Livestock Husbandry, Pastoralisms, and Territoriality: The West African Record

ISSN： 0278-4165

Source： Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Vol.17, Iss.2, 1998-06, pp. : 143-165

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Abstract

Evidence for livestock found in West African Holocene sites are considered in relation to patterns of settlement distribution in the context of changing climatic circumstances. The development of livestock husbandry appears to coincide with the advent of a drier Middle Holocene climatic, followed by a relatively fast expansion all over West Africa. Pastoral-nomadic strategies developed in the northern Saharan part are hardly distinguishable from Late Stone Age settlement-subsistence traditions, while genuine agro-pastoral systems emerged in the south, along the Sahara-Sahel margins. In all the cases, stone tumuli burials, rock art stations, and intermittent or permanent settlements were used as de facto territorial markers, effective signposts of West African Collector, herder, and peasant territoriality. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.