Earliest evidence of plant farming in East Africa

July 14, 2024

Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist


Ancient plant remains found in Kenya help explain the history of plant farming in East Africa.

Around the world, the development of agriculture marked a massive leap in the social and cultural development of humanity.



Rocky outcrop in east africa
Kakapel Rockshelter. Credit: Steven Goldstein.

Eastern Africa is a region long thought to have been important in the development of early farming.

“There are many narratives about how agriculture began in east Africa, but there’s not a lot of direct evidence of the plants themselves,” says Natalie Mueller, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis and co-first author of a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

New evidence found during an excavation at the Kakapel Rockshelter in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya changes that.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/east-africa-earliest-plant-farming/