Dynamic human-animal-environment relationships at two Later Stone Age sites in Holocene southeastern Uganda
| dc.contributor.author | Jones, Mica.B | |
| dc.contributor.author | Tibesasa, Ruth | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-12-18T01:54:02Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-12-18T01:54:02Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter-gatherers in the northeastern Lake Victoria Basin are key for understanding human-environment relationships, societal diversity and inter-group interactions in Holocene East Africa. Scholars have linked increasingly seasonal fishing and land-use strategies, the incorporation of small numbers of domesticated animals and a reliance on ‘Kansyore’-style pottery to delayed-return forager economic systems at sites in western Kenya and eastern Uganda c. 9–2000 years ago (kya). However, sparse datasets and interpretive models that divide the sequence into broad phases obscure localised LSA variability during this period. To explore finer-grained economic and environmental patterns among Kansyore tradition sites, this paper examines radiometric, archaeozoological and carbon isotopic data from two neighbouring LSA shell middens in southeastern Uganda, namely Namaboni B and Namundiri A. Radiocarbon dates provide a diachronic framework for tracking fishing, hunting and vegetation patterns between 9.3 and 5.6 kya. Fish bones indicate a transition to diversified fishing strategies at the lake after c. 7 kya. This shift corresponds with evidence for increased hunting pressure and reduced C4 grass cover along the shoreline. These findings show local differences in the ways LSA groups engaged seasonally with lakeshore animals and habitats, highlighting iterative interactions between people and landscapes that influenced regional hunter-gatherer diversity during a period of environmental stability. | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Jones, M. B., & Tibesasa, R. (2025). Dynamic human-animal-environment relationships at two Later Stone Age sites in Holocene southeastern Uganda. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 1-35. | |
| dc.identifier.other | https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2025.2586371 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12493/3039 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Taylor & Francis Group. | |
| dc.rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ | |
| dc.subject | archaeozoology | |
| dc.subject | stable isotopes | |
| dc.subject | hunter-gatherers | |
| dc.subject | shell middens | |
| dc.subject | East Africa | |
| dc.subject | Kansyore | |
| dc.title | Dynamic human-animal-environment relationships at two Later Stone Age sites in Holocene southeastern Uganda | |
| dc.type | Article |