Katie Manning

• DPhil
• Research Associate at King's College London

In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years1. Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configu...

The subsistence practices of Holocene communities living in the Nile Valley of Central Sudan are comparatively little known. Recent excavations at Khor Shambat, Sudan, have yielded well-defined Mesolithic and Neolithic stratigraphy. Here, for the first time, archaeozoological, palaeobotanical, phytolith and dental calculus studies are combined with...

Large anthropogenic ¹⁴ C datasets are widely used to generate summed probability distributions (SPDs) as a proxy for past human population levels. However, SPDs are a poor proxy when datasets are small, bearing little relationship to true population dynamics. Instead, more robust inferences can be achieved by directly modelling the population and a...

A comprehensive understanding of the relationship between land cover, climate change and disturbance dynamics is needed to inform scenarios of vegetation change on the African continent. Although significant advances have been made, large uncertainties exist in projections of future biodiversity and ecosystem change for the world's largest tropical...

The site of Sphinx (SBK.W-60) is located about 3.5 km from the present Nile in the western part of Jebel Sabaloka, upstream of the Sixth Nile Cataract, in Sudan. This site uniquely includes Early Khartoum (Mesolithic) artifacts with no intrusive elements and has been dated from the ninth to the end of the sixth millennium cal BC. Excavations at Tre...

Aim Domestic animals first appeared in the archaeological record in northern Africa c. 9000 years before present and subsequently spread southwards throughout the continent. This geographic expansion is well studied and can broadly be explained in terms of the movement of pastoralist populations due to climate change. However, no studies have expli...

The transition from hunter-gathering to food-producing societies in the Mediterranean zone of north Africa was complex and variable, likely influenced by local ecological conditions as well as the socio-economic origins of the population. The adoption of domestic plants and animals was piecemeal, with hunting and gathering continuing as an importan...

Supplement to: Phelps, Leanne N; Broennimann, Oliver; Manning, Katie; Timpson, Adrian; Jousse, Hélène; Mariethoz, Gregoire; Fordham, Damien A; Shanahan, Timothy M; Davis, Basil A S; Guisan, Antoine (accepted): Reconstructing climatic niche breadth of land use for animal production during the African Holocene. Global Ecology and Biogeography, https:...

Age-at-death profiles constructed from archaeozoological data have been used for decades to infer the goals of prehistoric herd management strategies. Several 'ideal' profiles have been proposed as models for the optimal kill-off profiles that represent specific husbandry strategies, such as maximising milk or meat yields, which can then be compare...

The climate deterioration after the most recent African humid period (AHP) is a notable past example of desertification. Evidence points to a human population expansion in northern Africa prior to this, associated with the introduction of pastoralism. Here we consider the role, if any, of this population on the subsequent ecological collapse. Using...

The transition from hunter-gatherer-fisher groups to agrarian societies is arguably the most significant change in human prehistory. In the European plain there is evidence for fully developed agrarian societies by 7,500 cal. yr BP, yet a well-established agrarian society does not appear in the north until 6,000 cal. yr BP for unknown reasons. Here...

During the early Holocene, northern Africa was relatively humid and supported a large human population. Around 5,500 years ago (5.5 ka) the regional climate deteriorated and the population declined substantially. Evidence suggests these changes were coeval, but it is unclear whether or not humans influenced this ecological collapse. Using a climate...

The datasets described in this paper comprises the animal bone data collected as part of the Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe project (EUROEVOL), led by Professor Stephen Shennan, UCL, representing the largest collection of animal bone data for the European Neolithic (Figure 1) with >3 million NISP counts and >36,000 biometric measurements. T...

The datasets described in this paper comprise the core spatial and temporal structure of the Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe project (EUROEVOL), led by Professor Stephen Shennan, UCL. This is one of three datasets resulting from the EUROEVOL project, the other two comprising the faunal (EUROEVOL Dataset 2) and archaeobotanical (EUROEVOL Data...

Our analysis of over 28,000 osteometric measurements from fossil remains dating between c. 5600 and 1500 BCE reveals a substantial reduction in body mass of 33% in Neolithic central European domestic cattle. We investigate various plausible explanations for this phenotypic adaptation, dismissing climatic change as a causal factor, and further rejec...

Relative frequencies of male, female and castrate bones per site phases identified using osteometric and morphological criteria. (CSV)

Mean Log Size Index and Standard deviation per site phase for each species, including associated sample size, sitename, estimated mean date, period and cultural affiliation. (CSV)

It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species-cattle, pig and sheep/goat-vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to revea...

Sustainability, culture change, inequality and global health are among the much-discussed challenges of our time, and rightly so, given the drastic effects such variables can have on modern populations. Yet with many populations today living in tightly connected geographic communities—cities, for example—or in highly networked electronic communitie...

Riemer Heiko , Förster Frank , Herb Michael & Pöllath Nadja (ed.). Desert animals in the eastern Sahara: status, economic significance, and cultural reflection in antiquity (Proceedings of an interdisciplinary ACACIA workshop held at the University of Cologne December 14–15 2007) (Colloquium Africanum 4). 372 pages, numerous illustrations & tables,...

This dataset comprises the primary data collected for the Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe project (EUROEVOL), led by Professor Stephen Shennan, UCL. The dataset offers the largest repository of archaeological site and radiocarbon data from Neolithic Europe (4,757 sites and 14,131 radiocarbon samples), dating between the late Mesolithic and E...

In a previous study we presented a new method that used summed probability distributions (SPD) of radiocarbon dates as a proxy for population levels, and Monte-Carlo simulation to test the significance of the observed fluctuations in the context of uncertainty in the calibration curve and archaeological sampling. The method allowed us to identify p...

Archaeologists have long sought appropriate ways to describe the duration and floruit of archaeological cultures in statistical terms. Thus far, chronological reasoning has been largely reliant on typological sequences. Using summed probability distributions, the authors here compare radiocarbon dates for a series of European Neolithic cultures wit...

The timing and development of Holocene human occupation in the now hyperarid Sahara has major implications for understanding links between climate change, demography and cultural adaptation. Here we use summed probability distributions from 3287 calibrated 14C dates from 1011 archaeological sites to demonstrate a major and rapid demographic shift b...

Following its initial arrival in SE Europe 8,500 years ago agriculture spread throughout the continent, changing food production and consumption patterns and increasing population densities. Here we show that, in contrast to the steady population growth usually assumed, the introduction of agriculture into Europe was followed by a boom-and-bust pat...

This volume tackles the fundamental and broad-scale questions concerning the spread of early animal herding from its origins in the Near East into Europe beginning in the mid-10th millennium BC. Original work by more than 30 leading international researchers synthesizes our current knowledge about the origins and spread of animal domestication. In...

It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species—cattle, pig and sheep/goat—vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to revea...

Species distribution models are widely used by ecologists to estimate the relationship between environmental predictors and species presence and abundance records. In this paper, we use compiled faunal assemblage records from archaeological sites located across southwest Asia and southeast Europe to estimate and to compare the biogeography of ancie...

We review the origins and dispersal of rice in Asia based on a data base of 443 archaeobotanical reports. Evidence is considered in terms of quality, and especially whether there are data indicating the mode of cultivation, in flooded (‘paddy’ or ‘wet’) or non-flooded (‘dry’) fields. At present it appears that early rice cultivation in the Yangtze...

The Tilemsi Valley has long been heralded as a focal region in the development of West African cultural complexity. The Lower Tilemsi Valley Project began in 2005, with the aim of clarifying the archaeological significance of this region and refining its chronology. This paper examines the pottery from these excavations, advocating an integrative a...

We report here new evidence from the Lower Tilemsi Valley in northeastern Mali, which constitutes the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for domesticated pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), predating other finds from Africa or India by several centuries. These materials provide further morphological details on the earliest cultivated pearl millet. O...

This paper explores the adaptive nature of early Sahelian pastoralists. Zooarchaeological data from new excavations in the Lower Tilemsi Valley, Mali, reveals a dynamic picture of intensive herding alongside seasonal and opportunistic exploitation strategies, focused on the procurement of wild game, fish and freshwater molluscs. A detailed chronolo...

The origins and spread of domesticated cereals in Africa remains poorly understood despite continued efforts. This is partly due to the perennial problem of insufficient research and poor conditions of preservation for plant and animal remains. But, there are also potentially very real reasons for why early domestication continues to elude the arch...

African Pottery Roulette Past and Present: Techniques, Identification and Distribution considers ethnographic, museological and archaeological approaches to pottery-decorating tools called roulettes, that is to say short lengths of fibre or wood that are rolled over the surface of a vessel for decoration. This book sets out, for the first time, a s...

This paper reports the earliest securely dated evidence for intentional dental modification in West Africa. Human remains representing 11 individuals were recovered from the sites of Karkarichikat Nord (KN05) and Karkarichinkat Sud (KS05) in the lower Tilemsi Valley of eastern Mali. The modified anterior maxillary dentitions of four individuals wer...

The pathways leading to the adoption of cereal cultivation and pastoralism in West Africa are poorly understood. In order to elucidate the transition to food production during the Late Stone Age in Mali’s Tilemsi Valley samples of ancient and modern human and animal remains were selected for carbon and oxygen isotope analysis. Our results indicate...