Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 61 (2021) 101259 Available online 9 December 2020 0278-4165/© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Lithic technological organization of the “Elmenteitan” early herders in southern Kenya: Implications for mobility, exchange, and climatic resilience Steven T. Goldstein Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, Jena 07745, Germany A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Africa Pastoralism Lithics Mobility Pastoral Neolithic ABSTRACT Mobile pastoralism is the earliest form of food production to develop in Africa, and for the past 5000 years has remained one of the most important subsistence strategies for people across the continent. Despite its impor- tance, the technological infrastructures that facilitated the successful spread of stone-tool–using pastoralists through environmentally heterogenous and climatically unpredictable regions remain poorly understood. This study provides comprehensive analyses of the lithic technological organization of early herders in southern Kenya responsible for the distinct “Elmenteitan” material traditions. Quantitative data on blade production strategies from thirteen Elmenteitan sites demonstrate that this group represents the emergence of new tech- nological strategies based on participation in long-distance obsidian exchange networks, and fexible and ver- satile blade blank production. Elmenteitan lithic technological patterns are interpreted in terms of preparation for different confgurations of local and regional mobility, which helped early herders manage environmental unpredictability in eastern Africa. These data provide a foundation for future study of the role of lithic tech- nologies in pastoralist economies and contribute a case study from mobile food-producer contexts to global debates on the organization of stone tool economies. 1. Introduction The origin and spread of food-production infuenced new forms of human-environmental interactions that have reshaped much of Earth’s surface (Boivin et al., 2016; Stephens et al., 2019). Enhanced produc- tivity and reliability of food resources also infuenced articulations of social complexity (Childe, 1950; Frachetti, 2012; Kuijt and Goring- Morris, 2002; Schurr and Schoeninger, 1995). These processes are bet- ter studied for settled agriculturalists; however in arid grasslands across Africa, Central Asia, and South America, early food production was centered around herding domesticated animals (Capriles, 2011; Fra- chetti, 2009; Marshall and Hildebrand, 2002). How and when specifc economic and social strategies that supported the long-term persistence of pastoralist lifeways in arid environments frst emerged remain poorly understood. This is especially true for Af- rica, where mobile herding developed before forms of plant agriculture, and spread across the continent against the backdrop of dynamic cli- matic change (Marshall and Hildebrand, 2002). This study uses an analysis of technological patterns associated with the “Elmenteitan” tradition of early herders in southern Kenya (c. 3000–1200 BP), to better understand how people chose to cope with complex social and envi- ronmental challenges during the expansion of African mobile pastoralism. Early herders entering eastern Africa after c. 5200 BP experienced extreme shifts in rainfall conditions while also encountering new ecological mosaics, diverse foraging communities, and novel zoonotic threats (Ambrose, 1984a, 1998; 2001; Gifford-Gonzalez, 1998, 2000, 2017; Marshall et al., 2011; Wright, 2011). Recent research has begun to investigate how herders overcame these challenges through strategic innovations such as changing forms of herd-management (Balasse and Ambrose, 2005; Janzen, 2015; Janzen et al., 2020; Marshall, 1990), use of milk products (Grillo et al., 2020), and new relationships with for- agers (Ambrose, 1998; Hildebrand et al., 2018; Prendergast, 2009; Prendergast et al., 2019; Sawchuk et al., 2018, 2019; see also Gifford et al., 1980). This “Pastoral Neolithic” period is also demarcated by new patterns of material culture. Formal attributes of herder pottery and stone tool traditions have been used primarily to defne cultural-historical units (Ambrose, 1980, 1982, Ambrose, 1984a, c; Bower, 1991; Robertshaw, 1988, 1990), making it possible to begin exploring the strategic E-mail address: goldstein@shh.mpg.de. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101259 Received 6 May 2020; Received in revised form 21 November 2020;