Project Database

Abstract:

This first survey of rock shelters and settlements in the Bale Mountains in Ethiopia is a baseline assessment for further research into the settlement history of Africa’s largest alpine highlands. Extensive GPS-based mapping and interviews resulted in two detailed maps, a catalogue of profiles, and complete photographic documentation. In total, 331 rock shelters (four permanently inhabited, 51 seasonally inhabited, and 276 currently uninhabited) and 870 settlements (207 permanently inhabited, 449 seasonally inhabited, 214 uninhabited) were recorded together with information about the activities and livelihoods of the inhabitants of the current settlements. This 2015 study was part of the Ethiopian-European research project “The mountain exile hypothesis – how humans benefited from and re-shaped African high-altitude ecosystems during Quaternary climate changes” (DFG FOR 2358). It was designed to support future management plans in this internationally important conservation area that has recently faced increasing land-use pressure and the threat of degradation.

Abstract:

The high-altitude regions of African tropical environments are among the least studied areas regarding the dispersal and colonization of anatomically modern humans across and out of Africa. Human colonization of high altitude regions is considered a relatively recent process, not least as high-altitude environments are usually perceived as unfavorable for human subsistence and are believed to have functioned as a migration barrier due to their physiological and ecological challenges, including high-altitude hypoxia, cold stress and lack of sufficient resources. Although it is not yet clear when and how human population dispersed into the high-altitude mountains of tropical Africa, our new findings suggest that specialized hunter-gatherer successfully colonized and exploited a wide range of ‘harsh’ landscapes of the Bale Mountains (>3800m asl) in the southeastern Ethiopian Highlands during the Late and Terminal Pleistocene up to Middle and Late Holocene. Moreover, ongoing archaeological research in the northwestern part of the Bale Mountains provides new perspectives on human colonization of high-altitude tropical environments and the relationship between human adaptation and climate changes at least during three separate time periods between 31,000 cal. BP and 4,000 cal BP.

Abstract:

Long-held views of high-altitudes as natural ecosystems characterized by late anthropogenic transformation processes have recently been challenged by studies carried out on the world’s high plateaus. This is all the more relevant in light of the demanding question where prehistoric populations retreated to, especially during arid intervals, when lowlands may have become uninhabitable. In this presentation we introduce an interdisciplinary approach for the reconstruction of Quaternary abiotic, biotic and cultural changes in African model highland environments of southern Ethiopia. The Bale Mountains represent the largest afro-alpine ecosystem of the continent. They are characterized by a very high biodiversity including a large number of endemic species and they host relevant archives to reconstruct the coupled landscape and human history. First results of a joint Ethio-European research unit (“The Mountain Exile Hypothesis”, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) summarized here, comprise archeological, archeozoological, soil biogeochemical and glacial chronological studies and concentrate on the earliest human occupation and persistent use of the available resources. The Bale Mountains feature the oldest evidence for humans in high-altitudes. Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers must have been very familiar with the then glaciated environment. In immediate vicinity to valley glaciers, high-quality obsidian was regularly and repeatedly extracted from primary outcrops located above 4200 m asl, the highest known occurrences in Ethiopia. Settlement and subsistence activities concentrated on the ice-free areas with access to melt-water. Prehistoric foragers were moreover capable of developing unique subsistence strategies for sustainable and continuous survival and to satisfy the higher caloric demands of living in these altitudes. The associated Middle Stone Age material culture shows the existence of networks to lowlands, but at the same time exhibit the development of distinctive and independent technological traditions.

Abstract:

Studies of early human settlement in alpine environments provide insights into human physiological, genetic, and cultural adaptation potentials. Although Late and even Middle Pleistocene human presence has been recently documented on the Tibetan Plateau, little is known regarding the nature and context of early persistent human settlement in high elevations. Here, we report the earliest evidence of a prehistoric high-altitude residential site. Located in Africa’s largest alpine ecosystem, the repeated occupation of Fincha Habera rock shelter is dated to 47 to 31 thousand years ago.The available resources in cold and glaciated environments included the exploitation of an endemic rodent as a key food source, and this played a pivotal role in facilitating the occupation of this site by Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers.