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10,000 year history of plant use at Bosumpra Cave, Ghana

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Abstract

Investigations of hunter-gatherer subsistence, early food production, and the development of agroforestry systems during the Later Stone Age (LSA) of West Africa have proven challenging because of limited recovery and analysis of archaeological evidence relating directly to subsistence. This paper examines changes in the use of plant resources over a 10,000 year period at Bosumpra Cave, southern Ghana. Large quantities of recovered Canarium schweinfurthii (incense tree) and Elaeis guineensis (oil palm) endocarp preserved at the site allow for the assessment of previous observations about changes in the relative importance of tree fruit resources over time. Results point to the possibility that C. schweinfurthii was a managed resource and may be useful as a marker of forager subsistence in tropical forest regions. The exploitation of C. schweinfurthii persisted in the early and middle Holocene, but was eventually overshadowed in the late Holocene by Kintampo food-producing economies based on Pennisetum glaucum (pearl millet), Vigna unguiculata (cowpea) and E. guineensis. The Bosumpra deposits also yielded domesticated pearl millet and cowpea, allowing for the comparison of LSA hunter-gatherer and early food producer subsistence practices and cultural interactions in southern Ghana.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for Bosumpra Cave excavations was provided by the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Danida) with the assistance of Klavs Ransborg and Inga Merkyte of the SAXO-Institute, University of Copenhagen. Archaeobotanical laboratory research was supported by a Simon Fraser University Faculty of the Environment Chair’s Research Grant. We thank students of the University of Ghana for assistance with the flotation of Bosumpra soils and Anna Shoemaker for completing initial laboratory work on the sorting of flotation samples. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers who provided detailed comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. School of Human Evolution and Social Change, 900 S. Cady Mall, Rm. 233, Tempe, AZ, 85287-2402, USA

    Sarah E. Oas

  2. Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5S 1S6, Canada

    A. Catherine D’Andrea

  3. The Forest Occupations Project, Department of Archaeology & Heritage Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana

    Derek J. Watson

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Correspondence to A. Catherine D’Andrea.

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Oas, S.E., D’Andrea, A.C. & Watson, D.J. 10,000 year history of plant use at Bosumpra Cave, Ghana. Veget Hist Archaeobot 24, 635–653 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-015-0514-2

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