Early agriculture and crop transitions at Kakapel Rockshelter in the Lake Victoria region of eastern Africa

Abstract

The histories of African crops remain poorly understood despite their contemporary importance. Integration of crops from western, eastern and northern Africa probably first occurred in the Great Lakes Region of eastern Africa; however, little is known about when and how these agricultural systems coalesced. This article presents archaeobotanical analyses from an approximately 9000-year archaeological sequence at Kakapel Rockshelter in western Kenya, comprising the largest and most extensively dated archaeobotanical record from the interior of equatorial eastern Africa. Direct radiocarbon dates on carbonized seeds document the presence of the West African crop cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp) approximately 2300 years ago, synchronic with the earliest date for domesticated cattle ( Bos taurus ). Peas ( Pisum sativum L. or Pisum abyssinicum A. Braun) and sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) from the northeast and eastern African finger millet ( Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) are incorporated later, by at least 1000 years ago. Combined with ancient DNA evidence from Kakapel and the surrounding region, these data support a scenario in which the use of diverse domesticated species in eastern Africa changed over time rather than arriving and being maintained as a single package. Findings highlight the importance of local heterogeneity in shaping the spread of food production in sub-Saharan Africa.