辅助资源纳入其生计策略中。
