ArticlePloS one2018
The archaeological evidence for the appearance of pastoralism and farming in southern Africa.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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25 citing papers in PubMed, 116 citations in OpenAlex.
- A catalogue of early diverged contemporary human genome variation reveals distinct Khoe-San populations.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Insights into human history and complex traits from the genomes of African populations.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Review
- The Indian Ocean slave trade and colonial expansion resulted in strong sex-biased admixture in South Africa.American journal of human genetics · 2025Article
- Wide-scale geographical analysis of genetic ancestry in the South African Coloured population.BMC biology · 2025Article
- History and genetic diversity of African sheep: Contrasting phenotypic and genomic diversity.Animal genetics · 2025Review
- Tracing contact and migration in pre-Bantu Southern Africa through lexical borrowing.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- BaTwa populations from Zambia retain ancestry of past hunter-gatherer groups.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Early agriculture and crop transitions at Kakapel Rockshelter in the Lake Victoria region of eastern Africa.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Whole genomes from Angola and Mozambique inform about the origins and dispersals of major African migrations.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Genome-wide variation in the Angolan Namib Desert reveals unique pre-Bantu ancestry.Science advances · 2023Article
- Chemical evidence for milk, meat, and marine resource processing in Later Stone Age pots from Namaqualand, South Africa.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Genomic perspectives on human dispersals during the Holocene.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Maternal Relationships among Ancient and Modern Southern African Sheep: Newly Discovered Mitochondrial Haplogroups.Biology · 2022Article
- Male-biased migration from East Africa introduced pastoralism into southern Africa.BMC biology · 2021Article
- Bantu-speaker migration and admixture in southern Africa.Human molecular genetics · 2021Review
- The genomic prehistory of peoples speaking Khoisan languages.Human molecular genetics · 2021Review
- Genetic substructure and complex demographic history of South African Bantu speakers.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Palaeoproteomics confirm earliest domesticated sheep in southern Africa ca. 2000 BP.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Palaeoproteomics gives new insight into early southern African pastoralism.Scientific reports · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This paper is a response to the growing reference to archaeological evidence by linguists and geneticists interested in the spread of early farmers and pastoralists in southern Africa. It presents two databases. The first contains the archaeological evidence for pastoralism and farming in southern Africa, for the period 550 BC to AD 1050. This is the first time that the seven different types of archaeological evidence that have traditionally been used to identify both spread events are presented together at this scale. This was stimulated by our interest in investigating the antiquity of an early 'Iron Age package' relative to the spread of single archaeological traits. The analysis shows that the package appears approximately 700 years after sites containing pottery, cattle and sheep, without agriculture, appear in the drier parts of the sub-continent. It post-dates the appearance of earlier sites with pottery associated with farmers, metal-working and cultivation in the eastern half of the sub-continent. While poor preservation undoubtedly explains the absence of some parts of the package, the analysis suggests that other explanations should be considered. The second database is a quantitative, spatial study of archaeological publications on southern African farming and pastoralism for the period 1950 to 2016, covering the same geographical area and archaeological timeframe. This is presented as a proxy for research-intensive areas in attempt to show the gaps in archaeological fieldwork and knowledge.
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