Buur Heybe
Buur Heybe, which translates to "The Hill of the Potter's Sand", is a late Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological complex located in the largest granite inselberg in the inter-riverine region of the southern Bay province of Somalia approximately 180 km northwest of the capital Mogadishu. Buur Heybe has a longstanding history of archaeological research dating back to the 1930s when Paolo Graziosi carried out the first professional archaeological excavation in Somalia in the rockshelter site of Gogoshiis Qabe in Buur Heybe. Further excavations by J. Desmond Clark in the 1950s and later by the Buur Ecological and Archaeological Project (BEAP) led by Steven Brandt in the 1980s have made Buur Heybe one of the best dated and closely studied archaeological sites in Somalia. Excavations in the Buur Region ended abruptly in 1989 as the encroaching Somali Civil War threatened to engulf southern Somalia, although plans were made by BEAP to return to the Buur Region in 1990, the collap ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Administrative Divisions Of Somalia
Somalia is officially divided into 18 administrative regions (''gobollo'', singular ''gobol''). These are in turn subdivided into seventy-two districts (plural ''degmooyin''; singular ''degmo''). On a ''de facto'' basis, northern Somalia is now divided up among the autonomous region of Puntland In central Somalia, Galmudug is another regional entity that emerged south of Puntland. Regions and districts Historical divisions Pre-independence In 1931, Italian Somaliland consisted of seven commissariats."Regions of Somalia" . ''Statoids''. Retrieved 20 February 2011. * Alto Giuba * Alto Uebi-Scebeli * Basso Giuba * Basso Uebi-Scebeli * Migiurtinia * Mogadiscio * Mudugh Following the 1935–36 Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Italian Somaliland became part of Italian East Africa with Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Eritrea. Italian ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span; however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, Neanderthal, ''Homo neanderthalensis'', than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cushitic Languages
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama. Official status The Cushitic languages with the greatest number of total speakers are Oromo (37 million), Somali (22 million), Beja (3.2 million), Sidamo (3 million), and Afar (2 million). Oromo serves as one of the official working languages of Ethiopia and is also the working language of several of the states within the Ethiopian federal system including Oromia, Harari and Dire Dawa regional states and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region. Somali is the first of two official languages of Somalia and three official languages of Somaliland. It also serves as a language of instruction in Djibouti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microlith
A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 60,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The microliths were used in spear points and arrowheads. Microliths are produced from either a small blade (Microblade technology, microblade) or a larger blade-like piece of flint by abrupt or truncated retouch (lithics), retouching, which leaves a very typical piece of waste, called a microburin. The microliths themselves are sufficiently worked so as to be distinguishable from workshop waste or accidents. Two families of microliths are usually defined: laminar and geometric. An assemblage of microliths can be used to date an archeological site. Laminar microliths are slightly larger, and are associated with the end of the Upper Paleolithic and the beginning of the Epipaleolithic era; geometric microliths are characteristic of the M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Levallois Technique
The Levallois technique () is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 400,000Shipton, C. (2022). Predetermined Refinement: The Earliest Levallois of the Kapthurin Formation. *Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology*, 5, 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-021-00109-1 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was used by the Neanderthals in Europe and by modern humans in other regions such as the Levant. It is named after 19th-century finds of flint tools in the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris, France. The technique was more sophisticated than earlier methods of lithic reduction, involving the striking of lithic flakes from a prepared lithic core. A striking platform is formed at one end and then the core's edges are trimmed by flaking off pieces around the outline of the intended lithic flake. This creates a domed shape on the side of the core, known as a tortoise c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago. The late Pleistocene equates to the proposed Tarantian Age of the geologic time scale, preceded by the officially ratified Chibanian (commonly known as the Middle Pleistocene). The beginning of the Late Pleistocene is the transition between the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and the beginning of the Last Interglacial around 130,000 years ago (corresponding with the beginning of Marine Isotope Stage 5). The Late Pleistocene ends with the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 10th millennium BC, 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch began. The term Upper Pleistocene is currently in use as a p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stillbay
The Stillbay or Still Bay industry was named by archaeologists A. J. H. Goodwin and C. van Riet Lowe in 1929, and is a Middle Stone Age stone tool manufacturing style after the site of Stilbaai (also called Still Bay) in South Africa where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types. In addition to Acheulian stone tools, bone and antler picks were also used. Its start and end are calculated at 71.9 ka and 71.0 ka. At present, too few data exist to limit the 95% confidence intervals of these date to more than 4 to 5 ky. However, available data are consistent with a duration of less than 1 ky. Sampson in 1974 questioned its existence on the grounds that sites were not properly described and they lacked stratigraphic integrity However, more recent work from sites such as Blombos Cave and Sibudu Cave attest to its existence. It is broadly analogous to the Mousterian culture in Europe. Olduvai Gorge has within its many ages of tools, some of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African Humid Period
The African humid period (AHP; also known by other names) was a climate period in Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene geologic epochs, when northern Africa was wetter than today. The covering of much of the Sahara desert by grasses, trees and lakes was caused by changes in the Earth's axial tilt, changes in vegetation and dust in the Sahara which strengthened the African monsoon, and increased greenhouse gases. During the preceding Last Glacial Maximum, the Sahara contained extensive dune fields and was mostly uninhabited. It was much larger than today, and its lakes and rivers such as Lake Victoria and the White Nile were either dry or at low levels. The humid period began about 14,600–14,500 years ago at the end of Heinrich event 1, simultaneously to the Bølling–Allerød warming. Rivers and lakes such as Lake Chad formed or expanded, glaciers grew on Mount Kilimanjaro and the Sahara retreated. Two major dry fluctuations occurred; during the Younger Dryas ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marine Isotope Stages
Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data derived from deep sea core samples. Working backwards from the present, which is MIS 1 in the scale, stages with even numbers have high levels of oxygen-18 and represent cold glacial periods, while the odd-numbered stages are lows in the oxygen-18 figures, representing warm interglacial intervals. The data are derived from pollen and foraminifera (plankton) remains in drilled marine sediment cores, sapropels, and other data that reflect historic climate; these are called proxies. The MIS timescale was developed from the pioneering work of Cesare Emiliani in the 1950s, and is now widely used in archaeology and other fields to express dating in the Quaternary period (the last 2.6 million years), as well as providing the fullest and best data for that period for paleoclimatology or the stud ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lesser Kudu
The lesser kudu (''Tragelaphus imberbis'') is a medium-sized bushland antelope found in East Africa. The species is a part of the ungulate genus '' Tragelaphus'' (family Bovidae), along with several other related species of striped, spiral-horned African bovids, including the related greater kudu, the bongo, bushbuck, common and giant elands, nyala and sitatunga. It was first scientifically described by English zoologist Edward Blyth (1869). The lesser kudu’s nose-to-tail length is typically . Males reach about at the shoulder, while females reach . Males typically weigh and females . Horns are present only on males. The spiral horns are long, and have 2-2.5 complete twists. The lesser kudus have very distinctive physical markings; females and juveniles have a golden-brown coat, with white vertical stripes on their sides, while the males develop into a dark grey colour—after about two years—and grow a pronounced “streak” of shaggy hair down the centre of their ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Radiocarbon Dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotopes of carbon, isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby. It is based on the fact that radiocarbon () is constantly being created in the Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of it contains begins to decrease as the undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Horn Of Africa
The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), p. 26 Located on the easternmost part of the African mainland, it is the fourth largest peninsula in the world. It is composed of Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Although not common, broader definitions include parts or all of Kenya and Sudan.John I. Saeed, ''Somali'' – Volume 10 of London Oriental and African language library, (J. Benjamins: 1999), p. 250.Sandra Fullerton Joireman, ''Institutional Change in the Horn of Africa'', (Universal-Publishers: 1997), p.1: "The Horn of Africa encompasses the countries of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. These countries share similar peoples, languages, and geographical endowments." It has been described as a region of geopolitical and strategic importance, since it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |