The Horn of Africa with location of Goda Buticha and sites mentioned in the text. Credit: C. Tribolo et al in PLOS ONE

An international team of researchers from Ethiopia, France, Israel and the USA have recently published in journal PLOS ONE the results of an extensive sedimentological and geochronological study at the Goda Buticha cave, in southeastern Ethiopia. The site has yielded a rich assemblage of stone artefacts, assigned to the Middle Stone Age in its lower sequence and to the Later Stone Age in the upper part of the sequence.

Additionally, numerous animal bones, and fragments of ostrich eggshell, some fashioned into beads, were found. The Goda Buticha sequence is also significant because it contains human remains, a rare type of find from late Middle Stone Age/ Late Stone Age sites in eastern Africa.

The study used detailed sedimentological analyses of the sequence, the chronology of which was framed and refined by a combination of Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of the sediments and radiocarbon dating of charcoal. The team thus documented a securely-dated archaeological sequence with ages ranging from ca. 65,000 to 1,000 years ago.  

Lithic artefacts from Complex I and Layers IIc and IId-IIf of Goda Buticha. Credit: Tribolo, C. et al in PLOS ONE

The sequence displays a long hiatus (between 25,000 and 8,000 years ago) in sedimentation and in human activity, corresponding in time to the generally dry period observed in many local and regional climate records. Continuity of human occupation may not have been possible in this area during that time.  Lithic artefacts found in levels dating to c. 8,000-6,000 years ago (post-dating the hiatus), however, show a combination of Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age industries. This emphasises the time-transgressive and complex nature of technological and cultural changes in the Horn of Africa from the Middle to the Later Stone Age.

Co-author Dr Alice Leplongeon, researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge commented, “We know very little about Modern Humans who lived in the Horn of Africa between 70,000 and 5,000 years ago. Goda Buticha contributes to fill this gap as it is one of the rare sites in the Horn of Africa with dates ranging from 65,000 to 1,000 years ago. In addition, the hiatus in the sequence suggests that human occupation may not have been possible, at least locally, during the driest episodes of the period."

The original open access article is published in PLOS ONE: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169418

The Research was conducted under the permit of the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ARCCH, Ethiopia) and funded by the French National Research Agency, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the National Geographic Society, Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Regional Priority Program <Heritage, Resources, Governance>, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History Small Grants Program and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska- Curie grant number 655459.