title: Another unique river: a consideration of some of the characteristics of the trunk tributaries of the Nile River in northwestern Ethiopia in relationship to their aquatic food resources.
abstract: Aquatic food resources are important components of many modern human hunter-gatherer diets and yet evidence attesting to the widespread exploitation of this food type appears rather late in the archaeological record. While there are times when, for example, the capture of fish and shellfish requires sophisticated technology, there are other cases when the exact ecological attributes of an individual species and the particulars of its environment make it possible for these foods to be incorporated into the human diet with little or no tool use and only a minimal time investment. In order to better understand the full set of variables that are considered in these sorts of foraging decisions, it is necessary to detail the attributes of each particular aquatic environment. We discuss here some of the characteristics of the trunk tributaries of the Nile and Blue Rivers in the Horn of Africa. Unlike typical perennial rivers, these 'temporary' rivers flow only during a brief but intense wet season; during the much longer dry season, the rivers are reduced to a series of increasingly disconnected waterholes, and the abundant and diverse fish and mollusk populations are trapped in ever smaller evaporating pools. The local human population today utilizes a number of diverse capture methods that range from simple to complex, and vary according to the size and depth of the waterhole and the time of the year. When we view the particular characteristics of an individual river system, we find that each river is 'unique' in its individual attributes. The Horn of Africa is believed to be along the route that modern humans followed on their migration out of Africa, and it is likely that the riverine-based foraging behaviors of these populations accompanied our species on its movement into the rest of the Old World.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Electronic address: jkappelman@austin.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kappelman
authors.affiliation: Bahir Dar Fishery and Aquatic Life Research Center, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Electronic address: drjetewabe@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Dereje
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tewabe
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Electronic address: lctodd@lamar.colostate.edu.
authors.forename: Lawrence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Todd
authors.affiliation: Paleoanthropology and Paleoenvironment Program, School of Earth Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Electronic address: mulugetafyg@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mulugeta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Feseha
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA. Electronic address: mkay@uark.edu.
authors.forename: Marvin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kay
authors.affiliation: Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Electronic address: garyk@mail.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kocurek
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Electronic address: brettnachman@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Brett
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nachman
authors.affiliation: Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA. Electronic address: ntabor@mail.smu.edu.
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tabor
authors.affiliation: Paleoanthropology and Paleoenvironment Program, School of Earth Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Electronic address: mymekiya@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Meklit
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yadeta
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004032:Diet; D017753:Ecosystem; D005002:Ethiopia; D005399:Fishes; D006801:Humans; D011891:Rain; D045483:Rivers; D017747:Seafood; D012621:Seasons; D012758:Shellfish
keywords: Archeology; Fish; Middle Stone Age; Mollusks; Shellfish; Temporary rivers