THE HOLOCENE PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE TEMBEN REGION, NORTHERN ETHIOPIA

THE HOLOCENE PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE TEMBEN REGION, NORTHERN ETHIOPIA By Agazi Negash, a PhD thesis, Graduate School of the University of Florida 

Abstract

Evidence from agronomy and bio-geography shows that northern Ethiopia is a center of origin of several economically important African plant domesticates that played a major role in the emergence of Neolithic societies. Although archaeologists have speculated on how and why these food producing societies have emerged, in the past, there was virtually no archaeological data with which to test the hypotheses they have developed. Recent systematic archaeological surveys and excavation in the Temben area of northern Ethiopia have identified sites that have provided radiometrically datable stratified cultural sequences containing preserved faunal remains, a necessary temporal sequence that would allow us to begin testing the various hypotheses. The analysis of the cultural materials and ecofacts t recovered from these sites would lay the groundwork for future archaeological investigations in northern Ethiopia by furnishing significant necessary data towards the understanding of the Neolithic of northern Ethiopia, an area that is situated in the bio-geographical heart of the hypothesized center of Ethiopian plant domestication.

Can be downloaded at: 

https://ia800404.us.archive.org/28/items/holoceneprehisto00nega/holoceneprehisto00nega.pdf