Luxmanda

Last updated
Luxmanda
Tanzania relief location map.svg
Archaeological site icon (red).svg
Site location in Tanzania
Location Babati District,
Manyara Region,
Flag of Tanzania.svg  Tanzania
RegionEastern Africa
Coordinates 4°15′24″S35°18′38″E / 4.25667°S 35.31056°E / -4.25667; 35.31056
TypeSettlement
History
PeriodsNeolithic
Site notes
ConditionCritically Endangered
OwnershipTanzanian Government
ManagementAntiquities Division, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism [1]
Official nameLuxmanda Prehistoric Site
TypeCultural

Luxmanda is an archaeological site located in the north-central Babati District of Tanzania. It was discovered in 2012. Excavations in the area have identified it as the largest and southernmost settlement site of the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic (SPN), [2] an archaeologically-recognized pastoralist culture centered in eastern Africa during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 5000–1200 BP). [2] Radiocarbon dating of charcoal, human collagen, and organic matter in ceramic artifacts indicate that Luxmanda was occupied between 3,200 to 2,900 years ago. [2] Ceramics (of the Narosura type), lithics, worked bone, ivory, and ostrich eggshell assemblages in addition to livestock and human bones have been recovered from the Luxmanda site. [3] Large grinding stones have also been found, though their function remains uncertain. The people of Luxmanda were highly specialized pastoralists, relying on cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys for subsistence. [2] Their linguistic affiliation is unknown, but some historical linguists have speculated that the peoples of the SPN spoke Cushitic languages. The Pastoral Neolithic was followed by the Pastoral Iron Age and the Bantu Expansion. [4]

Ancient DNA analysis

Admixture clustering analysis of a 3,100 year old female infant skeleton exhumed at Luxmanda found that the individual carried approximately 38±1% of her ancestry related to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture of the Levant. [5] New genetic data from Luxmanda suggest that this affinity is likely due to either migration into Africa of descendants of pre-pottery farmers from the Levant, or common descent from a non-African ancestral population that inhabited Africa or the Near East several millennia before. All the males tested for Y chromosomal DNA clustered with E1b1b subclades, with two yielding ambivalent A1b subclades due to insufficient collagen.

The African part of Luxmanda individual's ancestry was fitted as being most closely related to a hunter-gatherer population that inhabited Ethiopia ca. 4,500 BP (under a two-population admixture scenario, with inferred ancestry proportions of 62.2–62.8% for the hunter-gather component and 37.2-37.8% for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B component) or also from a population related to the Dinka (under a three-population admixture scenario, with an inferred ancestry proportion of 39% ± 1% Levantine-related ancestry). [6] Furthermore, haplogroup analysis indicated that the Luxmanda specimen bore the haplogroup L2a1 (mtDNA). Scientists had previously dated the arrival of Western Eurasian-related ancestry in eastern Africa, which is now pervasive in the region, to around 3000 BP on average. The new genetic data suggest that the makers of the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic were responsible for spreading ancient Levant-related ancestry in the lacustrine region, where they had established new settlements. The Luxmanda individual's population also likely introduced herding to southern Africa, since a 1,200 year old pastoralist individual from the Western Cape was found to bear affinities with the Luxmanda sample. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funnelbeaker culture</span> North-central European culture around 4300–2800 BCE

The Funnel(-neck-)beaker culture, in short TRB or TBK was an archaeological culture in north-central Europe. It developed as a technological merger of local neolithic and mesolithic techno-complexes between the lower Elbe and middle Vistula rivers. These predecessors were the (Danubian) Lengyel-influenced Stroke-ornamented ware culture (STK) groups/Late Lengyel and Baden-Boleráz in the southeast, Rössen groups in the southwest and the Ertebølle-Ellerbek groups in the north. The TRB introduced farming and husbandry as a major source of food to the pottery-using hunter-gatherers north of this line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pre-Pottery Neolithic B</span> Neolithic culture in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant c. 8800–6500 BC

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to c. 10,800 – c. 8,500 years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during her archaeological excavations at Jericho in the West Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cardium pottery</span> Archaeological culture

Cardium pottery or Cardial ware is a Neolithic decorative style that gets its name from the imprinting of the clay with the heart-shaped shell of the Corculum cardissa, a member of the cockle family Cardiidae. These forms of pottery are in turn used to define the Neolithic culture which produced and spread them, commonly called the "Cardial culture".

Haplogroup L2 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup with a widespread modern distribution, particularly in Subequatorial Africa. Its L2a subclade is a somewhat frequent and widely distributed mtDNA cluster on the continent, as well as among those in the Americas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haplogroup F-M89</span> Human Y chromosome DNA grouping indicating common ancestry

Haplogroup F, also known as F-M89 and previously as Haplogroup FT is a very common Y-chromosome haplogroup. The clade and its subclades constitute over 90% of paternal lineages outside of Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haplogroup BT</span> Human Y chromosome DNA grouping indicating common ancestry

Haplogroup BT M91, also known as Haplogroup A1b2, is a Y-chromosome haplogroup. BT is a subclade of haplogroup A1b (P108) and a sibling of the haplogroup A1b1 (L419/PF712).

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African admixture in Europe</span>

African admixture in Europe refers to the presence of human genotypes attributable to periods of human population dispersals out of Africa in the genetic history of Europe. For example, certain Y-DNA and mtDNA lineages are thought to have spread from Northeastern Africa to the Near East during the later Pleistocene, and from there to Europe with the Neolithic Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Savanna Pastoral Neolithic</span> Archaeological cultures of the Rift Valley of East Africa

The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic is a collection of ancient societies that appeared in the Rift Valley of East Africa and surrounding areas during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic. They were South Cushitic speaking pastoralists who tended to bury their dead in cairns, whilst their toolkit was characterized by stone bowls, pestles, grindstones and earthenware pots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pastoral Neolithic</span> Historic site in Tanzania

The Pastoral Neolithic refers to a period in Africa's prehistory, specifically Tanzania and Kenya, marking the beginning of food production, livestock domestication, and pottery use in the region following the Later Stone Age. The exact dates of this time period remain inexact, but early Pastoral Neolithic sites support the beginning of herding by 5000 BP. In contrast to the Neolithic in other parts of the world, which saw the development of farming societies, the first form of African food production was nomadic pastoralism, or ways of life centered on the herding and management of livestock. The shift from hunting to food production relied on livestock that had been domesticated outside of East Africa, especially North Africa. This period marks the emergence of the forms of pastoralism that are still present. The reliance on livestock herding marks the deviation from hunting-gathering but precedes major agricultural development. The exact movement tendencies of Neolithic pastoralists are not completely understood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elmenteitan</span> African Pastoral Neolithic culture

The Elmenteitan culture was a prehistoric lithic industry and pottery tradition with a distinct pattern of land use, hunting and pastoralism that appeared and developed on the western plains of Kenya, East Africa during the Pastoral Neolithic c.3300-1200 BP. It was named by archaeologist Louis Leakey after Lake Elmenteita, a soda lake located in the Great Rift Valley, about 120 km (75 mi) northwest of Nairobi.

Ifri n'Amr Ou Moussa is an archaeological site discovered in 2005, located in the rural commune of Aït Siberne, Khémisset Province, in Western Morocco. This site has revealed burials associated with both Moroccan Early Neolithic and Bell Beaker culture.

Kehf el Baroud, sometimes mistakenly spelled Kelif el Boroud, is an archaeological site in Morocco. It is located to the south of Rabat, near Dar es Soltan.

Early European Farmers (EEF), First European Farmers (FEF), Neolithic European Farmers, Ancient Aegean Farmers, or Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF) are names used to describe a distinct group of early Neolithic farmers who brought agriculture to Europe and Northwest Africa (Maghreb). Although the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe has long been recognised through archaeology, it is only recent advances in archaeogenetics that have confirmed that this spread was strongly correlated with a migration of these farmers, and was not just a cultural exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Hunter-Gatherer</span> Archaeogenetic name for an ancestral genetic component

In archaeogenetics, the term Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), West European Hunter-Gatherer, Western European Hunter-Gatherer, Villabruna cluster, or Oberkassel cluster names a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans, representing descent from a population of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who scattered over Western, Southern and Central Europe, from the British Isles in the west to the Carpathians in the east, following the retreat of the ice sheet of the Last Glacial Maximum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genetic history of Africa</span>

The genetic history of Africa is composed of the overall genetic history of African populations in Africa, including the regional genetic histories of North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa, as well as the recent origin of modern humans in Africa. The Sahara served as a trans-regional passageway and place of dwelling for people in Africa during various humid phases and periods throughout the history of Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of East Africa</span> History of the east African region

The history of East Africa has been divided into its prehistory, the major polities flourishing, the colonial period, and the post-colonial period, in which the current nations were formed. East Africa is the eastern region of Africa, bordered by North Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Sahara Desert. Colonial boundaries are reflected in the modern boundaries between contemporary East African states, cutting across ethnic and cultural lines, often dividing single ethnic groups between two or more states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistoric East Africa</span> Prehistory of the East African subregion of the African continent

The prehistory of East Africa spans from the earliest human presence in the region until the emergence of the Iron Age in East Africa. Between 1,600,000 BP and 1,500,000 BP, the Homo ergaster known as Nariokotome Boy resided near Nariokotome River, Kenya. Modern humans, who left behind remains, resided at Omo Kibish in 233,000 BP. Afro-Asiatic speakers and Nilo-Saharan speakers expanded in East Africa, resulting in transformation of food systems of East Africa. Prehistoric West Africans may have diverged into distinct ancestral groups of modern West Africans and Bantu-speaking peoples in Cameroon, and, subsequently, around 5000 BP, the Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The genetic history of Eastern Africa encompasses the genetic history of the people of Eastern Africa. The Sahara served as a trans-regional passageway and place of dwelling for people in Africa during various humid phases and periods throughout the history of Africa.

The genetic history of Southern Africa encompasses the genetic history of the people of Southern Africa. The Sahara served as a trans-regional passageway and place of dwelling for people in Africa during various humid phases and periods throughout the history of Africa.

References

  1. "Antiquities Division" . Retrieved 21 Jul 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Grillo, Katherine; Prendergast, Mary; et al. (2018). "Pastoral Neolithic settlement at Luxmanda, Tanzania" (PDF). Journal of Field Archaeology. 43 (2): 102–120. doi:10.1080/00934690.2018.1431476. S2CID   135287460.
  3. Langley, Michelle C., Mary E. Prendergast, and Katherine M. Grillo (2017). "Organic technology in the Pastoral Neolithic: osseous and eggshell artefacts from Luxmanda, Tanzania". Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. 11: 1–14. doi:10.1007/s12520-017-0528-z. S2CID   134057537.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Alison Crowther, Mary E. Prendergast, Dorian Q. Fuller, Nicole Boivin (2017). "Subsistence mosaics, forager-farmer interactions, and the transition to food production in eastern Africa". Quaternary International. xxx: 5. Bibcode:2018QuInt.489..101C. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2017.01.014 .{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. 1 2 Skoglund; et al. (September 21, 2017). "Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure". Cell. 171 (1): 59–71. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.049. PMC   5679310 . PMID   28938123.
  6. Skoglund; et al. (September 21, 2017). "Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure". Cell. 171 (1): 59–71. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.049. PMC   5679310 . PMID   28938123. - Table S5. Details of Ancestry Proportions Inferred Using qpAdm, Related to Figure 2