Environments and trypanosomiasis risks for early herders in the later Holocene of the Lake Victoria basin, Kenya

Abstract

Specialized pastoralism developed ∼3 kya among Pastoral Neolithic Elmenteitan herders in eastern Africa. During this time, a mosaic of hunters and herders using diverse economic strategies flourished in southern Kenya. It has been argued that the risk for trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), carried by tsetse flies in bushy environments, had a significant influence on pastoral diversification and migration out of eastern Africa toward southern Africa ∼2 kya. Elmenteitan levels at Gogo Falls (ca. 1.9–1.6 kya) preserve a unique faunal record, including wild mammalian herbivores, domestic cattle and caprines, fish, and birds. It has been suggested that a bushy/woodland habitat that harbored tsetse fly constrained production of domestic herds and resulted in subsistence diversification. Stable isotope analysis of herbivore tooth enamel (n = 86) from this site reveals, instead, extensive C4 grazing by both domesticates and the majority of wild herbivores. Integrated with other ecological proxies (pollen and leaf wax biomarkers), these data imply an abundance of C4 grasses in the Lake Victoria basin at this time, and thus little risk for tsetse-related barriers to specialized pastoralism. These data provide empirical evidence for the existence of a grassy corridor through which small groups of herders could have passed to reach southern Africa.