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The site of Wakrita is a small Neolithic establishment located on a wadi in the tectonic depression of Gobaad in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. The 2005 excavations yielded abundant ceramics that enabled us to define one Neolithic cultural facies of this region, which was also identified at the nearby site of Asa Koma. The faunal remains confirm the importance of fishing in Neolithic settlements close to Lake Abbé, but also the importance of bovine husbandry and, for the first time in this area, evidence for caprine herding practices. Radiocarbon dating places this occupation at the beginning of the 2nd millennium b.c., similar in range to Asa Koma. These two sites represent the oldest evidence of herding in the region, and they provide a better understanding of the development of Neolithic societies in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Over the southern African region the geomagnetic field is weak and changes rapidly. For this area series of geomagnetic field measurements exist since the 1950s. We take advantage of the existing repeat station surveys and observatory annual means, and clean these data sets by eliminating jumps and minimizing external field contributions in the original time-series. This unique data set allows us to obtain a detailed view of the geomagnetic field behaviour in space and time by computing a regional model. For this, we use a system of representation similar to harmonic splines. Initially, the technique is systematically tested on synthetic data. After systematically testing the method on synthetic data, we derive a model for 1961–2001 that gives a detailed view of the fast changes of the geomagnetic field in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Between 70 and 50 ka BP, anatomically modern humans dispersed across and out of Africa to eventually populate all inhabitable continents. Knowledge of paleoenvironments and human behavioral patterns in Africa prior to and during these dispersals is crucial for understanding how and why hunter-gatherers were able to adapt rapidly to the new environments they encountered. However, few well-dated sites from this time period are known from the Horn of Africa, one of the purported staging areas for population movements into southern Arabia and Asia. Excavations at Mochena Borago Rockshelter, situated on the western slopes of a dormant volcano where the SW Ethiopian Highlands meet the Ethiopian Rift, have yielded the first securely dated archaeological sequence for later periods of the dispersal. Three major lithostratigraphic groups incorporating occupational episodes have yielded charcoal radiocarbon ages ∼53–38 ka calBP; deeper deposits have been tested but remain undated. Archaeological assemblages consist mainly of obsidian flaked stone artifacts manufactured from small, minimally prepared, single- to multi-platform flake cores; radially prepared cores are rare and blade cores are absent. Small unifacial to bifacial points from non-radial cores dominate the earliest shaped tool assemblages, and backed pieces first appear by ∼45 ka calBP. By ∼43 ka calBP, scrapers and backed pieces are predominant, rather than points. However, there is little evidence for technological change other than the appearance of bipolar technology. Mochena Borago''s archaeological sequence thus cannot be neatly classified as Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age or “transitional” and calls into question some of the principles by which archaeologists have attempted to classify African toolmaking traditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this study, new approaches are developed for measuring and understanding the reactivity of East African amplifier lakes and the societies that occupied their margins to African monsoon related hydrological changes. Drawing on seven newly discovered archaeological sites in the Lower Awash valley, corresponding to the northern Abhe Lake basin, we present the first Holocene human occupation sequence in the Ethiopian Afar. We reconstitute fluctuating Abhe Lake levels in association with human settlement strategies through correlation of new archaeological and geomorphological data and 37 new radiocarbon dates. The sites cluster into three periods of human occupation of the lake margins separated by intervals that lack archaeological data. These occupation phases span two major humid-arid transitions of the African Humid Period (AHP) (including the Younger Dryas (YD, ∼12.9–11.7 ka), 8.2 ka, and 4.2 ka arid events) during which Abhe Lake levels varied significantly, and the transition from Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter-gatherers to mixed herding-hunter-gatherer economies. Over a 9000 year period we observe continuity and ruptures in subsistence strategies and material culture techno-complexes and correlate these with sedimentary formation processes and changing paleo-shorelines. Our study reveals that flexible multiple resource economies were a human response to strongly fluctuating environments, even with the onset of herding and associated pottery traditions unique to the Abhe Lake basin, sometime between 4.8 and 3.3 ka cal. BP. Thorough evaluation of littoral morpho-sedimentary data, well-dated human settlements and associated economic strategies suggests that major cultural and socio-economic changes of populations inhabiting Abhe paleolakeshores were distinctive ecological responses to transformations in the local environment and to fluctuating lake levels. • First evidence of Later Stone Age to herding transition in the Ethiopian Afar. • Revision of Abhe Lake level curve and modelling of Holocene paleoshorelines. • Human occupation of lake margins during humid-arid transitions of African Humid Period. • Signal for onset of aridification at 8.4 ka and imprint of 4.2 ka event in the Afar. • Humans responded to strongly fluctuating environments with flexible mixed economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]