The recovery of Early Iron Age artefacts and domestic animal remains from hunter-gatherer contexts at Likoaeng, Lesotho, has been argued to indicate contact between highland hunter-gatherers and Early Iron Age agropastoralist communities settled in lowland areas of southeastern Africa during the second half of the first millennium AD. However, disagreement between archaeozoological studies and ancient DNA means that the possibility that those hunter-gatherers kept livestock themselves remains controversial. Here we report analyses of pottery-absorbed organic residues from two hunter-gatherer sites and one agriculturalist site in highland Lesotho to reconstruct prehistoric subsistence practices. Our results demonstrate the exploitation of secondary products from domestic livestock by hunter-gatherers in Lesotho, directly dated to the seventh century AD at Likoaeng and the tenth century AD at the nearby site of Sehonghong. The data provide compelling evidence for the keeping of livestock by hunter-gatherer groups and their probable incorporation as ancillary resources into their subsistence strategies.

中文翻译：

---

在公元第一千年后期，莱索托高地的狩猎采集者进行了奶业的化学证据。

有人说，莱索托利库昂（Likoaeng）从猎人-采集者的背景中恢复了早期铁器时代的人工制品和家畜残骸，这表明高地猎人-采集者和早期铁器时代的农牧民社区在非洲下半年定居在东南非洲低地地区公元第一个千年。但是，考古学研究与古代DNA之间的分歧意味着，那些狩猎采集者自己饲养牲畜的可能性仍然存在争议。在这里，我们报告了莱索托高地的两个狩猎采集地点和一个农业地点对陶器吸收的有机残留物的分析，以重建史前的生存实践。我们的结果表明，莱索托的狩猎采集者从家畜中开采副产品，直接追溯到公元7世纪的利古恩（Likoaeng）和10世纪的公元附近的Sehonghong遗址。数据提供了令人信服的证据，证明了狩猎者和采集者群体饲养牲畜以及将其作为辅助资源纳入其生存策略的可能性。