Animal disease challenges to the emergence of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Despite the antiquity of domestic cattle in the Sahara-Sahel, archaeological evidence from two sub-Saharan regions indicates that the first pastoralist colonization of sub-Saharan Africa may not have proceeded so smoothly as modern appearances suggest. The first appearance of cattle-based economies seems to have been delayed by as much as a thousand years after the first appearance of small stock, in both eastern and southern Africa. This article reviews the relevant archaeological evidence and argues that the lag in successful introduction of cattle stems from new animal diseases encountered by pastoral colonists entering biogeographic zones south of the Sahel. Diseases that are often fatal to cattle, including wildebeest-derived malignant catarrhal fever (WD-MCF), East Coast fever (ECF), foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), and Rift Valley fever (RVF), as well as trypanosomiasis, are described as probable barriers to the early entry of cattle-based economies into these regions. © 2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation.