Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 66 (2022) 101414 0278-4165/© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Later stone age herd management strategies in western South Africa: Evaluating sheep demographics and faunal composition Courtneay Hopper a, b, * , Genevieve Dewar a, b, c a Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, M1A 1C4, Canada b School of Environment, University of Toronto, M5S 2S2, Canada c Rock Art Research Institute, School of Geography, Archaeology, and Environmental Studies, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag X3 Wits 2050, South Africa A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Herd management strategies Sheep Ternary plots Herding Low-level food production South Africa Later Stone Age ABSTRACT Most archaeological research of Later Stone Age (LSA) herding in southern Africa focuses on origins, while the complex socio-economic motives have been largely unexplored. This paper investigates evidence for herd management strategies by incorporating ethnohistoric and existing faunal data. We used ternary plots to sta- tistically compare theoretical kill-off patterns (meat, milk, social risk reduction) with sheep age-at-death profles from both historical meat provisioning stations and LSA herder sites. We found 1) a statistical ft between theoretical meat profles and historical meat provisioning sites and 2) variability in LSA sheep management practices. The dominance of juvenile sheep and abundant wild fauna at south coast sites indicates dairying. West coast sites refect a mixed/meat strategy, but the Kasteelberg A ternary plot overlaps all three theoretical models. Jakkalsberg B presents a meat signal by centering on prime adults. The wealth of ochre, beads, and ethnohistoric evidence from Jakkalsberg B suggests that this was an aggregation site with ritualized feasting. Thus, the un- expected abundance of juveniles and old sheep at Kasteelberg A may refect a palimpsest, longer-term occupa- tion, and/or an intensifed period of ritual feasting. This methodological approach can be used in any archaeological context where the age-at-death of domesticates is known. 1. Introduction 1.1. Background The spread of herding in Africa during the Holocene is complex. It is not only linked to large-scale population dispersals (e.g. Henn et al., 2008; Macholdt et al., 2014; Prendergast et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020) but also to the diffusion of livestock and ideas (e.g. Jerardino et al., 2014; Lesur et al., 2014; Russell, 2017). Understanding these complex economic, social, and cultural processes is further complicated by the fact that herding spread throughout the continent thousands of years before farming and did not replace foraging in many places. These complex interactions gave rise to mosaics of foragers and food producers across sub-Saharan Africa (Hodgson, 2000; Marshall and Hildebrand, 2002; Morgan et al., 2017) making it particularly diffcult to isolate ‘herders’ in the archaeological record. This is especially relevant in southern Africa where even short term/single occupation sites can refect mixed economic activities (e.g. Orton et al., 2013; Sealy et al., 2004; Smith et al., 1991). Despite its late adoption, around 2100 years BP in South Africa (Coutu et al., 2021; Dewar and Marsh, 2018, Sealy and Yates, 1994), current evidence suggests that stock keeping moved fairly quickly throughout the western portion of the country (Jerardino et al., 2014). As a result, when Europeans arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century they encountered local people keeping large herds of do- mestic animals (e.g. Cullinan and Gordon, 1992; Smith and Pheiffer, 1992). As early as 1661, Jan van Riebeeck noted that the Nama (ethnic group of Indigenous Khoekhoen herders living in Namaqualand and Central Namibia) chief Akembie living alongside the Olifants River had no<3000 sheep (Raven-Hart, 1967; Thom, 1952). In 1787 Mentzel wrote that “sheep-raising is so considerable and productive that a fock of one thousand sheep is a mere bagatelle” (Mentzel, 1944: 213). Un- fortunately, these large herds so visible ethnohistorically in the 17th and 18th centuries are archaeologically rare with very few sites producing positively identifed sheep. Thus, we know very little about the origins of herding in southern Africa and even less about herder’s socio-economic * Corresponding author at: Courtneay Hopper, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A, Canada. E-mail address: courtneay.hopper@mail.utoronto.ca (C. Hopper). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101414 Received 18 November 2021; Received in revised form 17 March 2022;