Paul Lane
University of Cambridge, Archaeology, Faculty Member
Lane, P., Madry, S. and Jones, E. (2024) Chapter 8 Landscape Archaeology. In S. Madry, A. Westin, and E. Jones (eds) Practicing Historical Ecology: Methods for the Collection, Analysis, and Integration of Interdisciplinary Historical... more
Lane, P., Madry, S. and Jones, E. (2024)
Chapter 8 Landscape Archaeology. In S. Madry, A. Westin, and E. Jones (eds) Practicing Historical Ecology: Methods for the Collection, Analysis, and Integration of Interdisciplinary Historical Data. Uppsala: SLU Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Studies, pp192-229.
Chapter 8 Landscape Archaeology. In S. Madry, A. Westin, and E. Jones (eds) Practicing Historical Ecology: Methods for the Collection, Analysis, and Integration of Interdisciplinary Historical Data. Uppsala: SLU Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Studies, pp192-229.
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The oldest layers occur atop sterile red clay, and it appears that 'Ain Ghazal began as a small village about 2 ha in area. The end of the MPPNB in the southern Levant was a tumultuous one, and there were severe disturbances in the... more
The oldest layers occur atop sterile red clay, and it appears that 'Ain Ghazal began as a small village about 2 ha in area. The end of the MPPNB in the southern Levant was a tumultuous one, and there were severe disturbances in the settlement pattern of the region. Wholesale abandonment of farming villages in Israel and the Jordan valley began around this time, and many of the dislocated populations sought refuge elsewhere, probably often in highland Jordan. If the plastering of skulls of some family members might have had some relationship with ancestral veneration in the MPPNB, it is highly likely that the stunning plaster statuary from 'Ain Ghazal is an extension of the ancestral cult that characterized the central Levant. In view of larger cultic buildings, people prefer to call the smaller apsidal and circular buildings shrines to indicate a lower rank in a hierarchy of ritual buildings.
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Slavery played an important role in the economies of most historically documented African states of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This introductory chapter considers the regionality and relative antiquity of various forms of... more
Slavery played an important role in the economies of most historically documented African states of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This introductory chapter considers the regionality and relative antiquity of various forms of enslavement on the African continent, as well as a range of emergent archaeological studies on the subject. Further, the lingering impacts of slave economies and the memories of enslavement are critically assessed, including consideration of recent efforts to document and ‘memorialise’ both the tangible and intangible heritage of slavery on the continent. The contributions to the present volume are situated within these issues with the aim of drawing out commonalities between chapters and emphasising the value of an inter-regional comparative approach.
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Archaeogenetics was described by Renfrew as ‘the study of the human past using the techniques of molecular genetics’ –involving the collaboration of geneticists with archaeologists, anthropologists, historical linguists and... more
Archaeogenetics was described by Renfrew as ‘the study of the human past using the techniques of molecular genetics’ –involving the collaboration of geneticists with archaeologists, anthropologists, historical linguists and climatologists. He traced its origins to the pioneering work of Cavalli–Sforza in the 1960s, using classical genetic markers (such as blood groups etc.). Ammerman and Cavalli–Sforza developed a suite of new approaches, in particular the use of principal component maps, to evaluate the distribution of genetic variation in space. Their results on Europe, in particular, were taken to imply large-scale demic diffusion of farming communities from the Near East with the advent of the Neolithic. The discipline was then renewed in the 1980s by Wilson’s work on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), as DNA sequencing started to become routine, making it possible for the first time to build genealogical trees of lineages within a species1
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Being ‘indigenous’ and being ‘colonised’ in Africa : contrasting experiences and their implications for a post-colonial archaeology.
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This chapter reviews the historical evidence concerning the development of slavery in eastern Africa, the various forms found in societies on the coast and in the interior, the social and cultural consequences of enslavement, and its... more
This chapter reviews the historical evidence concerning the development of slavery in eastern Africa, the various forms found in societies on the coast and in the interior, the social and cultural consequences of enslavement, and its ultimate abolition. It then looks at the known and potential archaeological traces of the trajectories of these different systems of slavery, with particular reference to the area along the middle and lower Pangani River, Tanzania. The chapter concludes with a consideration of whether or not it would be possible to discern slavery from the surviving archaeological remains alone, and the implications of this answer for future archaeological investigations of slavery elsewhere in the region.
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Research Interests: Landscape Ecology, Earth Sciences, Geology, Paleoecology, East Africa, and 15 moreDisturbance Ecology, Climate, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Land Cover, Variability, History and archaeology, Anthropocene, Late Holocene, RIFT, Quaternary Science Reviews, Vegetation dynamics, Lake Bogoria, Kenya Rift Valley, Tropical Africa, and Pollen records
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Research Interests: History and Archaeology
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Research Interests: History and Indigenous
In P. Mitchell and P.J. Lane (eds) The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 581-97.
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In V. Cummings, P. Jordan and M. Zvelebil (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 104-50.
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Research Interests: Geography and Structuring
This chapter provides a review of the currently available archaeological evidence relating to the transition to food production in eastern Africa, and some of the supporting linguistic and genetic evidence. In broad terms, livestock... more
This chapter provides a review of the currently available archaeological evidence relating to the transition to food production in eastern Africa, and some of the supporting linguistic and genetic evidence. In broad terms, livestock herding preceded crop cultivation in the region, with an initial emphasis on sheep and goats, commencing around 4500 to 5000 years ago. By around 3000 years ago, fullblown pastoralist societies with an emphasis on cattle herding occupied much of the savannah areas. From ca. 2500 years ago, metal using farming communities, practicing hoe cultivation of roots crops and cereals were also present, interacting with both pastoralist and autochthonous hunting-gathering-fishing communities. These interactions gave rise to diverse ethnic mosaics, alongside extensive genetic and linguistic exchanges.
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This chapter outlines the circumstances by which the bodies of over four hundred and fifty individuals killed during the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya came to be deposited in the Osteology Department stores at Kenya’s national museum in... more
This chapter outlines the circumstances by which the bodies of over four hundred and fifty individuals killed during the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya came to be deposited in the Osteology Department stores at Kenya’s national museum in Nairobi, where they currently serve as that institution’s primary human osteology reference collection accessed by local and international researchers. The history of this collection is then discussed against the wider and ongoing context of memorialisation of the Mau Mau insurgency as a founding process in Kenya’s struggle against British colonialism and the birth of nationhood. It also explores some of the remaining divisions between Mau Mau supporters and so-called ‘loyalists’, and efforts at achieving peace and reconciliation involving these different constituencies and the role that this specific collection of human remains could play in such processes. The chapter concludes with a series of more general observations on commemorating victims of ma...
Research Interests: Colonialism and Osteology
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Rapid land use transformations and increased climatic uncertainties challenge potential sustainable development pathways for communities and wildlife in regions with strong economic reliance on natural resources. In response to the... more
Rapid land use transformations and increased climatic uncertainties challenge potential sustainable development pathways for communities and wildlife in regions with strong economic reliance on natural resources. In response to the complex causes and consequences of land use change, participatory scenario development approaches have emerged as key tools for analyzing drivers of change to help chart the future of socio-ecological systems. We assess stakeholder perspectives of land use and land cover change (LULCC) and integrate co-produced scenarios of future land cover change with spatial modeling to evaluate how future LULCC in the wider Serengeti ecosystem might align or diverge with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Across the wider Serengeti ecosystem, population growth, infrastructural development, agricultural economy, and political will in support of climate change management strategies were perceived to be the key drivers ...
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Rapid rates of land use and land cover change (LULCC) in eastern Africa and limited instances of genuinely equal partnerships involving scientists, communities and decision makers challenge the development of robust pathways toward future... more
Rapid rates of land use and land cover change (LULCC) in eastern Africa and limited instances of genuinely equal partnerships involving scientists, communities and decision makers challenge the development of robust pathways toward future environmental and socioeconomic sustainability. We use a participatory modelling tool, Kesho, to assess the biophysical, socioeconomic, cultural and governance factors that influenced past (1959–1999) and present (2000–2018) LULCC in northern Tanzania and to simulate four scenarios of land cover change to the year 2030. Simulations of the scenarios used spatial modelling to integrate stakeholders’ perceptions of future environmental change with social and environmental data on recent trends in LULCC. From stakeholders’ perspectives, between 1959 and 2018, LULCC was influenced by climate variability, availability of natural resources, agriculture expansion, urbanization, tourism growth and legislation governing land access and natural resource manag...
Research Interests: Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Sustainable Development, Agriculture, Environmental Planning, and 15 moreStakeholder participation, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Food Security, Environmental Resource Management, Humans, Land Cover, Land Use, Research article, PLoS one, Stakeholder, Natural Resource, People and Places, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and Sustainability
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Recent years have seen growth in the number of historical archaeology studies in Eastern Africa. Combining critical analysis of material remains alongside the available documentary and oral sources, these offer new insights into the... more
Recent years have seen growth in the number of historical archaeology studies in Eastern Africa. Combining critical analysis of material remains alongside the available documentary and oral sources, these offer new insights into the precolonial and colonial pasts of the region. However, the field is less well established than in either West or Southern Africa and the full potential of the subdiscipline has yet to be realised. This contribution reviews the main analytical and theoretical trends, drawing on a selection of examples. Several other research themes that might warrant investigation are also identified, and the general lack of engagement with material culture and the archaeology of the last few hundred years on the part of historians, is lamented.
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The phrase ‘long term’ is increasingly used as a keyword descriptive for research proposals and outputs claiming to contribute to debates on past and future climate change, sustainable economies, and the resilience of different... more
The phrase ‘long term’ is increasingly used as a keyword descriptive for research proposals and outputs claiming to contribute to debates on past and future climate change, sustainable economies, and the resilience of different landscapes. Scholars from across the environmental and social sciences and the humanities are engaged in this kind of research and are keen to see their results used to influence policy and practice. While ostensibly addressing mutually common issues, scrutiny of these studies indicates very divergent uses of the term ‘long term’. Such variation can act as an impediment to the development of truly interdisciplinary historical ecologies, especially since scholars often fail to specify the precise temporal range they have in mind when they employ the phrase ‘long term’. This chapter reviews these alternative understandings of the term and their associated problems, and offers some suggestions as to how these might be overcome.
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Previous studies of past labor relations in different parts of Africa have relied almost entirely on documentary sources. While such records can provide valuable insights into the range of different labor categories that have existed and... more
Previous studies of past labor relations in different parts of Africa have relied almost entirely on documentary sources. While such records can provide valuable insights into the range of different labor categories that have existed and the relative proportions of the population involved, for much of the continent they are severely restricted in a temporal sense. Thus, for many areas suitable documentary materials covering the periods prior to AD 1850 are scarce; as is the case, for example, for much of East Africa. To extend scholarly understanding of the nature of labor relations prior to this date, alternative sources need to be utilized. This paper presents a brief overview of the potential scope for utilizing archaeological data, with specific reference to mainland Tanzania. The paper also highlights the many limitations of archaeological data and offers some thoughts on how these might be addressed from both a conceptual and methodological perspective. The paper concludes wit...
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The region of Southern Ethiopia (Borana) and Northern Kenya (Marsabit) is characterised by erratic rainfall, limited surface water, aridity, and frequent droughts. An important adaptive response to these conditions, of uncertain... more
The region of Southern Ethiopia (Borana) and Northern Kenya (Marsabit) is characterised by erratic rainfall, limited surface water, aridity, and frequent droughts. An important adaptive response to these conditions, of uncertain antiquity, has been the hand-excavation of a sequence of deep wells at key locations often along seasonal riverbeds and valley bottoms where subterranean aquifers can be tapped. Sophisticated indigenous water management systems have developed to ensure equitable access to these critical water resources, and these are part of well-defined customary institutional leadership structures that govern the community giving rise to a distinctive form of biocultural heritage. These systems, and the wells themselves, are increasingly under threat, however, from climate change, demographic growth, and socio-economic development. To contribute to an assessment of the scale, distribution and intensity of these threats, this study aimed to evaluate the land-use land-cover ...
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Initially formalized as a distinct domain of archaeological research in 1960s and 1970s as part of ‘processual archaeology’, but with intellectual roots (and routes) extending back to the beginnings of antiquarianism in early... more
Initially formalized as a distinct domain of archaeological research in 1960s and 1970s as part of ‘processual archaeology’, but with intellectual roots (and routes) extending back to the beginnings of antiquarianism in early post-medieval European society, ethnoarchaeology has persistently been regarded as a supplier of the raw materials of theoretical and methodological insight rather than as producer in its own right. Both literally and metaphorically, its practioners have been regarded as occupying the periphery of the discipline supplying convenient ‘ethnographic facts’ that can be refashioned into overarching theories by those at the disciplinary centre. Drawing on an analysis of the contributions of ethnoarchaeological research conducted in Africa over the last four-five decades, this paper offers an alternative perspective that celebrates the theoretically innovative nature of a hybridized, post-colonial ethnoarchaeology.
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In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this... more
In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in earth system models is currently oversimplified. As a result, there are large uncertainties in the current understanding of the past and current state of the earth system. In order to improve representation of the variety and scale of impacts that past land use had on the earth system, a global effort is underway to aggregate and synthesize archaeological and historical evidence of land use systems. Here we present a simple, hierarchical classification of land use systems designed to be used with archaeological and historical data at a global scale and a schema of codes that identify land use practices common to a range of systems, both imp...
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The exploratory investigation of two sites in Kenya throws new light on the transition from a ‘stone age’ to an ‘iron age’. The model of widespread cultural replacement by Bantu-speaking iron producers is questioned and instead the... more
The exploratory investigation of two sites in Kenya throws new light on the transition from a ‘stone age’ to an ‘iron age’. The model of widespread cultural replacement by Bantu-speaking iron producers is questioned and instead the authors propose a long interaction with regional variations. In matters of lithics, ceramics, hunting, gathering, husbandry and cooking, East African people created local and eclectic packages of change between 1500BC and AD500.
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The region of Southern Ethiopia (Borana) and Northern Kenya (Marsabit) is characterised by erratic rainfall, limited surface water, aridity, and frequent droughts. An important adaptive response to these conditions, of uncertain... more
The region of Southern Ethiopia (Borana) and Northern Kenya (Marsabit) is characterised by erratic rainfall, limited surface water, aridity, and frequent droughts. An important adaptive response to these conditions, of uncertain antiquity, has been the hand-excavation of a sequence of deep wells at key locations often along seasonal riverbeds and valley bottoms where subterranean aquifers can be tapped. Sophisticated indigenous water management systems have developed to ensure equitable access to these critical water resources, and these are part of well-defined customary institutional leadership structures that govern the community giving rise to a distinctive form of biocultural heritage. These systems, and the wells themselves, are increasingly under threat, however, from climate change, demographic growth, and socio-economic development. To contribute to an assessment of the scale, distribution and intensity of these threats, this study aimed to evaluate the land-use land-cover (LULC) and precipitation changes in this semi-arid to arid landscape and their association with, and impact on, the preservation of traditional wells. Multitemporal Landsat 5, 7 and 8 satellite imagery covering the period 1990 to 2020, analysed at a temporal resolution of 10 years, was classified using supervised classification via the Random Forest machine learning method to extract the following classes: bare land, grassland, shrub land, open forest, closed forest, croplands, settlement and waterbodies. Change detection was then applied to identify and quantify changes through time and landscape degradation indices were generated using the Shannon Diversity Index fragmentation index within a 15 km buffer of each well cluster. The results indicated that land cover change was mostly driven by increasing anthropogenic changes with resultant reduction in natural land cover classes. Furthermore, increased fragmentation has occurred withinmost of the selected buffer distances of the well clusters. The main drivers of change that have directly or indirectly impacted land degradation and the preservation of indigenous water management systems were identified through an analysis of land cover changes in the last 30 years, supporting insights from previous focused group discussions with communities in Kenya and Ethiopia. Our approach showed that remote sensing methods can be used for the spatially explicit mapping of landscape structure around the wells, and ultimately towards assessment of the preservation status of the indigenous wells.
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The region of Southern Ethiopia (Borana) and Northern Kenya (Marsabit) is characterised by erratic rainfall, limited surface water, aridity, and frequent droughts. An important adaptive response to these conditions, of uncertain... more
The region of Southern Ethiopia (Borana) and Northern Kenya (Marsabit) is characterised by erratic rainfall, limited surface water, aridity, and frequent droughts. An important adaptive response to these conditions, of uncertain antiquity, has been the hand-excavation of a sequence of deep wells at key locations often along seasonal riverbeds and valley bottoms where subterranean aquifers can be tapped. Sophisticated indigenous water management systems have developed to ensure equitable access to these critical water resources, and these are part of well-defined customary institutional leadership structures that govern the community giving rise to a distinctive form of biocultural heritage. These systems, and the wells themselves, are increasingly under threat, however, from climate change, demographic growth, and socio-economic development. To contribute to an assessment of the scale, distribution and intensity of these threats, this study aimed to evaluate the land-use land-cover ...