We report the first large-scale palaeoproteomics research on eastern and southern African zooarchaeological samples, thereby refining our understanding of early caprine (sheep and goat) pastoralism in Africa. Assessing caprine introductions is a complicated task because of their skeletal similarity to endemic wild bovid species and the sparse and fragmentary state of relevant archaeological remains. Palaeoproteomics has previously proved effective in clarifying species attributions in African zooarchaeological materials, but few comparative protein sequences of wild bovid species have been available. Using newly generated type I collagen sequences for wild species, as well as previously published sequences, we assess species attributions for elements originally identified as caprine or ‘unidentifiable bovid’ from 17 eastern and southern African sites that span seven millennia. We identified over 70% of the archaeological remains and the direct radiocarbon dating of domesticate specimens allows refinement of the chronology of caprine presence in both African regions. These results thus confirm earlier occurrences in eastern Africa and the systematic association of domesticated caprines with wild bovids at all archaeological sites. The combined biomolecular approach highlights repeatability and accuracy of the methods for conclusive contribution in species attribution of archaeological remains in dry African environments.

Background Supporting children and young people’s (CYP) mental and physical health is a global policy priority but detecting need and facilitating access to health services and support is challenging. This paper explores professional stakeholders’ perspectives of the acceptability, utility and effectiveness of a school-based online health and wellbeing screening tool, the Digital Health Contact (DHC). The DHC, delivered by Public Health School Nurses (PHSN), aims to identify, and put in place strategies to support, unmet health needs among CYP. Methods We employed a qualitative study design, using semi-structured interviews. Fourteen key stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of the DHC (commissioners, providers, PHSN and healthcare staff, school leaders) were purposively sampled. Data were analysed thematically. Results Our analysis generated two key themes: the perceived benefits of the DHC; and challenges in delivering the DHC. Stakeholders perceived the universal application of the DHC with linked follow-up intervention as an effective means of identifying and supporting CYP with unmet needs, and an efficient way to target limited service resources. There were barriers around enabling school engagement in the DHC, typically in terms of logistics, school infrastructure, and perspectives of fit with schools. These barriers were seen as being negated through developing effective working relationships between schools and PHSN. Effective relationships could highlight the potential benefits of participation. Overall, the DHC was seen as a valuable and effective use of resources, with a low burden on school staff. Conclusions The DHC, as a universal school-based health and wellbeing screening tool with linked follow-up intervention, has great potential in identifying and supporting unmet health needs among CYP. The perspectives and experiences of those involved in delivering the DHC highlight important considerations which may enable effective implementation and delivery of school screening programmes across other areas.

Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa 1 – 4 . Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient populations 3 , 5 . Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data for six individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years (doubling the time depth of sub-Saharan African ancient DNA), increase the data quality for 15 previously published ancient individuals and analyse these alongside data from 13 other published ancient individuals. The ancestry of the individuals in our study area can be modelled as a geographically structured mixture of three highly divergent source populations, probably reflecting Pleistocene interactions around 80–20 thousand years ago, including deeply diverged eastern and southern African lineages, plus a previously unappreciated ubiquitous distribution of ancestry that occurs in highest proportion today in central African rainforest hunter-gatherers. Once established, this structure remained highly stable, with limited long-range gene flow. These results provide a new line of genetic evidence in support of hypotheses that have emerged from archaeological analyses but remain contested, suggesting increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene epoch.

The oral microbiome plays key roles in human biology, health, and disease, but little is known about the global diversity, variation, or evolution of this microbial community. To better understand the evolution and changing ecology of the human oral microbiome, we analyzed 124 dental biofilm metagenomes from humans, including Neanderthals and Late Pleistocene to present-day modern humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas, as well as New World howler monkeys for comparison. We find that a core microbiome of primarily biofilm structural taxa has been maintained throughout African hominid evolution, and these microbial groups are also shared with howler monkeys, suggesting that they have been important oral members since before the catarrhine-platyrrhine split ca. 40 Mya. However, community structure and individual microbial phylogenies do not closely reflect host relationships, and the dental biofilms of Homo and chimpanzees are distinguished by major taxonomic and functional differences. Reconstructing oral metagenomes from up to 100 thousand years ago, we show that the microbial profiles of both Neanderthals and modern humans are highly similar, sharing functional adaptations in nutrient metabolism. These include an apparent Homo-specific acquisition of salivary amylase-binding capability by oral streptococci, suggesting microbial coadaptation with host diet. We additionally find evidence of shared genetic diversity in the oral bacteria of Neanderthal and Upper Paleolithic modern humans that is not observed in later modern human populations. Differences in the oral microbiomes of African hominids provide insights into human evolution, the ancestral state of the human microbiome, and a temporal framework for understanding microbial health and disease.

The article The Transition from Hunting–Gathering to Food Production in the Gamo Highlands of Southern Ethiopia

The Boreda elders of southern Ethiopia requested that we create maps highlighting the locations of their historic settlements and sacred groves. Community elders led us along winding footpaths that ascended to nine mountaintops that had been occupied since the early thirteenth century and were abandoned nearly 100 years ago. Surrounding these historic communities are Boreda sacred groves with springs, caves, and boulders that are physical evidence in their Indigenous religion of the animation of the non-human world. Yet, the tree canopies also harbor walls, berms, and trenches that suggest a history of conflict. Thematic maps of these places and their landscapes illustrate the strategic alignment of Boreda sacred-fortified forested monuments, which spatially correspond to their oral traditions and histories recounting their resistance against neighboring slave raiders and the Northern Ethiopian state. By integrating precise spatial relationships with community knowledge of places and histories, we demonstrate the power of this knowledge in documenting precolonial histories.

The landscape of the Chencha Highland (south western Ethiopia) is characterized by flat plateau bordered by steep slopes affected by landslides and dissected by concave valleys and gullies. Coalescing alluvial fans are found along the eastern piedmont at the transition to the Lake Abaya shores. A major rift-plateau escarpment, with minor synthetic and antithetic faults, is located along the eastern slopes of the highlands. Soil erosion is a widespread process and the soil cover is usually thin and discontinuous. Immature Cambisols formed on colluvial deposits containing lithic tools, pottery fragments and charcoal represent the most recent phase of soil formation. They are related to the clearance of the original forest cover and the introduction of extensive agricultural and pastoral practices. On the slopes these soils locally unconformably overlie reddish, strongly weathered buried Nitisols and Luvisols that can be classified as Palaeoedlisols with formation of saprolite. Thicker and better preserved Palaeoeldisols can be found on the summit plateau, due to reduced runoff erosion. Different generations of clay illuviation indicate that they underwent polycyclic processes, recording soil processes probably older than Holocene. Along the slopes, gully erosion exhumed a palaeo-gully system infilled by colluviums of soils and buried soils containing Middle Stone Age artifacts suggesting that important slope degradational processes occurred also during the Late Pleistocene. Buried brownish soils in these infillings show moderate clay illuviation that indicates short-lived climatic amelioration and phases of slope stability.

The Omotic-speaking Gamo represent one of the southern Ethiopia societies that are organized in a widely recognized caste system. The history of this society and the development of its caste organization are still largely unknown. Between 2006 and 2012, we organized a collaborative project with people of the Gamo district of Boreda in an effort to combine their oral traditions and life histories with archaeological investigations regarding the history of their present-day caste system. Elders claimed nine mountain-top landscapes as the original locations for Boreda settlement. One of these settlements, Garu, is an abandoned historic village site of about 60 hectares that was occupied during the 18th-19th century CE. Archaeozoological results from Garu suggest some continuity in the practices of leatherworkers particularly in their access to specific animal parts for consumption and processing. From a methodological point of view, this study illustrates how atypical data can be used to understand the diversity of animal use and provide original leads in the interpretation of prehistoric sites elsewhere. Importantly, cattle remains from Garu indicate the earliest evidence of Zebu cattle from southern Ethiopia dating to the mid-18th century.

This article focuses on our collaboration with the Boreda of southern Ethiopia to document the ways in which their cultural heritage knowledge is entwined with Ochollo Mulato, one of their nine tangible senior ancestral landscapes or Bayira Deriya. Through the interface between oral traditions, life histories, and the archaeological record, we grew increasingly aware of the descendant community's wide range of alternative but equally valid memories and attachments to their ancestral lands. Articulated through the landscape at Ochollo Mulato, Boreda demonstrated to us the various historical paths for defending assertions of seniority between youths and elders and between farmers and craft-specialists.

Ancient African helps to explain the present Tracing the migrations of anatomically modern humans has been complicated by human movements both out of and into Africa, especially in relatively recent history. Gallego Llorente et al. sequenced an Ethiopian individual, “Mota,” who lived approximately 4500 years ago, predating one such wave of individuals into Africa from Eurasia. The genetic information from Mota suggests that present-day Sardinians were the likely source of the Eurasian backflow. Furthermore, 4 to 7% of most African genomes, including Yoruba and Mbuti Pygmies, originated from this Eurasian gene flow. Science , this issue p. 820

Citation only. Full text is available through publisher’s web site at http://blog.aaanet.org/2015/10/14/bayira-an-ancient-ethiopian-skeletal-provides-the-earliest-african-genome/

This volume focuses on flaked lithic tools from surface collections and excavated assemblages in the Aksum area in Tigray, northern Ethiopia.The study reported in the volume concerns descriptions of lithic material documented as part of several archaeological surveys carried out by the author and colleagues over more than a decade and from a number of surface collections and excavation assemblages from Bieta Giyorgis Hill, surveyed and excavated by a Boston University and University of Naples 'l'Orientale' project.The volume does not cover in detail excavated lithic material from the 1993-1997 excavations at Aksum sponsored by the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), as this material has been published elsewhere, and does not consider ground stone artifacts.Even without detailed consideration of the 1993-1997 BIEA lithic and ground stone material, the volume presents important insights into the production of lithic tools during the rise and development of sociopolitical complexity in the region between the early first millennium BC and late first millennium AD.While this time period, traditionally encompassing the Pre-Aksumite to early Post-Aksumite periods, is arguably the best studied period in the Holocene archaeology of the Horn of Africa, and the Aksum area is the most closely investigated region in Ethiopia, relatively little attention has been given over the years to the ways that flaked lithic artifacts were produced, utilized, and incorporated into local and regional economies and cultures of the Aksum area and wider highlands of the northern Horn.Therefore, the volume under review provides a most welcome contribution to an under-published and under-analyzed aspect of the region's archaeology.The volume includes six chapters, several simple maps, dozens of drawn lithic illustrations, a short glossary of terms used, a bibliography, and a series of 15 plates containing close-up black and white photos of lithic forms and macroscopic wear on individual artifacts.Chapter 1 serves as a sort of preface and is guest-authored by Rodolfo Fattovich, providing a brief overview of research carried out in the Aksum