ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Variability in Eritrea and the Archaeologyof the Northern Horn During the First Millennium BC:Subsistence, Ritual, and Gold Production

Peter R. Schmidt

Published online: 26 January 2010# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract Around the margins of Asmara, Eritrea, hundreds of sites dating to theearly and mid-first millennium BC have been documented. They range from singlefamily dwellings to small and large hamlets, small and large villages, and smalltowns. We call these Ancient Ona sites, using the Tigrinya term for ruin. Ourfindings testify to significant subsistence, ritual, and economic variation within aregion of 12 by 17 km: (1) different subsistence strategies in the well-watered, openbasin to the west of Asmara (emmer wheat, barley; cattle) compared to the uplandsnorth and east of Asmara (lentil, teff; goats/sheep); (2) ritual events, marked by stonebulls' heads and a huge ash deposit at Sembel Kushet, that brought people togetherin rites of passage and intensification during Meskel-like ceremonies, includingritual exchange; and (3) the exploitation of gold north of Asmara amongheterarchically organized communities that exchanged specialized products withinthis region.

Rsum Aux environs dAsmara, en Erythre, des centaines de sites datant du dbutet milieu du premier millnaire avant notre re ont t recenss. Ils comprennent deshabitations unifamiliales, des hameaux de taille diverse, des villages petits et grands,ainsi que des petites villes. Nous appelons ces vestiges sites Ona anciens, en nousinspirant du terme Tigrinya dsignant une ruine. Nos trouvailles dmontrent unediversit considrable en matire dconomie, de moyens subsistance, et pratiquesrituelles dans une rgion de 12 par 17 kilomtres: 1) Les stratgies de subsistanceemployes dans le bassin ouvert et bien arros a louest dAsmara (amidonnier,avoine, bovins) diffrent de celles en usage dans les hautes terres au nord et lest

Afr Archaeol Rev (2009) 26:305325DOI 10.1007/s10437-009-9061-5

P. R. Schmidt (*)20924 NE 132nd Ave, Waldo, FL 32694, USAe-mail: schmidtp@ufl.edu

dAsmara (lentille, teff, chvres/moutons); 2) Les vnements rituels sont repr-sents par des ttes de taureaux en pierre et par un dpt norme de cendres Sembel Kushet; ils rassemblaient les gens dans des rites de passage et ritesdintensification similaires ceux des crmonies de Meskel; 3) Au nord dAsmara,l'or tait exploit par des communauts htrarchiques impliques dans deschanges de produits spcialiss dans la rgion.

Keywords Eritrea . Ancient Ona . Pre-Aksumite . Ritual . Gold . Bulls heads

Introduction

In the view of some scholars, Pre-Aksumite means a period of time in thenorthern Horn when there is evidence for Sabaean influences from the ArabianPeninsula (Drewes 1962; de Contenson 1981; Schneider 1976; Anfray 1968,1990), even using the term Sabaean to designate a developmental period in themid-first millennium BC. As David Phillipson (2009) has observed, SometimesEthio-Sabaean and Pre-Aksumite were seen as successive stages, sometimesboth were attributed to a Pre-Aksumite period. These influenceswhether inthe form of appropriated material culture used by local elites or more direct contactwith the Sabaean worldare defining attributes that mark off this time period fromother post-Holocene cultural periods in the northern Horn. Mere reference to thePre-Aksumite has taken on symbolic powerbecoming a trope for an era offoreign influence, an era when local cultures accommodated and co-opted suchinfluences to transform into the proto-Aksumite and then into what we know as thepolitical-geographic entity Aksum. The use of Pre-Aksumite has introduced aproblematic terminology in the archaeology of the northern Horn by privilegingcultural influences external to the Horn and thus submerging local innovations anddevelopments.

This paper takes a path away from the homogenizing effects of tropic categoriesthat typify archaeological classification. By examining the archaeology of theGreater Asmara region, I step back from the homogenization of local developmentsunder the Pre-Aksumite label and instead shed light on the regional distinctivenessof the archaeological remains around Asmarailluminating how and why earlyfirst-millennium BC developments there diverged from other areas in the northernHorn (for map of the Northern Horn including major sites see Fig. 1). The first stepin this process came when my colleagues and I designated the archaeological culturedocumented from 800 to 350 BC around Asmara as the Ancient Ona Culture (Curtisand Schmidt 2008; Schmidt et al. 2008b) precisely because it did not fit into theearlier tropic classificationlacking evidence for any Sabaean influences ordominant influences from the south. Incorporating the use of ona by Tringali(1965)the Triginya word for ruinsthe Ancient Ona designation leaves behindsome vexing cultural characterizations while also opening intellectual space to focuson variation within the northern Horn. Comparisons between the coeval early tomid-first millennium BC sites of Ethiopia and the Ancient Ona of Greater Asmaracertainly show that there are affinities between these two zones within a larger region(Fattovich 2009) but importantly also affirm there are noteworthy differences that

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testify to unique developmental trajectories deserving to be understood free ofbiasing labels.1

Among the developments that distinguish the greater Asmara sub-region from otherparts of the northern Horn during the early and mid-first millennium BC is the moredetailed and nuanced knowledge we now have for subsistence practices across ageographically bounded research universe. Heretofore, subsistence practices that madeup quotidian economic life have either been ignored in favor of a focus on exotic andelite artifacts or have been discussed only for a relatively tight cluster of sites at Aksum(Bard et al. 1997; Boardman and Phillipson 2000; Phillipson 2000). There is littleevidence in the northern Horn for how communities varied across a sub-region in theirsubsistence practices during the first millennium BC. The research around Asmaracorrects this deficiency while simultaneously providing a better understanding of dailyeconomy linked to topography, water, soil, and climatea more finely grainedanalysis that allows us to see possible specializations in the subsistence economy ofindividual communities.

Moreover, it is now apparent that in matters of ritual life and ideology, the greaterAsmara research throws considerable light on the question of local belief systemsand ritual practices that differ significantly from what we know about other sub-

1 In chapter 10 (D'Andrea et al. 2008) of The Archaeology of Ancient Eritrea (Schmidt et al. 2008a), weuse Ancient Ona to replace references to the Pre-Aksumite of northern Ethiopiaan extrapolation that isnot germane because of differences discussed here. The use of Ancient Ona (800350 BC) is restricted tothe greater Asmara area.

Fig. 1 Map of the northern Horn, showing principal sites discussed in this issue (Luisa Sernicola)

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regions of the northern Horn. In particular, the presence around Asmara of ritualobjects known as bulls' heads allows us to develop deeper insights into how cattlefunctioned in the ritual life of first millennium BC people at a very local level and ina manner quite different from northern Ethiopia or even elsewhere in Eritrea. Theritual complex that I have interpreted and documented around Asmara appears in ourmapping of quartz bulls' heads to have operated within clear social boundaries and tohave been part of local exchange networks on the Asmara plateau (and a fewneighboring areas off the plateau), suggesting that ideas that link these bulls' headswith either rock art depictions or other representations of cattle in Arabia or the Hornonly serve to erase the distinctively local quality of the phenomenon (e.g., Fattovich2004; Buffa and Vogt 2001).

There are also particular exploitative practices, such as the mining and processingof gold in the first millennium BC, that help to explain some of the demographicclustering that occurred in the northern and western parts of the Asmara plateauanother developmental trajectory that differs from surrounding sub-regions. Thisagain illustrates that knowledge about local variations helps to make representationsabout the first millennium BC that avoid homogenizing conclusions, and thataccount for the wide variety of natural and cultural differences that occurred in themacro-region that we call the northern Horn. I propose here to make finer grainedexaminations of subsistence, ritual life, and exploitative economy on the Asmaraplateau to establish a comparative framework that goes beyond the commonalitiesthat have arisen in the literature heretofore.

Subsistence: Insights Into Sub-regional Practices

I want first to examine how subsistence practices varied significantly across a 1217 km research universe around Asmara (Fig. 2; see Curtis and Schmidt 2008 forsurvey details; Curtis 2009). This discussion is based on paleobotanical remainsrecovered through flotation after having been systematically sampled fromexcavation units and all features with ashy deposits. The contexts for such recoverywere particularly favorable, with hearths, kitchen floors, and ash discard areasproviding the greater proportion of seed remains. Here, I discuss five sites fromwhich significant quantities of crop remains were recovered: Sembel, Mai Chiot,Mai Hutsa, Ona Gudo, and Weki Duba (D'Andrea et al. 2008; Table 10.1). The firstkey observation is that food crops differed significantly across the sub-region, withquite different crop repertoires in the open, better-watered plains west of Asmara(Ona Gudo, Sembel, Weki Duba) compared to the rocky uplands north and east ofAsmara (Mai Hutsa and Mai Chiot).

The open plains have wide expanses of fields within 2 km of permanent water andalso hold small numbers of minor rocky outcrops. This is an ideal setting for plowagriculture with the use of oxen, conducive for planting and harvestingalso usingoxen for threshinglarge expanses of highly productive grains. Table 1 shows therange of crops documented at sites such as Sembel, Ona Gudo, and Weki Dubaalllocated on more open terrain. These communities relied mostly on emmer wheat(Triticum dicoccum) and hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare), with barley forming a

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very large proportion of the grains in the deeper deposits at Sembel, the mostextensively excavated site located above one of the few perennial streams and itsassociated rich bottom lands. Some 97% of the 115 hulled barley grains recoveredfrom Sembel came from multiple hearths in middle strata in the southern kitchenarea of Room B dating to approximately 600 BC (Table 1; Fig. 6.16 in Schmidt et al.2008b). While the gross frequencies of hulled barley at Sembel are distinctive,barley was also the dominant grain in the basal deposits at Weki Duba, where 77%

Fig. 2 Sites of different cultural periods, colored coded as per legend. Each survey grid represents 1 km2

(Matthew C. Curtis)

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of the grains recovered from a kitchen floor were hulled barley. Similarly, at OnaGudo, the bottom seven excavation units held 95% of the barley documented at thissite. These results suggest that barley was the crop of choice during the firstsettlement on the open plains.

Emmer wheat, also a widespread part of the Near Eastern grain repertoire, wasnot as popular in the gross frequencies but nevertheless was a key staple at thesesame three sites. It was found mostly in the earlier depositions dating between 800

Fig. 3 Excavated sites around Asmara (Matthew C. Curtis)

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and 600 BC,2 an observation amplified by the virtual absence of emmer wheat in thelater deposits, suggesting a fundamental shift in its role in the diet through timeadecline that is mirrored in the diminishment of emmer wheat cultivation in theEthiopian highlands and other regions (D'Andrea and Haile 2002; D'Andrea et al.2008).

In contrast to the open, lower plains are the rocky uplands where smaller patchesof fertile soil prevail among many ambas (mesas), schist outcrops, and other steepand rocky gradients. Mai Hutsa to the north of Asmara and Mai Chiot to the east ofAsmara are the two excavated sites located in this topographic/physical zone. Of thefive sites discussed here, these two uplands sites yielded no specimens of emmerwheatfixing that crop exclusively to the open bottom plains. Subsistence practicesin this rocky zone close to the eastern escarpment may have been influenced bymicro-climatic phenomena, such as the fogs that flow over the eastern escarpmentand hang over the adjacent plateau. The distinctiveness of the uplands is alsoemphasized by the absence of identifiable hulled barley at the Mai Hutsa site and thepresence of only three barley grains scattered through the deposits at Mai Chiot. Thedichotomy between the two zones is thus underlined by the virtual absence of emmerwheat and very low frequencies of barley in the upland rocky zone sites. As MaiChiot is a more extensively excavated site, it is not sample size that accounts forthese clear contrasts.

The staple bread of Ethiopia and Eritrea is enjera, fermented flat bread made fromteff (Eragrostis tef). Reliable dating of teff in the northern Horn has eludedarchaeologists for some time. The presence of teff in Pre-Aksumite deposits at theKidane Mehret D site in Aksum has been set aside as unreliable because the seedsappear to have been contaminated by later deposits (Boardman 2000: 365; Phillipson2000: 372; contra Marshall and Hildebrand 2002: 212), yet teff was abundant duringthe Aksumite period when it was the most common grain in the earlier phases(Boardman 1999, 2000: 366). Teff has also been documented at Beta Giyorgis, datedto the Aksumite and perhaps to Proto-Aksumite times (Bard et al. 1997). In theGreater Asmara excavations, one grain of teff was recovered from a sealed deposit inthe Mai Chiot site in the rocky uplands. The context from which it was documentedcompact, red burned earth associated with faunal remains and linseedsuggests the

2 As D. Phillipson (2009) notes, radiocarbon dating between the eighth and fifth centuries BC isproblematic because of variations in atmospheric C14 during that time. However, we have reliable AMSdating for the beginning and multiple dates towards the end of this problematic period, allowing us toreckon relative time through fine grained analysis of stratigraphic evidence (e.g., Mehari 2008).

Table 1 Raw frequencies of seeds at excavated sites around Asmara

Site Hulled barley Emmer wheat Bread wheat Lentil Linseed Tef

Sembel 131 19 2 1 29 0

Ona Gudo 20 3 0 10 20 0

Weki Duba 13 4 0 6 33 0

Mai Hutsa 0 0 0 2 3 0

Mai Chiot 3 0 0 9 5 1

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presence of a hearth. Though limited to one grain, the absence of disturbance and thesecure dating to the second half of the first millennium BC is important fordefinitively documenting teff in the northern Horn diet at this time and the setting inwhich it occurredAsmara's rocky uplands.

We also have strong evidence for cultivation of lentil in the first millennium BCaround Asmara. In fact, we find that lentil is only one of two cropslinseed being theotherthat is not restricted to either the open plains or rocky uplands. Rather, it is foundin all excavated sites, appearing in upper deposits at Sembel, in relatively large numbersin a series of ash deposits and hearths at Ona Gudo dated to 770350 BC and 800400 BC (95% cal; Curtis 2005; D'Andrea et al. 2008), and at Weki Dubamostly indeeper deposits associated with ash and grindstones. In the rocky uplands, lentil occursat Mai Chiot in deposits dated towards the terminal Ancient Ona (500350 BC) fromboth middle and deeper deposits; and at Mai Hutsa lentil is found in hearth debrisdating to 830420 BC (95% cal; Curtis 2005). This evidence points to lentil being animportant pulse and an integral part of the diet throughout the Ancient Ona period.

An important oil crop, linseed (Linus usitatissimun) is also found in all Ancient Onasites in the greater Asmara area and thus mirrors the evidence found at the KidaneMehret D site, Aksum, in terms of general importance in the diet. The presence oflinseed at all sites however must be examined within the context of the two differentzones in which sites are situated. The Mai Chiot and Mai Hutsa sites in the rockyuplands held only eight of the 90 seeds documented or about 9% of the total collection,whereas the Sembel, Ona Gudo, and Weki Duba sites held 91% of the documentedspecimensa very large proportion associated with the open, lower plains. Noteworthyat Weki Duba was the association of many linseed specimens with thickly sooted redware pots midway through the depositional sequence; many other specimens werelocated in a dense ashy layer on a basal kitchen floor and in the interstitial spaces in thestone floor, dated to ca. 700 BC. Importantly, at the Sembel site, there are many lowergrindstones with a high polish associated with linseed deposits, suggesting thatgrinding to produce oil was an important component of the subsistence economy andperhaps even for intraregional and interregional trade of linseed oil.

Barley and emmer wheat are clearly primary crops found throughout the depositionalsequences of the western, open sites of Sembel, Ona Gudo, and Weki Duba. These twocrops are not a prominent part of the uplands diet. Though lentil was also foundthroughout the Asmara plateau, it is more important in the diet of open plains sites suchas Ona Gudo and Weki Duba, but not Sembel. This suggests a varied patternnotassociated with preservation issues (D'Andrea et al. 2008)that may be related tospecialization of different communities, perhaps linked to the heterarchical qualities ofsettlements and intraregional trade that balanced specialized grain production, eachcommunity making contributions to a wider regional distribution system (see Crumley1995; McIntosh 1998). Linseed, too, was found throughout the plateau, but was morecommon in those communities bordering the open plains, whereas teff has beendocumented thus far only in a rocky upland setting.

The rich paleobotanical record at Aksum shows a significant shift in cropsbetween the Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite periods, a shift that incorporatedadditional African domesticates such as finger millet and sorghum as well as NearEastern crops such as lentil, pea, and grass pea (Bard et al. 1997; Boardman 1999:144). We do not have sufficient settlement evidence for the Aksumite period in the

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greater Asmara sub-region to inquire into possible parallel shifts there, although (asindicated above) lentil is much earlier than at Aksum.

Different subsistence practices, closely linked to soil types, proximity to water, andtopography are significant reminders that variation at a sub-regional level such as theAsmara plateau is central for understanding variation across the entire region. Whilesome growing or consumption of linseed, barley, and lentil apparently occurred in theuplands, these communities appear to be more restricted in their productive capacity andcrop repertoire, especially in the virtual absence of emmer wheat. In contrast, the lowerand open plains show a plethora of evidence for the barley and emmer wheat staples aswell as linseed, though not always lentil. This finely nuanced system of production,perhaps balanced through exchange via kinship networks, alerts us to the likelihood thatsuch variations express the heterarchical qualities of specialized contemporarycommunities and that such patterns may also have prevailed in other sub-regions ofthe northern Hornsomething to keep in mind before we rush to characterizationsbased on any sub-region to typify a larger region.

Subsistence and Domestic Animals

The previous observations about intraregional variations also extend to pastoral lifethrough the consumption of animals, since the Ancient Ona Culture was an agro-pastoral economy. The differences that appear in food crops are mimicked in thedifferent husbandry and butchery practices that distinguished the people of the openplains from those of the rocky uplands. Cattle consumption was greater in the openareas where oxen would also have been used for cultivation and threshing. Incontrast, goats and sheep were far more prominent in the rocky upland areas,suggesting clear divisions between ecological/topographic zones. If we look at thesub-region as a whole in terms of total frequencies of domestic animals representedin our collections from six excavated sites, then there appear to be more smallungulates (mostly Capra/Ovis) than large ungulates (mostly Bos). But thisgeneralization is potentially misleading for the sub-region because the picture isskewed by the much larger number of small ungulates at Mai Chiot and Mai Hutsain the rocky uplands. Such a scenario does not applyusing MNIto thecommunities located near the intensively cultivated areas in the open plains suchas Sembel Kushet and Ona Gudo, where Bos/large ungulates dominate most of thefaunal profiles (Fig. 4a and b). Sembel is less definitive, with equal numbers of smalland large ungulates, keeping in mind that the large ungulates have much highernutritional value. The contrasts between uplands and open plains communities takeon greater vividness when we compare Mai Chiot from the uplands and Ona Gudofrom the plains as proxies for the two zones in the sub-region.

A more detailed discussion of the distribution of different body parts(Shoshani et al. 2008) shows that a contrast between uplands and plains sitesappears only when body part frequencies are examined for sheep, goats, and smallungulate-sized specimens. Mai Chiot provides good evidence for an integrated oreven-part distribution of meat cuts, as does Mai Hutsathe other uplands site. Inthe three communities in the open plains, there is a greater frequency of axial cuts(vertebrae and ribs). If we envision the sub-region as an integrated economy, then

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the higher frequency of axial cuts in the lowlands may represent exchange comingfrom the uplands where the better cuts remained for local consumption along withother axial cuts; such exchange occurred over several kilometers and up to anhour's journey by foot. This integrated perspective on intraregional exchange mayalso help us to understand some of the crop specializations that we see in thepaleobotanical recordwith surplus grains such as processed emmer wheat,barley, and linseed or linseed oil (and possibly beer made from barley) movingfrom the open plains to the uplands in exchange for easily transportable cuts ofsheep and goat meat.

RitualThe Search for Meaning

The second topic that invites examination for cultural variation within the sub-regionis the production and distribution of what have been described as ritual bulls' heads(Tringali 1965, 1967, 1978; Schmidt and Curtis 2001; Schmidt and Naty 2008).Mostly stone objectsalong with some ground potsherd examplesmade by bothchipping and grinding (Fig. 5), these artifacts are found in a variety of Ancient Onasites concentrated along the northern and western zones of the Asmara plateau. Theirgeneral classificationusing the triangular frontal view of Bosdoes not capturethe variation found in this category of artifact. Many objects are rounded, elongated,

Fig. 4 a and b. Histogramsshowing the contrasts betweenthe plains (Fig. 1.2a) and rockyuplands (Fig. 1.b) sites to showdominance of cattle in the openplains and sheep/goats/smallungulate-sized animals in theuplands (Shoshani et al. 2008)

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stubby, and depart from a triangular norm. Some are diminutiveonly severalcentimeters in diameter, while others resemble 1215 cm wide, roughly finishedblanks. There is significant variety in the care and quality of craftsmanship as well asthe types of materials used and the scale of the finished product (Schmidt and Naty2008). Yet within this large range of variation there is little doubt about whichobjects fit within the bulls' head category.

Tringali seemed genuinely perplexed about what to call these objects, alsoreferring to them as crescents, a term that elicits comparison to the Sabaeancrescent and circle. In earlier treatments, Fattovich (1997a, b, 2000) favored the ideathat images of bulls in the northern Horn are linked to the Arabian Peninsula, but hedoes not specifically suggest that these particular objects of the Ancient Ona werethe result of such contact and cultural influence. He does object however to ourinterpretation that they should be treated as a local phenomenon and not seen asderivative from other regions such as the Arabian Peninsula: Such an extremeapproach may please some Eritrean intellectuals and politicians, and those whoworship at the altar of political correctness (Fattovich 2008: 347), a trenchantcritique that diminishes the importance of these significant findings rendered instonenot found elsewhere in the northern Horn let alone the Arabian Peninsula.Any argument for an Arabian connection would be misleading in this setting; thecomplete absence of any Near Eastern artifacts associated with bulls' heads inAncient Ona communities and their contiguous multipurpose sites incisively affirmsthat these objects belong exclusively to local expressive culture.

An appraisal of the objects represented in Fig. 5 shows that most are highly stylizedrepresentations of bovids, though they do not capture the finer features of bovids. Aswe search for intentionality in these collections, we find that the exceptions to the normprovide deep insights. The excavation of such an artifact (Fig. 6) at Sembel providessome clues: a ground-stone object with a hump between opposed, tapered points maybe recognized as representing a humped Zebu (Bos indicus)lending confidence thatthe intended representation is indeed a bovid. The wide variation in style and the qualityof craftsmanship may indicate a level of craft skill that was not highly developed, or avaried familiarity with production techniques. The absence of standardization may point

Fig. 5 Ground stone bulls'heads made from metavolcanics,volcanics, and pottery (upperleft), excavated at the Sembelsite

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to variation associated with different social groups, but the possibility that these objectswere produced by relatively unskilled young people also emerges as significant.

We first thought, following Tringali's observations, that these objects were limitedto mounds covered with architectural stone that mark the Ancient Ona settlements ofvarious sizes. Our comprehensive and systematic survey of 90 km2 on the Asmaraplateau (Curtis and Schmidt 2008) shows however that they are also common onsome of the multipurpose but low-visibility sites of the Ancient Ona period. Onesite, located in Survey Unit 118 southeast of Asmara and designated as K09, had 12bulls' heads on its surface, whereas the nearby K01 site had none (Fig. 2). Other siteswith bulls' heads but without evidence of permanent settlement are those with largequantities of quartz float processed for gold, such as those located immediately to thenorthwest of Asmara and east of the Hara Hot gold mine (Figs. 2 and 3). Thepresence of bulls' heads on these large multipurpose sites (no architectural evidencebut plentiful grindstones, lithics, and pottery) and the clear differences in thefrequency of bulls' heads among large multipurpose sites suggests that activitiesassociated with these objects happened in specific spaces outside the core stone-builtcommunities and for very specialized purposes, possibly for sequestered ritualinstruction of neophytes at initiation schools.

Tringali located bulls' heads about 40 km to the south at Gura near Dekemhareand about 38 km north of Asmara towards Karen (Tringali 1978: 62, 98, Fig. 32),though most are confined to the Asmara plateau. They are not known from any otherregion of the northern Horn. While there have been many speculative ideas aboutwhat these objects signify, they are clearly significant for understanding ritualrelationships that may once have prevailed on the Ancient Ona landscape. Usingstrong inference that draws on Alex Naty's ethnographic details on the Kunama(Schmidt and Naty 2008), I argue that these objects once functioned as ritualpromissory notes, as devices symbolically promising cattle as the first of severalsteps in bride-price payment, and as an integral part of a rite of passage alsoassociated with rites of intensification. Naty informs us that the Kunama, a Nilo-Saharan-speaking people who now live in the western lowlands, have explicit oraltraditions about their identity with the highlands, and practicing a form of initiationwhere young men make clay figurines of cattle, later giving them to the family oftheir betrothed as symbols of the cattle bride price they will pay upon consummationof the marriage some years later (Schmidt and Naty 2008). Naty also points out inhis testimony that these Kunama ritual events are rites of passage because they occurat a particular time (age 68) in a young man's life cycle, but they are also rites ofintensification because they are conducted close to the harvest season when

Fig. 6 A drawing of the groundstone bull's head in the bottomcenter of Fig. 4, a representationof B. indicusthe earliestknown representation ofB. indicus in Africa

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fecundity of the land and the reproduction of society are foremost concerns. Giventhat many different families in different communities may have been engaged insuch rituals, large numbers of people would have gathered together while using suchsymbolic capital.

The bulls' heads on the Asmara plateau are concentrated in the core zone of theopen plains, where cultivation of the primary staple food crops once prospered andwhere larger permanent towns were located. The most significant concentration ofbulls' heads has been documented at Sembel Kushet (Figs. 3 and 7), where some 850of the objects were recorded in the 1970s by Tringali (1978: 62) and where ourstudent teams also observed several dozen on the surface (also see Habtemichael2000). A second smaller concentration occurred just 1 km to the southeast at theSembel site.

What captures our attention on the Asmara plateau is the variety andproportion of bulls' heads at Sembel Kushet and their dense concentration in alarge and deep ashy area. This zone is not the result of domestic ash dumpingaprocess that usually entails distribution to agricultural fields in the sub-region.Rather, the large number of these ritual artifacts and the distinct boundaries of theashy zone ask for a more comprehensive explanation, one that also accounts for itsdistinctiveness on the Asmara plateau. In the rich historical and ethnographiccorpus of the Horn, one particular rite emerges as a compelling inference: the

Fig. 7 Map of Sembel Kushet.The key characteristic is the ashyzone in the western part of thesite, where large numbers ofbulls' heads have beendocumented

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annual Meskel celebration (Feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross) that nowoccurs September 27, but which in pre-Christian times appears to have occurredduring another time of the year, possibly March (Ullendorff 1968) when, after thecoming of Christianity, it would have directly conflicted with Lent. Now acelebration featuring officials of the Orthodox Church, this sacred rite focuses on ahuge bonfire (demera), with the future health and prosperity of the immediateregion predicted by the direction in which the last burning logs fall, or in someareas, the direction in which the smoke blows (Fig. 8). In many parts of the Horn itis linked to feasting on sacrificial oxen and it is a celebration of the fertility ofwomen and cropsa rite of intensification and renewal that brings together largenumbers of people within a region, acting as a social glue in what areheterarchically or horizontally organized communities.

This pre-Christian fertility rite (Ullendorff 1968), long ago wrapped into churchliturgy as a means of capturing its potency, leaves a large deposit of ash. These daysthe charcoal is removed and used by participants who mark their foreheads withChristian crosses as gestures of purification; the virtual absence of charcoal fromprehistoric deposits suggest a possible parallel function in which bodies may havebeen colored with charcoal. The performance of Meskel in a central location, inexactly the same place as previous years, robustly suggests that the large ashydeposit on the western side of the Sembel Kushet site was repeatedly usedoverhundreds of yearsfor a similar purpose. The great profusion of ritual itemsshaped like oxenat the same locale further suggests rites of passage and rituals ofintensification in which fertility and human reproduction were featured: in thisinstance with exchange of symbolic bride-price objects during a large publicceremony in which oxen are the most prominent feasting food. Though ground-stonebulls' heads are by far the most common type found at Sembel Kushet, chippedquartz specimens also occur, leading us to ask if they were manufactured elsewherebut subsequently taken to Sembel Kushet for exchange.

Fig. 8 A Meskel celebration in Asmara, 2001

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If this hypothesis about the ritual role of Sembel Kushet is to be sustained, thenwe might also expect to find the production of such ritual items in othercontemporary communitiesin readiness for the general exchange at SembelKushet and/or local exchange. The closest excavated stone town is at Ona Gudo(Fig. 3), only 2 km to the northwest of Sembel Kushet and across open plains: 17bulls' heads were documented at Ona Gudo in one test excavation, eight of themchipped from quartz (Curtis 2005). The other site with excavated quartz bulls' headsis Mai Hutsa, 9.5 km northeast of Sembel Kushet in the rocky uplands. Mai Hutsa iscoeval with Sembel Kushet and has a suite of nine excavated bulls' heads, six ofwhich are chipped from quartz (Fig. 9; Curtis 2005; Schmidt and Naty 2008).

The large numbers of quartz bulls' heads at Mai Hutsa come from severalcontiguous excavation units, indicating a specific manufacturing arealikely usinglarge, roughed-out blanks for these quartz artifacts, some of which are quite robust,such as the middle specimen in the upper row of Fig. 9. To gain a finer grainedperspective, we examined the quartz debitage from these excavation levels andfound a significantly higher percentage of angular waste 2 cm or larger, congruentwith the larger flake scars on these artifacts (Schmidt and Naty 2008; Teka andOkubatsion 2008). The large size of the finished objects, the absence of fine edgework, and the presence of a higher proportion of large debitage are archaeologicalsignatures in the lithic record for the production of such symbolic capital, certainly anew direction for lithic studies in the Horn. We must consider whether communitiessuch as Mai Hutsa and Ona Gudo produced specialized bulls' heads for exchange atceremonial centers like Sembel Kushet.

To obtain a better idea of the range of quartz bulls' head and their possibledistribution networks into areas without such excavated evidence for theirproduction, we examined phase I survey evidence from the Asmara plateau (Curtis2005; Curtis and Schmidt 2008; Schmidt and Naty 2008). We found that these quartzritual products reached 4 km south to Daro Pawlos in the far southwestern sector ofthe research region (Fig. 2; survey unit 154, five specimens), where metasedimentaryand metavolcanic materials prevail, but without quartz. Survey unit 142, 3 km to thesouth of Sembel Kushet, yielded four chipped quartz bulls' heads, while 23 km tothe northwest, there were three and two chipped quartz bulls' heads in units 88 and98, respectively. If we go further afield to survey units 31 (one specimen), 33 (one

Fig. 9 Quartz bulls' heads exca-vated at Mai Hutsa (Curtis 2005;Schmidt and Naty 2008)

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specimen), 35 (one specimen), 17 (two specimens), and 28 (one specimen), we seethat the densities change to a gradient that is proportional to the 710 km distancefrom Sembel Kushet (Fig. 2). May these latter specimens have derived from anearby community such as Mai Hutsa? If so, then one would expect higher densitiesgiven the proximity of Mai Hutsa to these survey units. Rather, it appears thatexchange was mediated by the ritual and redistributive hub of Sembel Kushet, wherefeasting and large gatherings accompanied rites of passage and intensificationaround a Meskel-like demeraleading to the spread of these objects around thenorthern, western, and southwestern plateau.

Surface and excavated examples show clearly that bulls' heads are virtually absentfrom the eastern rocky uplands zone. Mai Chiot lacks bulls' heads on its surface; nospecimens were excavated there during what was the second largest excavationaround Asmara. Mai Chiot was a short-term occupation dating to the terminalAncient Ona and may post-date the ritual complex, or it may simply have beenoutside the social orbit of such ritual activity. The uniqueness of Mai Chiot, with itsunique crop repertoire, its different domestic animal diet, and its uniqueness as theonly community to rely partly on wild game in its dietall of these attributes whencompared to the communities in the open plains mirror its separation from the bulls'heads ritual complex. This suggests further that the bulls' heads cult may have beensocially and geographically focused, an observation that parallels and affirms othersignificant variations within the sub-region.

A Point of Continuity: Gold and the Exploitative Economy

When discussing quotidian economic life such as subsistence practices, oneshould avoid the temptation to submerge other variations in economic lifeperhaps less definitive in some areasfor activities that may have contributed tothe relatively large demographic size and prosperity of communities on theAsmara plateau. I now turn to the mining and the processing of gold aroundAsmara by Ancient Ona and later communities. The exploitation of gold isattested to by a variety of evidence, including the presence of material culturesuch as Ancient Ona pottery and particularly tina cupssmall terracotta vesselswith vertical walls (Fig. 8.6 in Schmidt et al. 2008c: 185) observed in mines thatwere reopened during Italian colonial rule (Tringali pers. comm. May 19, 2002).There are also reports by early miners, among them F. H. Hatch, an Englishgeologist, who in 1902 reported that deep mines with pottery and stone hammerswere observed at both Schmugle and Medrizien before they were reopenedminesthat became the largest producers during the Italian era (Blackburn 2003: 9). Otherreports of ancient workings are found in both Italian and British records (Barnard1941; Usoni 1952). An Italian geologist on a mission to investigate the Hara Hotand other mines in the 1930s reported that the Hara Hot areanow to thenorthwest of the Teacher Training Collegefigured prominently in local storiesabout Portuguese mining in the area (Usoni 1952: 138; Figs. 2 and 3; survey unit56). This oral tradition possibly refers to mineral exploration undertaken byPortuguese living at Debarwa (about 35 km southeast of Asmara) during thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is independently repeated by C. G. Barnard,

320 Afr Archaeol Rev (2009) 26:305325

a British military administrator of the Italian mines during World War II. Hereported that the area around Hara Hot was exploited by Portuguese missionariesand came to be known as the Portuguese caves (Barnard 1941). We believe, fromthe physical evidence available today, that the principal mine before Italianinvolvement at Hara Hot was a conical hill, now a mined-out crater with internalshafts, appearing on maps as the Gradino or No. 3 mine (Schmidt et al. 2008c: 182;Fig. 8.3).

Among the more intriguing reports is Usoni's mention of the Graziani mineseveral hundred meters from the central processing area at Hara Hot. He observedthat about 150 m to the west (sic), or southwest, there were Abyssinian tombs ofMekeleans or Aksumite tombs (Usoni 1952: 139). This tomb shaft was evidentlyused to access an underground galley in the later Italian mine. There is no basis forassigning an Aksumite date to the tombit could as well have been Ancient Onabut we now know that there was an Aksumite presence in the sub-region thatpertained directly to gold mining, both at the BE01 site excavated in 2003 (Schmidtet al. 2008b) just 2 km to the northeast as well as further afield at Emba Dehro,where an early Aksumite or Proto-Aksumite community was situated on an elevatedoverlook just east of the Medizien mine (Schmidt et al. 2008d). Using our intensivesurvey results and Usoni's detailed drawing of the Pozzo Graziani, once marked by asteel elevator tower, we have isolated what we believe to be the shaft (left of theelevator tower in Fig. 10) that once housed the tomb and that subsequently led tothree of four galleries in the mine.

The dominant presence of Ancient Ona communities dating to the 800350 BCera suggests a higher probability that the burial remains date to that era rather thanthe later Aksumite period. In any event, the evidence from the BE01 site in AdiAbieto and the remains at Emba Derho indicate that regardless of the specific age ofthe Hara Hot tomb, the area had been exploited for gold by both Ancient Ona andAksumite period miners (Fig. 3). Tringali's original research around Asmara led to

Fig. 10 A sketch of the Grazianimine section at Hara Hot (afterUsoni 1952); the tomb shaft islikely the surface shaft to the leftof the elevator tower (Schmidt etal. 2008d)

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his discovery and documentation of fragments of what he called crucibles in minesof the Ancient Ona period. While we have not relocated these objects in his collectionsnow housed in the National Museum, he affirms that the tina we have documented areindeed what he labeled as crucibles (Tringali pers. comm. May 19, 2002). We haveyet to observe any residuessooting outside or other residues insideindicating theseartifacts were indeed used as crucibles.3 Tringali's thorough familiarity with thematerial culture of the Ancient Ona, however, inspires confidence that his observationof these objects in abandoned mines underwrites the idea of gold exploitation byAncient Ona peoples.

Tringali (1965: 152) was the first to notice the proximity of Ancient Onacommunities to ancient gold mines. Our investigations confirm his prescientintuition and further suggest that the largest towns of the Ancient Ona are thosefound contiguous to the gold fields of the central, northern, and northeastern part ofthe basin. Most are located in the open plains near schist/quartz outcrops withdocumented veins. Ancient communities such as Ona Hashel and Ona Gudo, forexample, were located next to productive ancient mines (e.g., site MB03). Largemultipurpose sites lacking architectural debris, especially those situated near townsand mines, often contain large amounts of quartz float, marking the processing ofvein quartz for gold. The presence of an ancient tomb in a deep burial shaft, alongwith tina vessels in some reopened mines, strongly suggests that the prosperity ofthe communities on and fringing the open plains was linked not only to their agri-cultural productivity but also their proximity to and exploitation of very ancient goldworkingsanother characteristic that amplifies our understanding of the AncientOna, allowing us to see more clearly the broader regional affinities and differenceswhen we focus on local developments across a region.

Concluding Thoughts

Variation is often overlooked in our search for broadly applicable generalizations inarchaeology. Though the Ancient Ona communities of the Asmara plateau can becharacterized as agropastoralists who grew mostly barley and emmer wheat and whofavored goats and sheep over cattle in their diet, such generalizations erase theparticulars of local histories so critical for understanding why significant differences,say, in crop repertoires, arose over a 710 km distance in the Eritrean highlands.That the crops grown in the western and open plains of the Asmara plateau appear sodifferent in scale and dietary profile from those of the communities located in therocky uplands is of significant consequence. Soils, topography, and climate varyover very small distances in the highlands of Eritrea as well as other sub-regions ofthe northern Horn. These finely nuanced differences come to the fore withsignificant clarity on the Asmara plateau, demanding that we better understand theexchange networks that compensated for these natural imbalances.

The absence of emmer wheat at Mai Chiot and the minimal presence of barley mustbe measured against the plethora of these grains as well as the production of oil fromlinseed at Sembel, Ona Gudo, and Weki Duba. The agricultural production of the open

3 Trace-element analysis on these objects is needed, once archaeology in Eritrea re-opens to free inquiry.

322 Afr Archaeol Rev (2009) 26:305325

landswith their much higher productivitywas matched by the ideal conditions forraising and herding goats and sheep on the rocky uplands, not a suitable enterprise nearopen fields of grain. The cattle pastoralism practiced by agropastoral communities on theopen plains would have required a herd management system with stock required to gooutside the sub-region during the growing season, only returning to pasture on thestubble of the fields after harvest was completed. Management of cattle herds favoredthe harvesting of older animals once their productive lives as oxen or milk cows hadbeen exhausted, while the communities of the rocky uplands practiced a parallelapproach with their goat and sheep herdsfavoring older animals that had greater bodymassa cultural preference seen even today. The key observation to emerge from thesevariations is the presence of portable, axial body parts of sheep and goats in the openplains sites. This is likely the result of distribution of meat from the not-very-distantrocky uplands through kinship networks for grain products, linseed oil, or even beerfrom the western communities. All of this attests to specialist contributions bycommunities organized according to principles of heterarchy, rather than hierarchy ineconomic and political organization, excepting the ritual cycles and their episodicexpressions of hierarchy led by ritual officials who likely acted with significant politicallegitimacy as they also carried out their religious duties.

Variations in ritual practices expand our knowledge about the values associatedwith cattle in Ancient Ona culture, values that emerge when we examine howSembel Kushet differs so significantly from any other Ancient Ona site. A majorplace of ritual practice, the ashy zone of the western side of Sembel Kushetrepletewith huge numbers of ritual bulls' heads and filled with deep deposits of ashappears to have been the locale for major ceremonial activities with affinities tocontemporary Meskel rituals. As a center for important rites of passage and rituals ofintensification, Sembel Kushet also functioned as the social glue in a redistributivesystem of ritual items used in symbolic exchange for brides, a process intimately tiedto principles of reproduction and fertility, linking human reproduction and the land.These integrative activities, drawing together diverse and specialized communitieswith overlapping economic interests and social connections, kept secular authority atbay and provided sufficient unity to allow variation to prevail until such time that thehierarchical communities of Qohaito and Mataraabout 100 km to the southactedas population magnets, when they rose to prominence through their harnessinginternational trade in the mid- to late-first millennium BC.

The production of quartz bulls' heads provides an unusual window into how localproduction of symbolic capital may now be recognized in the archaeological record.The physical distribution of quartz bulls' heads in particular opens understanding ofexchange networks that were cemented together by episodic and annual ritual eventsat Sembel Kushet. This ceremonial network did not extend to the entire plateau, butwas confined to social groups that shared other common beliefs and practices,among them the exploitation of gold. The communities living in prosperous smallstone towns, villages, and hamlets were situated in proximity to gold workings,where miners left behind their material traces. We cannot hope to understand whysome sub-regions in the northern Horn may show greater demographic complexity inthe first millennium BC unless we examine ritual networks and solidarities, localexploitation of precious minerals, and participation in local exchange, be it meat,salt, grain, oil, beer, gold, or a variety of other products.

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Editori.

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Variability...AbstractAbstractIntroductionSubsistence: Insights Into Sub-regional PracticesSubsistence and Domestic AnimalsRitualThe Search for MeaningA Point of Continuity: Gold and the Exploitative EconomyConcluding ThoughtsReferences

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