Katherine M. Grillo

University of Florida | UF · Department of Anthropology

We assembled genome-wide data from 16 prehistoric Africans. We show that the anciently divergent lineage that comprises the primary ancestry of the southern African San had a wider distribution in the past, contributing approximately two-thirds of the ancestry of Malawi hunter-gatherers ∼8,100–2,500 years ago and approximately one-third of the ance...

The later Holocene spread of pastoralism throughout eastern Africa profoundly changed socioeconomic and natural landscapes. During the Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 5000–1200 B.P.), herders spreadthrough southern Kenya and northern Tanzania — areas previously occupied only by huntergatherers — eventually developing the specialized forms of pastoralism th...

Organic residue analyses of archaeological ceramics can provide important insights into ancient foodways. To date, however, there has been little critical reflection on how lipid residues might (or might not) reflect dietary practices or subsistence strategies more generally. A combination of ethnoarchaeological research and chemical and isotopic a...

Significance Archaeologists have long sought monumental architecture’s origins among societies that were becoming populous, sedentary, and territorial. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, dispersed pastoralists pioneered monumental construction. Eastern Africa’s earliest monumental site was built by the region’s first herders ∼5,000–4,300 y ago as the...

Significance Lipid residue analysis of archaeological ceramics provides the earliest direct chemical evidence for milk, meat, and plant consumption by pastoralist societies in eastern Africa. Data for milk in specialized pastoral systems (c. 5000 to 1200 BP) reveal changing selective pressures for lactase persistence and provide support for models...

How can we use the past to help us solve today’s urgent climate change concerns? Archaeology provides one way forward by providing a long-term view of what worked and what did not work in the past. Indigenous knowledge systems have long curated a range of survival strategies that provide powerful inspiration for thinking differently about sustainab...

This article describes the mineralogy and sources for a spectacular stone bead industry associated with the first pastoralists in eastern Africa ca. 5000-4000 CAL B.P. Around Lake Turkana, northwest Kenya, early pastoralists constructed at least seven mortuary monuments with platforms, pillars, cairns, and stone circles. Three sites-Lothagam North,...

The megalithic pillar sites found around Lake Turkana, Kenya, are monumental cemeteries built approximately 5000 years ago. Their construction coincides with the spread of pastoralism into the region during a period of profound climate change. Early work at the Jarigole pillar site suggested that these places were secondary burial grounds. Subseque...

This paper evaluates risk-oriented frameworks for explaining environmental, social, and economic changes faced by fishing and herding communities in the Turkana Basin during and after the African Humid Period (AHP, 15–5 ka). The orbitally-forced AHP created moist conditions, high lake levels, and unusual hydrological connections across much of nort...

In northwestern Kenya, at least seven megalithic monumental sites lie near the palaeoshores of Lake Turkana. 'Pillar sites', as they are called by archaeologists, are distinguished by columnar basalt of up to  m in height, or smaller sandstone pieces, set in constructed platforms of up to  m in diameter. Some sites have additional cairns and sto...

Common assumptions about the ephemeral archaeological signature of pastoralist settlements have limited the application of geophysical techniques in the investigation of past herding societies. Here, the authors present a geophysical survey of Luxmanda, Tanzania, the largest-known settlement documented for the Pastoral Neolithic era in eastern Afri...

“Nderit Ware,” a type of pottery famous in eastern Africa for its remarkably intricate basket-like bowls, is associated with evidence for the region’s earliest pastoralism during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic (PN, c. 5000-1200 cal BP). This paper reviews the changing ways archaeologists have conceptualized “Nderit” pottery over the...

In eastern Africa, ecologists have found that when mobile pastoralists abandon their temporary encampments, the accumulation of burned animal dung, wood, and other organic waste enriches the concentration of nutrients (e.g., calcium, phosphorous, magnesium) essential to soil health, in comparison to other soils without prior human habitation. These...

The initial spread of food production in eastern Africa is associated with livestock herding during the Pastoral Neolithic. Recent excavation at Luxmanda, Tanzania, a site dating to c. 3000 BP, revealed circular installations of lower grinding stones and numerous handstones. This discovery, unprecedented for this era, challenges previous ideas abou...

Early herders in eastern Africa built elaborate megalithic cemeteries ~ 5000 BP overlooking what is now Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya. At least six ‘pillar sites’ were constructed during a time of rapid change: cattle, sheep, and goats were introduced to the basin as the lake was shrinking at the end of the African Humid Period. Cultural chang...

Large-scale reconstructions of the spread of food production systems require fine-scale analyses of dietary evidence. One current impediment to understanding early African pastoralism is a lack of high-resolution portraits of herd management, specifically with respect to sheep (Ovis aries) and goat (Capra hircus), osteologically similar but behavio...

Although archaeology has become increasingly concerned with engaging diverse publics, and has embraced the internet as a means of facilitating such engagement, attitudes towards Wikipedia have—understandably—been more ambivalent. Nevertheless, we argue here, Wikipedia's popularity and reach mean that archaeologists should actively engage with the w...

Recent archaeological research in the Murghab region of modern Turkmenistan has highlighted the variable interweaving of material, technological, and social traditions between sedentary farmers and mobile pastoralists during the late 3rd through first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. This research has also made apparent significant gaps in collectiv...

Hard animal materials were key components of prehistoric daily life, with many such raw materials shaped into diverse tool types and personal ornaments. With few exceptions, outside of the far south and north of Africa, osseous artefacts have been largely understudied on the continent, with this situation particularly applying to pastoralist contex...

A recent archival research project in the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) identified artifacts and human remains associated with the 1980 excavation of stone cairns and habitation areas on the west side of Lake Turkana. The presence of stone grave cairns across eastern Africa is common, but their cultural origins and construction times are enigmati...

Ceramics are an essential part of the Holocene archaeology of eastern Africa and the development of increasingly complex typologies has rightly played a key role in our understanding of chronology and social identity. However, this focus on taxonomies can also be restrictive, as we lose sight of the communities who made and used the ceramics in our...

This paper presents and contextualizes two radiocarbon dates directly obtained from Kansyore and Savanna Pastoral Neolithic (Narosura) ceramic sherds from sites near Lake Eyasi in Tanzania. The dates improve upon those obtained during prior research, which were compromised by problematic samples and stratigraphic disturbance. This underscores the i...

In Samburu, Kenya, ethnoarchaeological research reveals a deep and perhaps unexpected integration of pottery use into a mobile lifestyle centered on the herding of livestock. This paper examines the importance of pottery to Samburu survival, particularly for the preparation of bone soups, wild plants, and other foods during times of drought and foo...

As part of a larger project examining the introduction of herding into northern Tanzania, surveys and excavations were conducted at the southern edge of the Mbulu Plateau, documenting the presence of Narosura ceramics dating to the early third millennium BP, as well as a Later Stone Age occupation dated via ostrich eggshell to the tenth millennium...

Megalithic ‘pillar sites’ built by middle Holocene peoples of the Turkana Basin in northwestern Kenya provide eastern Africa's earliest known example of monumental architecture. Radiometric dates place pillar site construction and use ~5000-4000 cal. BP. This social innovation occurred during a period of marked environmental and economic change: th...

Using excavation and radiocarbon dating, the authors show that construction of megalithic pillar sites begins in eastern Africa by the fifth millennium BP, and is contemporary with the earliest herding in the region. Mobile herders and/or hunter-gatherers built and used these sites in a dynamic context of economic and social change. We are more fam...

Megalithic architecture is associated with spread of food production in many parts of the world, but archaeological investigations have focused mainly on megalithic sites among early agrarian societies. Africa offers the opportunity to examine megalithic construction—and related social phenomena—among mobile herders and hunter-gatherers with no acc...