Mid-Holocene adaptation to the highlands of Ethiopia: the case of Beefa Cave, Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia
Giuseppina Mutri  1, 2, *@  , Marion Bamford  3@  , Giuseppe Briatico  4, 5@  , Giancarlo Ruta  2, 6  , Margherita Mussi  5@  
1 : Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center, The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus
2 : Italo-Spanish Archaeological Mission at Melka Kunture and Balchit, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
3 : University of Witswatersrand
4 : Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
5 : Department of Ancient World Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
6 : Department of Human Studies, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
* : Corresponding author

During the African Humid Period (͂ 15-5 ka BP) the Ethiopian highland was integral part of a wider settlement system, whilst, during the driest phases it could have been a refugium area (Hensel et al., 2021). In this framework, vegetable resources played a key-role in the diet, and especially tubers, which are rich of starches and fibers.

Beefa Cave is part of Melka Kunture archaeological site, with a well-known Lower and Middle Pleistocene record. It opens on the right bank of the upper Awash river, at 2000 m a.s.l. on the Ethiopian highland. The first fieldwork, carried on in November 2019, exposed levels of overlapping fireplaces, containing a very standardized lithic complex, composed by obsidian bladelets and geometric artefacts and a significant amount of charred seeds.

Dates obtained from charcoals placed the excavated levels in the Middle Holocene, i.e. a prehistoric phase poorly documented in the Awash basin, at the limit between the Later Stone Age and the Pastoral Neolithic. The residues analysis on a selection of lithic artefacts led to the discovery of several starch granules generally ascribable to wild tubers species and may have played a specific role in the subsistence strategy of the human groups who inhabited the area. Through the analysis of use-wear and residues from the lithic complex, macrobotanical and faunal remains, we reconstruct the specific highland adaptation of the Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Middle Awash.



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