Panga ya Saidi

Coordinates: 3°40′43″S 39°44′9″E / 3.67861°S 39.73583°E / -3.67861; 39.73583
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Panga ya Saidi
Panga ya Saidi
Panga ya Saidi
location in Kenya
LocationKilifi County of Kenya
RegionKenya
Coordinates3°40′43″S 39°44′9″E / 3.67861°S 39.73583°E / -3.67861; 39.73583

Panga ya Saidi is an archaeological cave site located in

Later Stone Age, and Iron Age. Excavated deposits preserve an unusually long record of human activities, from around 78,000 years ago until around 400 years ago, a chronology supported by radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence dating.[1] This sequence puts Panga ya Saidi alongside other key sites such as Enkapune ya Muto, Mumba Rockshelter, and Nasera Rockshelter that are important for understanding the Late Pleistocene and the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in eastern Africa.[2][3][4]

The archaeological potential of Panga ya Saidi was first noted by Robert Soper

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, in partnership with the National Museums of Kenya. These investigations have helped to establish the significance of Panga ya Saidi for understanding the Middle to Later Stone Age technological transition[9][10] and the proliferation of symbolic objects[11] such as bone tools, engraved ochre, and beads in Late Pleistocene eastern Africa. Zooarchaeology and stable isotope analysis have been used to reconstruct Late Pleistocene and Holocene paleoecology and subsistence from animal bone remains.[12] Investigations have also focused on the role of the site in late Holocene agricultural and trading networks along the Swahili coast, with African crops such as pearl millet,[13] nonnative animals such as black rat,[14] marine shell beads, glass beads, and Tana ware pottery documented in the Iron Age deposits.[15] Ancient DNA recovered from a 400-year-old burial indicated that this individual was most closely related to ancient and present-day hunter-gatherers in eastern Africa, including the ancient individual at Mota, Ethiopia.[16]

Photograph of a cave, with archaeologists excavating a trench in that cave.
Excavations at the archaeological site of Panga ya Saidi

Site setting

The site is located in Southern Kenya's Nyali Coast region.

Arabuko Sokoke Forest, is overlooking the Shale Savannah, and is west of the Lowland Dry Forest on Coral Rag and the Mangrove Thicket on the low coastal plains. The region experiences two rainy seasons. The first short rainy season spans from October to December, and is followed by a long rainy season spanning from April to June.[1][12]

Stratigraphy and dating

Based on a 3 meter deep excavation of the archaeological site, a sequence of 19 layers were found and divided by three lithographic boundaries into four groups. The oldest group consisted of Layers 19 - 17 (dated to 76,000-73,000 years ago) characterized primarily by reddish-brown clay loams with bone fragments from mollusk shells and mammals, and appears to lack any structures. The unit is interpreted as a period of sporadic human occupation. Layers 16 - 14 (67,000-59,000 years ago) consisted mostly of orange-brown slit-like loam with deposits of ash and bedrock clasts. There is an increased presence of human activity with lithics, bone fragments, and charcoal flakes appearing in Layers 15 & 14. Unit II is interpreted as a floor level, with accumulated wall and roof collapses and evidence of burning. Unit III with layers 13 - 5 (59,000-14,000 years ago) contains heterogenous loam with abundant evidence of human activity and ash, with the presence of hearths, burning, lithics, and floor hollows. The Layer 13/12 boundary at about 51,000 years ago reflects a hiatus between two different occupational phases. The increase of human activity is shown by the concentration of human-occupation byproducts, however occupation is intermittent. Finally, Unit IV, or layers 4 -1 (8000 years ago to 400 years ago), consists of loose and silty loam with deposits of charcoal, bone fragments, marine shells, and lithics. The layers are disturbed, with degradation of the cave walls and floor reflecting intermittent human occupation (including a burial and hearths).[1]

Middle and Later Stone Age occupations

Stone tools

Later Stone Age transition at the site.[9][10] The main raw materials used are quartz, followed by chert, and in rare cases, limestone. Limestone was used for informal knapping techniques. Quartz was preferentially used for bipolar flaking of small cores. More formal tool preparation (to make Levallois
tools or prismatic blades) was preferentially done on chert. Chert also more frequently underwent reduction, suggesting it was highly valued and conserved, which may suggest it was relatively more difficult to obtain.

There are important changes over time in the lithic technology sequence at Panga ya Saidi.

Later Stone Age
in eastern Africa. Over time, other forms, such as crescents, also become more common.

However, the archaeologists note that this is not a dramatic transition, since Levallois techniques continue to be used throughout much of the Panga ya Saidi sequence, even after new technologies appear. This suggests that the Middle to Later Stone Age transition cannot be described in simplistic terms or as a single package.[10] The archaeologists conclude that the defining feature of this transition at Panga ya Saidi is miniaturization, rather than specific tool types or reduction techniques.[9]

Faunal remains

Mostly small bovids (like duiker and suni), suids (warthog and bushpig), and some primates were found in the faunal remains as the basis of subsistence,[12] while marine faunal remains are understood to be mostly utilized symbolically in the material culture (such as marine shell beads) until the Holocene, when they were also used for consumption.[11]

Tropical environments like those found in coastal eastern Africa were deemed to be a sort of refugium for early human populations, due to their comparatively stable environment and the abundance of edible fauna from the exploitation of the closed forests, woodland and grassland environments.[12]

Homo sapiens to develop novel technologies and material culture.[12]

Human remains

A deciduous second molar of a child was found in some of the deepest deposits at Panga ya Saidi, located in Layer 18 and dating to about 78,000 years ago (MIS 5).

C3 plants. Since this is a deciduous tooth, that dietary signal may reflect the diet of the child's mother if breastfeeding, or it may reflect foods given to the child if weaning. The signal of C3 plants is consistent with zooarchaeological evidence showing that the main animals at Panga ya Saidi in the deepest layers were from tropical forested or woodland environments.[12]

Evidence of modern behaviour was found in 2021 when evidence of Africa's earliest intentional burial was found. A 78,000 year old Middle Stone Age grave of a three-year-old child was discovered in Panga ya Saidi cave. Researchers said the child's head appeared to have been laid on a pillow. The body had been laid in a fetal position.[17] However, this alleged burial is tens of thousands of years younger than burials at Skhul and Qafzeh cave, in Israel whom belonged to African populations with the same African lithic cultural tradition.[18]

Iron Age occupations

Plant remains

During the

finger millet, sorghum and baobab.[13] A direct Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon date on a sorghum seed indicates that this crop appeared at Panga ya Saidi by 770–950 CE.[19] The crops present at Panga ya Saidi are African crops, introduced to the coastal region from their areas of origin farther west.[19] Non-African crops such as Asian rice (Oryza sativa), however, were absent at Panga ya Saidi, which may be because the site was not a major trading port along the coast; by contrast, these crops are found at sites contemporaneous with Panga ya Saidi on the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar, such as Tumbe and Unguja Ukuu.[13]

Faunal remains

The expansion of agro-pastoral and maritime trade networks during the last 1300 years of occupation at the Panga ya Saidi site, supported by coastal faunal and botanical remains, indicate long-term habitation of these coastal sites during the Late Iron Age. As well, evidence from carbon and oxygen stable isotopes and zooarchaeological data show that people hunted African bovids (like those listed above), and that the environment was semi-closed forest during the Iron Age.[12]

Panga ya Saidi contained a high concentration of murid remains, but mainly these were local rodents, and not the nonnative species Asian black rat (Rattus rattus). The rodent remains obtained from Panga ya Saidi were identified using collagen fingerprinting or ZooMS.  The majority of the rodent specimens at Panga ya Saidi were found to be local murids, with the only confirmed R. rattus specimen being found relatively near the surface of the site.[14]

Human remains

The Iron Age burial discovered at Panga ya Saidi was dated to approximately 400 years ago by direct AMS radiocarbon dating.

C4 crops (such as pearl millet, found at the site).[12]

References

  1. ^
    PMID 29743572
    .
  2. S2CID 204756466
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  3. ^ "Kenyan Cave Provides New Insights into Later Stone Age | Archaeology, Paleoanthropology | Sci-News.com". Breaking Science News | Sci-News.com. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
  4. ^ Daley, Jason. "People Lived in This Cave for 78,000 Years". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
  5. ^ Soper, Robert (1975). Notes on some caves in Kilifi District. Nairobi: Caves Exploration Group of the East African Society.
  6. ^ Helm, Richard (2000). Conflicting histories: the archaeology of the iron-working, farming communities in the central and southern coast region of Kenya. PhD, University of Bristol.
  7. ^ Sealinks Project
  8. S2CID 135471087
    .
  9. ^
    S2CID 232231854
    .
  10. ^ a b c McDermott, Amy (2021). "Small, sharp blades mark the change from Middle to Later Stone Age in coastal Kenya | National Academy of Sciences". blog.pnas.org. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
  11. ^
    S2CID 212693806
    .
  12. ^
    S2CID 210641006
    .
  13. ^
    PMID 27247383
    .
  14. ^
    PMID 28817590
    .
  15. ^
    S2CID 56168494
    .
  16. ^
    PMID 28938123
    .
  17. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03457-8
    .
  18. ISSN 1145-3370
    .
  19. ^
    ISSN 1040-6182
    .
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