Some early herders didn’t quit fishing and foraging for a millennium after first keeping livestock

“A new study in PNAS has found the earliest herders in eastern Africa kept diverse diets for about a thousand years alongside herding cattle, sheep and goats. Led by UBC researcher Dr. Kendra Chritz alongside an international team, the work contradicts a common archaeological assumption that ‘food on tap’ from herding would result in narrower, specialized diets reliant on these domesticated animals. Teeth don’t lie The findings draw on Stonehenge-like cemetery “pillar sites” near Lake Turkana. Using atomic signatures, or isotopes, of carbon preserved in human teeth and ancient pottery, as well as archaeological remains such as animal bones and jewellery, researchers found that the first herders in east Africa who lived about 5,000 years ago continued to eat a highly varied diet—including fish, wild animals and plants—long after livestock arrived. Specialized cattle‑, sheep-, goat- and milk‑focused diets emerged more than 1,000 years later. Climate resilient food strategy These early herders lived in the Turkana basin during a time of dramatic climate and environmental change. The area experienced severe drought and a huge drop in lake levels at the time these peoples arrived – nowadays, Lake Turkana is a saltwater lake amidst desert. “It’s possible that relying entirely on livestock —putting all their milk in one pail —might not have been a good food strategy for coping with that kind of environmental instability,” said Dr. Chritz. The research is relevant for the many pastoralist communities that still exist today and could provide a lesson for food systems in a changing climate. Milky mystery The researchers plan to investigate to what extent early herders relied on livestock resources, including milk. “Humans drank milk before we developed the ability to digest it. It’s renewable and nutrient dense —why weren’t these early herders drinking more of it?” Featured Researcher Dr. Kendra Chritz Assistant Professor, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

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