A revised chronology for pastoralism in southernmost Africa: new evidence of sheep at c....

New excavation at Blombos Cave, in the southern Cape of South Africa, and new radiocarbon dates for its sequence further illuminate the chronology of pastoralism in southern Africa, and the relations between pottery-using and shepherding. Archaeological evidence has supported the simultaneous arrival of pottery and sheep at the Cape. At c. 2000 b.p. pottery is frequent in southern African sites. A number of authors record that 'early dates for pottery are more common than those for sheep'. Taking account of the new 'direct' dates indicating the appearance of sheep in the southernmost Cape at c. 6000 b.p. and the well-recorded presence of pottery at c. 2000 b.p. it is suggested that sheep and pottery may not have constituted a 'package' that arrived together. New direct dates for sheep bones from Blombos Cave in the southernmost Cape indicate that sheep were present at around 2000 b.p. A small quantity of pottery from the same stratigraphic layers suggests that the introduction of sheep and pottery were chronologically related.

Английский

Antiquity. – 1996. – Vol. 70, № 270. – P. 945–949.