The introduction of herding – a way of life which centres on keeping herds of mobile domesticated animals – significantly changed Africa’s genetic, economic, social and cultural landscapes during the last 10,000 years. Unlike other parts of the world, mobile herding spread throughout the continent thousands of years before farming and did not replace foraging in many places. This gave rise to complex mosaics of foragers and food producers across sub-Saharan Africa.
Once herding reached southern Africa during the early first millennium AD, it spread rapidly throughout the region, in part because of presumed local adoption of sheep by diverse groups of foragers. Since these foragers and herders left similar types of artefacts it is difficult to pinpoint who was herding in the archaeological record, their dietary choices, and how this way of life spread.
Traditional archaeological data alone – such as the types of animal bones present at sites – can’t always help. So, researchers need to combine multiple lines of evidence from both traditional and biomolecular archaeology, which involves studying ancient lipids (fats) and proteins.
