New Study Reveals Ancient Crops in East Africa
A recent archaeological breakthrough in Kenya is rewriting the history of plant farming in equatorial eastern Africa, Excel Magazine International has discovered.
For decades, the region has been considered a crucial area for early agriculture, yet tangible evidence from ancient crops has been scant. However, a newly published study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B on July 10 (today) offers the largest and most precisely dated archaeobotanical record from interior east Africa, changing the narrative.
Conducted by archaeologists from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Pittsburgh, and their colleagues, the research was centered at the Kakapel Rockshelter in Kenya’s Lake Victoria region. The site has a rich archaeological history, reflecting over 9,000 years of human occupation.
Natalie Mueller, an assistant professor of archaeology at WashU and co-first author of the study, highlighted the significance of their findings: “We found a huge assemblage of plants, including many crop remains. This challenges modern stereotypes about Africa, showing a rich history of diverse and flexible farming systems.”
The most notable discovery is the remnants of cowpea (black-eyed pea), directly dated to 2,300 years ago. This is the earliest documented evidence of a domesticated crop in eastern Africa.
Cowpea, presumed to have originated in west Africa, likely arrived in the Lake Victoria basin with Bantu-speaking migrants from central Africa.
Emmanuel Ndiema from the National Museums of Kenya, a project partner, remarked, “Our findings reveal the earliest evidence of domesticated crops in east Africa, reflecting the dynamic interactions between local herders and incoming Bantu-speaking farmers.”
Other significant findings include:
Sorghum: Arrived from the northeast at least 1,000 years ago.
Finger Millet: Indigenous to eastern Africa, with seeds dating back to at least 1,000 years ago.
Field Pea (Pisum): An unusual crop in this region, possibly introduced via trade routes through Sudan or Ethiopia.
Excel Magazine International further learnt Mueller employed a flotation technique to separate plant remains from hearth debris, a method not widely used in water-scarce east Africa.
The team used direct radiocarbon dating on carbonized seeds to establish the timeline of crop introductions. Despite the success, many plant remnants couldn’t be positively identified due to the lack of a comprehensive reference collection of east African plants. Mueller is working on building such a collection in Tanzania.
This study not only provides a clearer picture of early agriculture in east Africa but also has broader implications for various fields, including historical linguistics, plant science, and genetics.
Mueller and her team are continuing their work at Kakapel, focusing on identifying wild plants from the site’s oldest layers, predating agriculture. “This is where human evolution occurred,” Mueller said. “If we can get information about which plants hunter-gatherers were eating, it would be a great contribution.”
