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High-Altitude Rock Shelters and Settlements in an African Alpine Ecosystem: The Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia

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Abstract

This first survey of rock shelters and settlements in the Bale Mountains in Ethiopia is a baseline assessment for further research into the settlement history of Africa’s largest alpine highlands. Extensive GPS-based mapping and interviews resulted in two detailed maps, a catalogue of profiles, and complete photographic documentation. In total, 331 rock shelters (four permanently inhabited, 51 seasonally inhabited, and 276 currently uninhabited) and 870 settlements (207 permanently inhabited, 449 seasonally inhabited, 214 uninhabited) were recorded together with information about the activities and livelihoods of the inhabitants of the current settlements. This 2015 study was part of the Ethiopian-European research project “The mountain exile hypothesis – how humans benefited from and re-shaped African high-altitude ecosystems during Quaternary climate changes” (DFG FOR 2358). It was designed to support future management plans in this internationally important conservation area that has recently faced increasing land-use pressure and the threat of degradation.

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Notes

  1. For a more comprehensive approach, see Wesche (2003), who investigates the periodic recurrence of drought events, including its ecological impacts on the Afro-alpine landscape, in more detail. With regard to trans-regional teleconnections, Appelhans and Nauss (2016) investigate East African precipitation patterns as a response to sea surface temperature anomalies in the Indian Ocean and thereby have an explicit focus on the Bale Mountains, among other spatial sub-domains.

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Acknowledgements

The study was carried out in the framework of the Research Unit 2358 “The Mountain Exile Hypothesis: How humans benefited from and re-shaped African high altitude ecosystems during Quaternary climatic changes” (Marburg University, Germany; http://bale.environmentalinformatics-marburg.de) supported by the German Research Council (DFG).

Awel Kasim, Awwi Aman, Hassan Wako, and Ali Mamu assisted us during fieldwork. Special thanks to the staff of the Bale Mountains National Park, the EWCA and the Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University.

Funding

This study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; grant number NA 783/12–1, AOBJ 628803).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Geography, University of Marburg, Deutschhausstrasse 10, D-35032, Marburg, Germany

    David Reber, Mekbib Fekadu, Florian Detsch, Thomas Nauss & Georg Miehe

  2. Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University, P. O. Box, 3434, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Mekbib Fekadu & Tamrat Bekele

  3. Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Cologne, Weyertal 125, D-50923, Cologne, Germany

    Ralf Vogelsang

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  1. David Reber
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  2. Mekbib Fekadu
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  3. Florian Detsch
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  4. Ralf Vogelsang
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  5. Tamrat Bekele
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  6. Thomas Nauss
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  7. Georg Miehe
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Correspondence to Georg Miehe.

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Reber, D., Fekadu, M., Detsch, F. et al. High-Altitude Rock Shelters and Settlements in an African Alpine Ecosystem: The Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia. Hum Ecol 46, 587–600 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-9999-5

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