| The Neolithic Revolution, constituting the shift from food acquisition to food production, came relatively late to southern Africa. The first manifestation of the Neolithic Revolution to reach the region was pastoralism practiced by Khoekhoe peoples, who were documented at contact to manage sheep, cattle and dogs. Only the arrival of sheep in the region has been archaeologically well documented: direct radiocarbon dates for sheep in southwestern Africa place their appearance at approximately 2000 years ago.;Establishing the chronology for dogs and cattle in the region has been prevented by osteological similarities between domesticated dogs and black-backed jackals, and between cattle, eland and Cape buffalo. In this study, genetic methods of species identification were applied to canid and bovine archaeological remains to determine a secure separation of wild from domestic specimens. Canid remains from sites containing sheep were all found to be black-backed jackals, a surprising result contrary to archaeologically-derived expectations. Consequently the timing of dog arrival remains uncertain, and jackals must form a larger proportion of the archaeological fauna than previously appreciated. Several cattle specimens were identified. Sheep had been thought to substantially antedate cattle in the region; however, direct AMS radiocarbon determinations of these remains place the earliest cattle in southwestern Africa as the contemporaries of the earliest sheep at about 2000 years ago. Finally, analyses of an archaeological sheep assemblage have identified a genetic lineage, haplogroup B, previously known only from outside Africa.;The studies results---most particularly the simultaneous arrival of sheep and cattle in southwestern Africa---suggest that these species moved into the region as part of a externally-induced process, most likely with a migrating human population. The absence of the domesticated dog presents a puzzle: dogs may have been deliberately or accidentally lost from the domesticate package somewhere north of the Cape region, or their absence may simply be a result of insufficiently broad sampling. The establishment of a secure chronology of the spread of food-producing economies is a necessary step in developing an understanding of the processes by which the Neolithic Revolution spread across Africa. As with other worldwide instances of Neolithic spread, demic expansion models appear a suitable fit for the available data. Moreover, this study has laid the groundwork to further test specific predictions of the speed and nature of such dispersals into Southern Africa. |
