Anthropology Publications
Recent Submissions
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Entwined African and Asian genetic roots of medieval peoples of the Swahili coast
(2023)The urban peoples of the Swahili coast traded across eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean and were among the first practitioners of Islam among sub-Saharan people1,2. The extent to which these early interactions between Africans and non-Africans were accompanied by genetic exchange remains unknown. Here we report ancient DNA data for 80 individuals ... -
Igbo-Ukwu Textiles: AMS Dating and Fiber Analysis
(2022)Thurstan Shaw’s excavations at Igbo-Ukwu revealed many artifacts and technologies that remain astonishing, unique, and incompletely understood, both within Africa and more broadly, even after 50 years. Among these are the textiles recovered primarily from Igbo Isaiah, where fragments were preserved by contact with the bronze artifacts gathered in ... -
Reassessing the role of carnivores in the formation of FLK North 3 (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania): A pilot taphonomic analysis using Artificial Intelligence tools
(2023)FLK North (FLK N) (Bed I, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania) is one of the best examples of a palimpsest where felids, hyenids and hominins made use of the same space without or with minimal interaction between hominins and the other two carnivores. Felids have been interpreted as the main accumulators and carcass consumers followed by frequent hyenid intervention. ... -
A taphonomic analysis of PTK (Bed I, Olduvai Gorge) and its bearing on the interpretation of the dietary and eco-spatial behaviors of early humans
(2023)Here, we present a thorough taphonomic analysis of the 1.84 million-year-old site of Phillip Tobias Korongo (PTK), Bed I, Olduvai Gorge. PTK is one of the new archaeological sites documented on the FLK Zinj paleolandscape, in which FLK 22 level was deposited and covered by Tuff IC. Therefore, PTK is pene-contemporary with these sites: FLK Zinj, DS, ... -
Computer vision supports primary access to meat by early Homo 1.84 million years ago
(2022)Human carnivory is atypical among primates. Unlike chimpanzees and bonobos, who are known to hunt smaller monkeys and eat them immediately, human foragers often cooperate to kill large animals and transport them to a safe location to be shared. While it is known that meat became an important part of the hominin diet around 2.6–2 Mya, whether intense ... -
The Dorothy Garrod Site: a new Middle Stone Age locality in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
(2022)Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) is a key site for the study of human evolution as well as the origin of modern humans and the Middle Stone Age (MSA). In this study, we present a new MSA location named Dorothy Garrod Site (DGS), found in the main branch of Olduvai Gorge. The site has only one archaeological level, located stratigraphically in the Upper Ndutu. ... -
Neo-taphonomic analysis of the Misiam leopard lair from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania): understanding leopard–hyena interactions in open settings
(2022)Misiam is a modern wildebeest-dominated accumulation situated in a steep ravine covered with dense vegetation at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). It is interpreted here as a leopard lair to which carcasses have been transported for several years. Felid-specific bone damage patterns, felid-typical skeletal part profiles, taxonomic specialization and the ... -
Sabertooth carcass consumption behavior and the dynamics of Pleistocene large carnivoran guilds
(2022)Apex predators play an important role in the top-down regulation of ecological communities. Their hunting and feeding behaviors influence, respectively, prey demography and the availability of resources to other consumers. Among the most iconic—and enigmatic—terrestrial predators of the late Cenozoic are the Machairodontinae, a diverse group of big ... -
Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat (Rattus rattus) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history
(2022)The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population ... -
Diet, economy, and culinary practices at the height of precolonial Swahili urbanism
(2022)Swahili cuisine is known across Africa and globally as a highly distinctive product of a cosmopolitan, coastal, urban society. Here we present a comprehensive study of precolonial Swahili diet and culinary practices at the coastal town of Songo Mnara, positioning archaeological and ethnographic understandings of cuisine in a long-term coastal tradition. ... -
Confident futures: Community-based organizations as first responders and agents of change in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic
(2022)This comparative study of community organizations serving marginalized youth in New York City and Amsterdam utilized a novel ethnographic approach called reverse engineering to identify techniques for social change that are active in each organization, adaptable and translatable to other contexts. It found that youth-serving organizations led flexible ... -
Spillers's baby, anthropology's maybe: A postgenomic reckoning
(2021)This article is a meditation on the state of anthropological studies of race in the postgenomic era through its particular analytical obsession with the resurrection of biological racism as presumably embodied by genetic African ancestry. Drawing on Hortense Spillers' psychoanalytic framework on race, this essay argues that the failures ascribed to ... -
Equids can also make stone artefacts
(2021)Identifying how early humans flaked stone tools is one of the crucial elements in hominin evolution. Here, we show that equids can sometimes also produce equally complex cores with conchoidal breakages that exhibit the characteristics of intentionally-flaked hominin artefacts by bipolar technique and methods. As a result, sharp edged flakes with ... -
Collagen fingerprinting traces the introduction of caprines to island Eastern Africa
(2021)The human colonization of eastern Africa's near- and offshore islands was accompanied by the translocation of several domestic, wild and commensal fauna, many of which had long-term impacts on local environments. To better understand the timing and nature of the introduction of domesticated caprines (sheep and goat) to these islands, this study applied ... -
Indigenous Midwives and the Biomedical System among the Karamojong of Uganda: Introducing the Partnership Paradigm
(2021)Certainly there can be no argument against every woman being attended at birth by a skilled birth attendant. Currently, as elsewhere, the Ugandan government favours a biomedical model of care to achieve this aim, even though the logistical realities mitigate against its realisation. This article addresses the traditional midwives of the Karamojong ... -
The Impacts of COVID-19 on US Maternity Care Practices: A Followup Study
(2021)This article extends the findings of a rapid response article researched in April 2020 to illustrate how providers’ practices and attitudes towards COVID-19 had shifted in response to better evidence, increased experience, and improved guidance on how SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 impacted maternity care in the US. This article is based on a review of ... -
Iron Age hunting and herding in coastal eastern Africa: ZooMS identification of domesticates and wild bovids at Panga ya Saidi, Kenya
(2021)The morphological differentiation of African bovids in highly fragmented zooarchaeological assemblages is a major hindrance to reconstructing the nature and spread of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa. Here we employ collagen peptide mass fingerprinting, known as Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), coupled with recently published African ...
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