Prehistoric Ethiopia

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Ethiopia is considered the area from which anatomically modern humans emerged. [1] Archeological discoveries in the country's sites have garnered specific fossil evidence of early human succession, including the hominins Australopithecus afarensis (3.2 million years ago) and Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years ago). Human settlements in present-day Ethiopia began at least in the Late Stone Age, and the agricultural revolution took place in the third millennium BCE. Ethnolinguistic groups of Afroasiatic speakers (namely Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic) and Nilo-Saharan speakers—defined by new ethnic, cultural, and linguistic identities—emerged around 2000–1000 BCE.

Contents

Kibish has the site of oldest fossil of human bones believed to be 195,000 years old along with Omo River. The skull remains are 40,000 older than in Herto, Ethiopia. Kibish formation area of archaeology dig.jpg
Kibish has the site of oldest fossil of human bones believed to be 195,000 years old along with Omo River. The skull remains are 40,000 older than in Herto, Ethiopia.

Archeological findings

One of the earliest stone tools discovered in Melka Kunture (1.7 myo) Pierre taillee Melka Kunture Ethiopie.jpg
One of the earliest stone tools discovered in Melka Kunture (1.7 myo)

One of the most prominent and precursor excavations in Ethiopia was conducted by Gerard Dekker at the Stone Age site of Melka Kunture in 1963. There, he recognized that the exposed layered rock on the bank of a flood-prone river represented a fossil record dating back 1.7 million years. [2] French paleoanthropologist Jean Chavallion conducted a systematic expedition of the site between 1965 and 1995. Several Homo erectus fossils aged 1.5 million – 1.7 million years have been uncovered at the site, as well as cranial fragments of early Homo sapiens. [2]

Between 1967 and 1974, the Omo remains were excavated in the southwestern Omo Kibish area and have been dated to the Middle Paleolithic, around 200,000 years ago. [1]

Australopithecus afarensis at National Museum of Ethiopia NHM - Australopithecus afarensis Skelett.jpg
Australopithecus afarensis at National Museum of Ethiopia

In 1974, American paleoanthropologist Donald Johnson excavated a 3.2-million-year-old early female Australopithecus afarensis (nicknamed "Lucy") in Hadar in the Awash Valley. Ethiopians refer to the fossil as "Dinqnesh". Lucy weighed about 60 pounds and stood three and a half feet tall. [3]

Between 1992 and 1994, a team led by paleoanthropologist Tim White discovered the first Ardipithecus ramidus (nicknamed "Ardi") fossil in the Middle Awash area of Ethiopia, dating to 4.4 million years ago. Subsequently, 100 fossil specimens of Ardi were uncovered. These hominins lived in Early Pliocene and were likely omnivores, consuming plants, meat, and fruit but not hard abrasive foods like nuts and tubers. In 2009, scientists formally announced and published their findings on Ardi. Ardi has certain human features—including smaller diamond-shaped canines and some evidence of upright walking—and is said to descend from the predecessor Ardipithecus kadabba , found in the same area. [4]

Australopithecus afarensis baby named "Selam", discovered in 2000 (3.3 myo) SelamAustralopithecus.jpg
Australopithecus afarensis baby named "Selam", discovered in 2000 (3.3 myo)

In 2000, scientists led by paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged discovered a veiled 3.3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis baby nicknamed "Selam". Searches continued in 2001 when Yohannes Haile-Selassie discovered fossils of a 5.2-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus family, 15 mi (24 km) from Aramis. Recently, Yohannes has also found fossil specimens of human ancestors in the Afar Region. [5]

Human settlements

Neolithic Revolution

During the Late Stone Age in 9000 BCE, [6] there were at least two bladelet-making archeological cultures in Greater Ethiopia: [7] the Wilton culture (small stone blades) and the Hargeistan (long obsidian bladelet). [8] Humans associated with these cultures were semblance of "Afro-Mediterranean", while there is no Khoisan and Negroid population in the region. [9] [10] [ clarification needed ]

It is unclear whether or not these people[ which? ] transitioned to animal husbandry until their successors. Rock paintings of human and animal figures in Hararghe region and Eritrea illustrate the domestication of cattle and crafting of pottery, hand axes, hoes, and grinding stones. This suggests that by the late third millennium BC, rudimentary agriculture commenced in many parts of western Ethiopia. [9] There is evidence of stone hand tools, blade instruments, and drawings in the limestone caves found in Dire Dawa. [11] [12] Recent findings suggest that crafting was introduced to Ethiopia from Sudan via the Blue Nile Valley.

The early inhabitants of Ethiopia began domesticating grains during the Chalcolithic Age (6200–3000 BCE). The development of plough-based agriculture may imply the domestication of cattle around the same time. By the Early Bronze Age (3000 BCE), animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys were being domesticated. [13]

Ethnolinguistic diffusion

Detailed map of Afroasiatic languages in Africa and the Middle East Detailed Afroasiatic map.svg
Detailed map of Afroasiatic languages in Africa and the Middle East

Linguistic analysis indicates that proto-Ethiopians spoke Hamito-Semitic or Afroasiatic languages in the third millennium BCE; these languages probably originated from the Eastern Sahara after its desertification. [14] In the 1950s, scholars agreed that only the Afroasiatic language was an ancestor of five[ inconsistent ] major languages: Ancient Egyptian, Berber, Semitic, and Cushitic. [15] Harold Fleming proposed including a sixth language group, Omotic (previously considered a branch of Cushitic), and speculated that the Afroasiatic homeland might be in southwestern Ethiopia.

The split between proto-Cushitic and proto-Omotic began by the fourth or fifth millennium BCE, and proto-Semitic separated to Asia Minor. [9] Inconclusive research suggests the Afroasiatic superfamily began to diffuse by 13,000 BCE, a period of Omotic slight migration southward.[ clarification needed ] I.M Diakonoff surmised Afroasiatic people in Ethiopia were attributed to North Africa, specifically from the Sahara to the Nile Delta and over the Sinai Peninsula. Gover Hudson hypothesized that proto–Semitic migrated to West Asia across Bab-el-Mandeb into South Arabia. Also, independent linguistic analysis shows the presence of Semitic speakers in Ethiopia in at least 2000 BCE. [16] Linguistic and cultural fission of proto-Ethiopians occurred in this period. Proto–Ethiopians are classified into five stable groups:

  1. Northern Cushites – known by the ancient Greeks as "Blemmyes" or "Beja", they developed a single dialect cluster called "Bedawie". They lived as nomadic pastoralists in the desert lowland of the Red Sea in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea.
  2. Central Cushites – they spoke the dialect cluster "Agaw" and occupied northwestern Ethiopia. Their culture and language are thought to be spoken within an enclave. They are known for the plow cultivation of cereal grains.
  3. Eastern Cushites – they lived southwest of the Great Rift Valley. Their dialects of the East Cushitic language were split among two dozen tribes. These people practiced hoe cultivation of cereal grains and tubers, and terraced agriculture advanced for ancient times. They, along with neighboring people in northern Kenya, are known for distinct social organization systems with classes recruited through a fixed cycle of grades and intervals.
  4. Semitic speakers of Ethiopia – their origin is generally obscured. By the first millennium BCE, the group was split into two branches: the northern plateau region and the central part of the country. The group consists of seven ethnic clusters with varying characteristics (such as size, customs, and lifestyle).
  5. Omotic speakers in southwest Ethiopia – they practiced hoe cultivation of cereal grains and tubers, and are known for their ritual monarchy. The Omotic is considered the most diversified society, being divided into fifty subgroups with distinct languages and cultures. [17]
Nilo-Saharan language distribution in today's Ethiopia-Sudan border Komuz languages.png
Nilo-Saharan language distribution in today's Ethiopia–Sudan border

The Nilotic peoples of Sudan migrated to Greater Ethiopia in different phases. Pre-Nilotes arrived in Ethiopia about the third millennium BCE. They were mostly agriculturalists who developed the cultivation of sorghum and tuberous plants like enset and yams. Today, they are settled in western parts of Ethiopia namely Berta, Gumuz, and Koma. The second phase of Nilotic migration took place in the first millennium BCE. They are marked by cattle raising, millet cultivation, and dualistic social organization. Their settlement constitutes the western periphery of Ethiopia. The Nilotic represents two tribes, known as Anyuak and Nuer. [18]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afroasiatic languages</span> Large language family of Africa and West Asia

The Afroasiatic languages, also known as Hamito-Semitic or Semito-Hamitic, are a language family of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch.

<i>Ardipithecus</i> Extinct genus of hominins

Ardipithecus is a genus of an extinct hominine that lived during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene epochs in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Originally described as one of the earliest ancestors of humans after they diverged from the chimpanzees, the relation of this genus to human ancestors and whether it is a hominin is now a matter of debate. Two fossil species are described in the literature: A. ramidus, which lived about 4.4 million years ago during the early Pliocene, and A. kadabba, dated to approximately 5.6 million years ago. Initial behavioral analysis indicated that Ardipithecus could be very similar to chimpanzees, however more recent analysis based on canine size and lack of canine sexual dimorphism indicates that Ardipithecus was characterised by reduced aggression, and that they more closely resemble bonobos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cushitic languages</span> Branch of Afroasiatic native to East Africa

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, Saho, and Sidama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omotic languages</span> Language family of Ethiopia

The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Geʽez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have complex tonal systems. The languages have around 6.2 million speakers. The group is generally classified as belonging to the Afroasiatic language family, but this is disputed by some.

<i>Australopithecus anamensis</i> Extinct hominin from Pliocene east Africa

Australopithecus anamensis is a hominin species that lived approximately between 4.2 and 3.8 million years ago and is the oldest known Australopithecus species, living during the Plio-Pleistocene era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern South Arabian languages</span> Group of South Semitic languages of Arabia and Socotra

The Modern South Arabian languages (MSALs), also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, the Western branch, they form the South Semitic sub-branch of the Afroasiatic language family's Semitic branch.

Proto-Afroasiatic (PAA), also known as Proto-Hamito-Semitic, Proto-Semito-Hamitic, and Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars to have been spoken as a single language around 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, that is, between 16,000 and 10,000 BC. Although no consensus exists as to the location of the Afroasiatic homeland, the putative homeland of Proto-Afroasiatic speakers, the majority of scholars agree that it was located within a region of Northeast Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim D. White</span> American paleoanthropologist

Tim D. White is an American paleoanthropologist and Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for leading the team which discovered Ardi, the type specimen of Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4 million-year-old likely human ancestor. Prior to that discovery, his early career was notable for his work on Lucy as Australopithecus afarensis with discoverer Donald Johanson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle Awash</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site in Ethiopia

The Middle Awash is a paleoanthropological research area in the northwest corner of Gabi Rasu in the Afar Region along the Awash River in Ethiopia's Afar Depression. It is a unique natural laboratory for the study of human origins and evolution and a number of fossils of the earliest hominins, particularly of the Australopithecines, as well as some of the oldest known Olduwan stone artifacts, have been found at the site—all of late Miocene, the Pliocene, and the very early Pleistocene times, that is, about 5.6 million years ago (mya) to 2.5 mya. It is broadly thought that the divergence of the lines of the earliest humans (hominins) and of chimpanzees (hominids) was completed near the beginning of that time range, or sometime between seven and five mya. However, the larger community of scientists provide several estimates for periods of divergence that imply a greater range for this event, see CHLCA: human-chimpanzee split.

Aramis is a village and archaeological site in north-eastern Ethiopia, where remains of Australopithecus and Ardipithecus have been found. The village is located in Administrative Zone 5 of the Afar Region, which is part of the Afar Sultanate of Dawe, with a latitude and longitude of 10°30′N40°30′E, and is part of the, Carri Rasuk, Xaale Faagê Daqaara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yohannes Haile-Selassie</span> Ethiopian paleoanthropologist

Yohannes Haile-SelassieAmbaye is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist. An authority on pre-Homo sapiens hominids, he particularly focuses his attention on the East African Rift and Middle Awash valleys. He was curator of Physical Anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History from 2002 until 2021, and now is serving as the director of the Arizona State University Institute of Human Origins. Since founding the institute in 1981, he has been the third director after Donald Johanson and William Kimbel.

Harold Crane Fleming was an anthropologist and historical linguist specializing in the cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he stresses the integration of physical anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, and cultural anthropology in solving anthropological problems.

<i>Ardipithecus kadabba</i> Hominin fossil

Ardipithecus kadabba is the scientific classification given to fossil remains "known only from teeth and bits and pieces of skeletal bones", originally estimated to be 5.8 to 5.2 million years old, and later revised to 5.77 to 5.54 million years old. According to the first description, these fossils are close to the common ancestor of chimps and humans. Their development lines are estimated to have parted 6.5–5.5 million years ago. It has been described as a "probable chronospecies" of A. ramidus. Although originally considered a subspecies of A. ramidus, in 2004 anthropologists Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Gen Suwa, and Tim D. White published an article elevating A. kadabba to species level on the basis of newly discovered teeth from Ethiopia. These teeth show "primitive morphology and wear pattern" which demonstrate that A. kadabba is a distinct species from A. ramidus.

<i>Ardipithecus ramidus</i> Extinct hominin from Early Pliocene Ethiopia

Ardipithecus ramidus is a species of australopithecine from the Afar region of Early Pliocene Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago (mya). A. ramidus, unlike modern hominids, has adaptations for both walking on two legs (bipedality) and life in the trees (arboreality). However, it would not have been as efficient at bipedality as humans, nor at arboreality as non-human great apes. Its discovery, along with Miocene apes, has reworked academic understanding of the chimpanzee–human last common ancestor from appearing much like modern-day chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas to being a creature without a modern anatomical cognate.

The Aroid or Ari-Banna languages possibly belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Ethiopia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Afroasiatic homeland</span> Hypothetical linguistic homeland of the Proto-Afroasiatic language

The Proto-Afroasiatic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today mostly distributed in parts of Africa, and Western Asia.

Ardi (ARA-VP-6/500) is the designation of the fossilized skeletal remains of an Ardipithecus ramidus, thought to be an early human-like female anthropoid 4.4 million years old. It is the most complete early hominid specimen, with most of the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet, more complete than the previously known Australopithecus afarensis specimen called "Lucy." In all, 125 different pieces of fossilized bone were found.

Gen Suwa is a Japanese paleoanthropologist. He is known for his contributions to the understanding of the evolution of early hominids, including the discovery of a tooth from a hominid that was more than one million years older than the oldest previously known hominid. The discovery changed scientific opinion regarding the ancestral splits between humans, chimps and gorillas.

The savannah hypothesis is a hypothesis that human bipedalism evolved as a direct result of human ancestors' transition from an arboreal lifestyle to one on the savannas. According to the hypothesis, hominins left the woodlands that had previously been their natural habitat millions of years ago and adapted to their new habitat by walking upright.

The Middle Awash Project is an international research expedition conducted in the Afar region of Ethiopia with the goal of determining the origins of humanity. The project has the approval of the Ethiopian Culture Ministry and a strong commitment to developing Ethiopian archaeology, paleontology and geology research infrastructure. This project has discovered over 260 fossil specimens and over 17,000 vertebrate fossil specimens to date ranging from 200,000 to 6,000,000 years in age. Researchers have discovered the remains of four hominin species, the earliest subspecies of homo sapiens as well as stone tools. All specimens are permanently held at the National Museum of Ethiopia, where the project’s laboratory work is conducted year round.

References

  1. 1 2 Mcdougall, I.; Brown, H.; Fleagle, G. (Feb 2005). "Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia" (PDF). Nature. 433 (7027): 733–36. Bibcode:2005Natur.433..733M. doi:10.1038/nature03258. PMID   15716951. S2CID   1454595.
  2. 1 2 Briggs, Philip (2018-12-10). Ethiopia. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN   978-1-78477-099-0.
  3. ↑ "Pre-Historic Ethiopia". 2021-11-29. Archived from the original on 29 November 2021. Retrieved 2022-04-23.
  4. ↑ "Ardipithecus ramidus". The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
  5. ↑ Gish, Steven; Thay, Winnie; Latif, Zawiah Abdul (2016-12-15). Ethiopia: Third Edition. Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC. ISBN   978-1-5026-2211-2.
  6. ↑ Slikkerveer (2013-10-28). Plural Medical Systems In The Horn Of Africa: The Legacy Of Sheikh Hippocrates. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-136-14330-4.
  7. ↑ Levine, Donald N. (May 2000). Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0-226-47561-5.
  8. ↑ Brandt, Steven A. (1986). "The Upper Pleistocene and Early Holocene Prehistory of the Horn of Africa". The African Archaeological Review. 4: 41–82. doi:10.1007/BF01117035. ISSN   0263-0338. JSTOR   25130464. S2CID   162763229.
  9. 1 2 3 Levine 2000, p. 27.
  10. ↑ Negash, Agazi; Alene, Mulugeta; Asrat, Asfawossen; Nash, Barbara (May 2021). "Obsidian from the northern sector of the Main Ethiopian Rift: implications for archeology". Journal of Quaternary Science. 36 (4): 664–671. Bibcode:2021JQS....36..664N. doi:10.1002/jqs.3309. ISSN   0267-8179. S2CID   233600844.
  11. ↑ Gish, Steven; Thay, Winnie; Latif, Zawiah Abdul 2016, pp. 23.
  12. ↑ Gallagher, James P. (1977). "Contemporary Stone Tools in Ethiopia: Implications for Archaeology". Journal of Field Archaeology. 4 (4): 407–414. doi:10.2307/529396. ISSN   0093-4690. JSTOR   529396.
  13. ↑ "Prehistoric Cultural Development". 2021-11-24. Archived from the original on 24 November 2021. Retrieved 2022-04-23.
  14. ↑ Maddox, Gregory (2006). Sub-Saharan Africa: An Environmental History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN   978-1-85109-555-1.
  15. ↑ Hodge, Carleton T. (1983). "Afroasiatic: The Horizon and beyond". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 74 (2): 137–158. doi:10.2307/1454381. ISSN   0021-6682. JSTOR   1454381.
  16. ↑ Levine 2000, p. 28.
  17. ↑ Levine 2000, p. 29.
  18. ↑ Levine 2000, p. 31.
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