The cave, in the northwestern part of the country, contains stone and bone tools, beads and pendants, pieces of pottery, and the bones of many animals — guinea fowl, ostriches, monitor lizards, tortoises, impala, rock hyraxes and various rodents.
The researchers also found two teeth of either a goat or a sheep — the teeth were too worn to say which, but their form is consistent with that of modern African domesticated sheep and goats. There are no wild sheep or goats in sub-Saharan Africa today. Although some wild species probably became extinct around 12,000 years ago, there is no evidence of their presence in the western part of the continent. The researchers are certain that the remains they found belong to domestic animals.
The teeth date from 2,190 and 2,270 years ago. Until now, the oldest radiocarbon-dated remains were of 2,105-year-old-sheep found in South Africa.
The study, a collaboration between the National Museum of Namibia and the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, appears in PLoS One. Its lead author, David Pleurdeau, an assistant professor at the Paris museum, said the find did not necessarily mean that people living near this site were breeding domestic animals.
“In the cave, there is no evidence that the inhabitants were herders,” he said. “We still don’t know if it’s herders migrating to the area, or the introduction of a few sheep among an indigenous group.”
Source: NY Times