The development of crop production in the northern Horn of Africa: a review of the archaeobotanical evidence

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents a synthesis of the hypotheses and evidence for plant domestication and the origins of agriculture in the northern Horn of Africa. To date, available archaeological data point to an introduction of agricultural practices to Ethiopia during the late Holocene, c. 1600 BC, influenced by adjacent areas including eastern Sudan, Egypt and southern Arabia. The archaeobotanical record shows that farming in the northern highlands was based on the cultivation of barley, linseed and lentils, combined with the exploitation of local wild grasses from the Panicoideae and Chloridoideae sub-families. This indicates that local populations also played a role in the development of productive activities in the region, a process that might have been in place before the arrival of the southwest Asian agricultural package. After the first millennium BC, amidst an increase in sedentary settlements in the region, new domesticated crops appeared in the archaeological record. These include exogenous crops such as emmer wheat, but also indigenous plants such as t’ef and noog, which were locally domesticated likely throughout the Pre-Aksumite period. With the rise of the Aksumite Kingdom, c. 50 BC – AD 700, the agricultural package again expanded to include of a wide range of pulses, geophytes and other economic crops. Macrobotanical remains of sorghum and finger millet also appear for the first time during this period, although this contrasts with the microbotanical record of the region, which points to an earlier presence. In the southern highlands and southwest Ethiopia, evidence of Plectranthus edulis (Vatke) Agnew (Ethiopian potato or Oromo potato) has been identified by the late first millennium BC, pointing towards an earlier domestication than previously considered. Similarly, enset and coffee remains have been documented during the early first millennium AD. Altogether, new studies are needed to confirm some of these hypotheses, as archaeobotanical studies in the northern Horn are still limited. The combination of macrobotanical and microbotanical data, along with ethnoarchaeological and experimental research programs and linguistic studies, will be of critical importance for refining our current understanding of the processes associated with plant domestication and the introduction of crop production in the region.