Ricerc@Sapienza

The onset of the early Holocene wet phase ~12,000 years ago led humans in many parts of the world to intensify the use of aquatic resources. African sites representing this phenomenon are known along the Sahara, the Nile Valley, and by the eastern African lakes, which often feature evidence for complex fishing technology and reduced mobility. Whether these aquatic adaptations reflect niche broadening or a tight and specialized focus on aquatic resources is not yet clear, but the answer is vital to understand trajectories of cultural changes immediately before the introduction of food production. Lake Turkana in NW Kenya is a crucial setting where to investigate the causes and consequences of early Holocene aquatic intensification: it expanded enormously during this period, creating new niches for hunter-gatherer-fishers (HGF) to exploit. Fieldwork in the 1970s documented several HFG sites. However, questions remained about their ecological, temporal and cultural framework as most of them lacked reliable radiometric dates and in-depth paleoenvironmental analyses. A better understanding of these issues is critical to establishing the interface(s) of foraging groups with the first herders that introduced domestic livestock ~5000 years ago, the earliest event in entire East Africa. Interactions between HGF and early herders (EH) are a complex process, where food security, material cultural and ideological world together created boundaries and frontiers. The project will investigate these themes by means of intensive geoarchaeological surveys and excavations of a crucial contex in SE Lake Turkana, Lowasera, where early foragers and first herders are both recorded. The fieldwork will cover the region around Lowasera, targeting in particular for: i) the reconstruction of the Holocene lake variations; ii) mapping and selected excavation of funerary stone monuments; iii) mapping and analysis of rock art contexts; iv) sampling and genetic studies of present Turkana groups.