Early hunters and herders of northern Ethiopia: The fauna from Danei Kawlos

Abstract

It is generally agreed that Ethiopia is one of the world’s primary centers of prehistoric plant domestication. It is also known that domestic fauna (cattle and domestic caprines) were brought in from outside. Unfortunately, very few Holocene archaeological sequences have been excavated in the Horn. Even fewer sites have yielded domestic fauna dating to > 3000 years ago. The excavations at the site Danei Kawlos in northern Ethiopia provide new Holocene archaeological sequences for Northern Ethiopia and document the presence of cattle, sheep and goat with a direct date of 3358 ± 47 BP on a Bos molar. We discuss here the zooarchaeological data from the site.