Data from: Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets

Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub-Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Prendergast, Mary E., Buckley, Michael, Crowther, Alison, Eager, Heidi, Frantz, Laurent, Lebrasseur, Ophélie, Hutterer, Rainer, Hulme-Beaman, Ardern, Van Neer, Wim, Douka, Katerina, Veall, Margaret-Ashley, Quintana Morales, Eréndira M., Schuenemann, Verena J., Reiter, Ella, Allen, Richard, Dimopoulos, Evangelos A., Helm, Richard M., Shipton, Ceri, Mwebi, Ogeto, Denys, Christiane, Horton, Mark C., Wynne-Jones, Stephanie, Fleisher, Jeffrey, Radimilahy, Chantal, Wright, Henry, Searle, Jeremy B., Krause, Johannes, Larson, Greger, Boivin, Nicole L., Quintana Morales, Eriéndira M., Horton, Mark
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2018
Subjects:
Acryllium
Syrmaticus
Bambusicola
archaeology
Gallus
Polyplectron
Holocene
Numida
Arborophila
Rattus rattus
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m80d7
http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.m80d7
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Summary:Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub-Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first millennium CE, while another posits introduction dating back to 3000 BCE. These distinct scenarios have implications for understanding the emergence of long-distance maritime connectivity, and the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species. Resolution of this longstanding debate requires new efforts, given the lack of well-dated fauna from high-precision excavations, and ambiguous osteomorphological identifications. We analysed faunal remains from 22 eastern African sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range, and applied biomolecular techniques to confirm identifications of two Asian taxa: domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) and black rat (Rattus rattus). Our approach included ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis aided by BLAST-based bioinformatics, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting, and direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. Our results support a late, mid-first millennium CE introduction of these species. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of biological exchange, and emphasize the applicability of our approach to tropical areas with poor bone preservation. : Shotgun sequences for bird remains from Swahili coast archaeological sitesShotgun sequences for bird remains from Swahili coast archaeological sites. Files that are labeled "JK" correspond to specific archaeological bone samples, each 4-digit number representing a single library: JK2992, JK3005, JK2999, JK2989, JK3002, JK2995, JK2993, JK3004, JK3003, JK2994, JK2988, JK3001, JK2990, JK3008, JK2998, JK3007, JK1996, JK3006, JK3000, JK2991, JK2997 . The other files represent extraction blanks (EBB1, EBB2) and library blanks (LBB2, LBB1). Please see supplementary data in the Prendergast et al. paper to link JK numbers to archaeological contexts.2017-06-19_Samples_Oxford.tar

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