Kansyore fisher-foragers and transitions to food production in East Africa: the view from Wadh Lang'o, Nyanza Province, Western Kenya

Abstract

The site of Wadh Lang'o in southern Nyanza Province (Kenya) has produced a very large faunal assemblage in association with Kansyore, Elmenteitan and Urewe ceramics. The stratigraphy of the site appears to be intact and six dates have been obtained from the sequence, making this the best opportunity to look at diachronic change in subsistence strategies in this region. The main results of the zooarchaeological analysis are presented here, with emphasis on the Kansyore component. Two important findings are discussed: first, the fish remains, when taken together with remains from other Kansyore sites and considering the behavioural traits of these fish, suggest that Kansyore riverside and lakeshore sites were occupied in distinct seasons and used together in a single settlement and subsistence system. Second, the mammalian remains suggest that while Kansyore foragers hunted a broad range of taxa, they also began to consume domesticates perhaps as early as the mid- to late-third millennium cal. BC. This suggests that occupants of late Kansyore sites were in contact with food producers, but whether the domestic animal remains are the result of exchange, or of adopting food production, remains ambiguous.