Fishing in a fluctuating landscape: terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene subsistence strategies in the Lake Turkana Basin, Kenya

Abstract

During the African Humid Period (AHP; c. 15–5.5 ka), the rivers and lakes of much of the continent swelled due to changes in monsoonal rainfall driven by Earth's orbital precession. This period witnessed the growth of diverse fisher-forager communities, whose members adapted their settlement patterns and created new technologies in order to take advantage of aquatic resources. Around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, numerous surface sites have been documented along former shorelines dating to the AHP. Relatively few have been excavated and dated however, and just three – all from the eastern basin – have published faunal analyses. Here, we present archaeofaunal assemblages from the Kalokol region of the western basin, where three sites with microlithic technology, bone harpoons, and radiocarbon dates falling within the AHP were excavated. We present a detailed taphonomic assessment of the fish assemblages and a comparison with both natural and anthropogenic, and ancient and modern, fish bone accumulations. Taxa identified at the Kalokol sites are discussed in terms of the occupants' possible fishing technologies and strategies, drawing on ethological and ethnographic data. Our analysis, combining our data with those published from the eastern basin, enables a broader discussion of how people may have responded to fluctuating AHP environments in the Turkana Basin.