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The Mehlman archives and the archaeology of Nasera rockshelter, Tanzania

Les archives Mehlman et l’archéologie de l’abri sous roche de Nasera, Tanzanie
Christian A. Tryon, Hope Romain et Kathryn Ranhorn

Résumés

Les archives sont de plus en plus reconnues comme un outil essentiel pour la recherche archéologique en Afrique de l’Est, comme ailleurs, car contrairement aux fouilles, elles constituent une source d’informations non destructive. Cependant, l’étude des archives de l’archéologie est soumise de leur accessibilité. Nous rendons compte ici de la récente récupération des archives de Michael J. Mehlman, qui a mené des fouilles sur plusieurs sites archéologiques importants dans le nord de la Tanzanie. Un plan de préservation, de documentation et de partage des données est en cours d’élaboration. Dans ce présent article, les archives des travaux de Mehlman sur le site de l’abri sous roche de Nasera, datant du Middle Stone Age et du Later Stone Age, constituent un point de départ pour évaluer la collection et son potentiel scientifique, notamment pour mieux comprendre les fouilles menées en 1975-1976. Comme d’autres sites en Afrique de l’Est, les fouilles archéologiques à Nasera suivent un cycle de recherche d’environ 42 ans, ce qui souligne la nécessité pour les générations futures de chercheurs de préserver cette collection et celles qui lui succèdent.

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We thank Rhonda Kauffman for conversations about archives, Diane Gifford-Gonzalez for her efforts to help us connect with the Mehlman family, and Cara Roure Johnson for her help in preserving the McBrearty archive. We thank David Wright and José Manuel Maíllo-Fernández for their thoughtful and constructive reviews; Léa Roth, Chloé Capel, and Gérard Chouin for their editorial guidance and encouragement; and David Manuel Martín-Perea for permission to use his photograph of the 2018 profile at Nasera. Kathryn Fiducia kindly helped with Figure 1. We particularly thank Mary Jo McBrearty for permission to use these materials from the estate of Dr. Sally Anne McBrearty.

Introduction

  • 1 See H. Helton, 2021.
  • 2 J.D. Lewis-Williams, 2013; V. Mariotti et al., 2014; S.C. Munro-Hay, 1989; D.W. Phillipson, 1997; K (...)
  • 3 B.A. Asogwa, 2011; K.D. Wright et al., 2023.

1Archival research is a key element to any archaeological endeavor, as it can provide useful insights that amplify or extend what previous generations of researchers discovered, particularly if those earlier efforts were never fully published. The term ‘archive’ is a complex one,1 and our usage of the term here is restricted to a collection of material records, including handwritten or drawn documents and photographs organized around a single topic, often by a single author, institution, or group. There is clear precedent for using these kinds of data in African archaeology. Examples include Lewis-Williams’ use of the late 19th century Bleek and Lloyd archives to interpret southern African rock art, reconstruction of Iberomaurusian burial practices from unpublished excavations at Taforalt in Morocco, historical documentation large-scale excavations at Aksum in Ethiopia, and our previous work on unpublished excavations at Kisese II rockshelter in Tanzania.2 Asogwa and Wright and colleagues further highlight approaches and challenges in stewarding African archaeological archives.3

2Nasera rockshelter (35°21’29”E, 2°44’13’’S) in north-central Tanzania (Figure 1 and Figure 2) provides another good example of the ways in which multiple cycles of archival research can guide new archaeological investigations, whether by site re-excavation, artifact reanalysis, or refining chronologies.

Figure 1. Topographic map of eastern Africa, showing the location of Nasera and other sites discussed in the text

Figure 1. Topographic map of eastern Africa, showing the location of Nasera and other sites discussed in the text

Map modified in Adobe Illustrator from a base map made in ArcGIS, with the base map image being the intellectual property of Esri and used herein under license. Copyright © 2025 Esri and its licensors. All rights reserved.

Figure 2. Image from a 35 mm color slide from the Mehlman archives

Figure 2. Image from a 35 mm color slide from the Mehlman archives

Image with handwritten label on the reverse that reads “Nasera and Campi [sic] ya Chai viewed south from Silale, 4/75 [April, 1975].”

Photograph by M.J. Melhman.

  • 4 L.S.B. Leakey, 1936; M.J. Mehlman, 1977; D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020.
  • 5 C.A. Tryon, 2019.
  • 6 M.J. Mehlman, 1977, 1989.

3The site now known as Nasera rockshelter was initially excavated by L.S.B. Leakey in the 1930s, again by M.J. Mehlman in 1975, and in 2018 by a joint Spanish–Tanzanian team.4 It preserves an up to 9 m-thick package of sediments and artifacts that are an important archaeological reference sequence for eastern Africa during the later Pleistocene and Holocene, particularly for the ‘Middle/Later Stone Age transition’.5 Mehlman’s research at Nasera began with an investigation of the L.S.B. Leakey archives (both artifactual and documentary) and his own study of material from the Leakey excavations.6 All projects that have followed at the site have been centered on Mehlman’s work. In 2022, one of us (Tryon) became the steward of a previously unreported documentary archive consisting of Mehlman’s original field notes, photographs, stratigraphic sections (many unpublished), and a sample of artifacts from Nasera rockshelter. Our goal here is to highlight the existence of this collection and its research potential as we work towards its preservation and stewardship.

History of archaeological and archival research at Nasera rockshelter

The work of L.S.B. Leakey

  • 7 M.J. Mehlman, 1977, 1989.
  • 8 L.S.B. Leakey, 1937, p. 315.
  • 9 L.S.B. Leakey, 1974.
  • 10 L.S.B. Leakey, 1935, 1953
  • 11 L.S.B. Leakey, 1936.

4The first reported archaeological research at Nasera rockshelter was directed by L.S.B. Leakey over six weeks in 1932. He termed the site Apis Rock, apparently a bad pun on the pools of water and baboon urine that formed at the site.7 The site itself is a shelter within a large granitic inselberg on the margins of the Serengeti (Figure 2), and today it intersects the pathway of large game migrations. Leakey recovered what would now be considered Middle and Later Stone Age artifacts from a stratified context. Leakey then distributed selected portions of the recovered artifacts to what are now the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi and the Tanzanian National Museum in Dar es Salaam. Leakey was involved in a wide range of projects in the early 1930s, including initial explorations at Oldupai (also known as Olduvai) Gorge, and Nasera rockshelter was clearly of only peripheral interest to him. Leakey’s excavations at Nasera rockshelter merit a single paragraph in his first autobiography White African that covered the period up to and including 1932.8 The site receives no mention at all in his second autobiography By the Evidence: Memoirs, 1932–1951.9 Three human teeth from the excavation, now lost, are listed in a footnote in an appendix on the very last page of Leakey’s Stone Age Races of Kenya, published in 1935, and only 17 years later are absent from Leakey’s synthesis of fossil hominins from Kenya and Tanzania and subsequent in the Catalogue of Fossil Hominids.10 In Stone Age Africa, the basic culture-historical sequence of Apis/Nasera is noted schematically, but it is intermixed with descriptions from sites elsewhere in eastern Africa in a single summary table, with a small sample of artifacts from the site illustrated in two figures.11 What we know of the original excavations at Nasera is almost entirely the result of the later efforts of Mehlman.

The work of Michael Mehlman

  • 12 S. McBrearty, 2011.
  • 13 M.J. Mehlman, 1989, p. 570-585.

5Mehlman began reinvestigation of the site in 1973 as part of a PhD thesis he would ultimately complete in 1989, delayed in part by the enormity of the material he recovered from Nasera and a second site he excavated (Mumba rockshelter), as well as a series of deaths in the family and health complications, as detailed in his obituary.12 Mehlman first studied the remnant artifact collections in Kenya and Tanzania from Leakey’s excavations. However, this work convinced Mehlman that Leakey’s samples were so heavily selected that they were of little use for his own research purposes of building a detailed archaeological sequence for the region. Next, as a prelude to his own excavations, Mehlman focused on L.S.B. Leakey’s archives to understand the extent of the previously unpublished fieldwork. To do this, he drew on L.S.B. Leakey’s field notebooks, provided to him by Mary D. Leakey. Mehlman hand-copied these notes in Tanzania, later presenting them in typed form in an appendix in his PhD thesis, along with photocopies of hand-drawn or traced renditions of Leakey’s site plans and stratigraphic drawings that Mehlman found in the National Museums of Kenya and the British Institute in East Africa.13 Leakey’s maps, profiles, and stratigraphic descriptions were often few in number and took the form of minimally annotated quick sketches. Mehlman’s initial excavations were conducted parallel to the shelter wall in an attempt to locate Leakey’s earlier trenches (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Photograph from the Mehlman archives

Figure 3. Photograph from the Mehlman archives

Image with handwritten label on the reverse that reads: “Apis Rock—completion of first season excavation July 1975, view ESE. Ranging pole marks beginning of LSB Leakey trenches to West (i.e. Right).”

Photograph by M.J. Mehlman.

  • 14 E.J. Wayland & M.C. Burkitt, 1932; M.J. Mehlman, 1989.
  • 15 G. Cole, 1967.

6Having located Leakey’s original trenches, Mehlman then targeted an area of intact sediment between Leakey’s trenches for his own excavations. However, he had severe difficulties in matching the sedimentary and archaeological succession that he observed with what Leakey recorded and described. Mehlman ultimately decided that Leakey saw what he wanted to see, and he failed to observe what Mehlman considered to be clear instances of the ancient mixing of stratigraphic units visible during excavation. This was particularly the case with the ‘Magosian’ levels at Apis/Nasera. The Magosian was an archaeological unit named after the type-site of Magosi in Uganda, which appeared to combine typical Middle and Later Stone Age elements and thus appeared to reflect a ‘transition’ between them. E.J. Wayland had excavated the site of Magosi in 1926, Leakey had studied the Magosi material himself in 1927, and Wayland accompanied Leakey on his initial visit to Apis/Nasera.14 Clearly, Leakey was primed to see a Magosian level where none seems to have existed. Importantly, the ‘Magosian’ at Magosi was later shown to also be the product of stratigraphic admixture.15

  • 16 K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018; D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020.

7Ultimately Mehlman excavated 75 m2 to a maximum depth of 9 m, recovering >36,900 artifacts and ~200,000 bone fragments that defined an archaeological sequence now dated from >60-62 ka.16 He then used the Nasera sequence to interpret his excavations at Mumba rockshelter, also in Tanzania, ultimately deciding that the two sites showed sufficiently similar archaeological successions, with similar archaeological ‘industries’ present in each, to justify a common terminology and pattern for northern Tanzania’s deep history.

More recent research

  • 17 J.R.F. Bower et al., 2012; P. Bushozi, 2011; D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020; I. Solano-Megías et al (...)

8As noted, Mehlman’s research at Nasera began with an investigation of the L.S.B. Leakey archives and his own study of material from the Leakey excavations. Later efforts have used collections or data from Mehlman’s work for the basis of additional investigations of Nasera rockshelter, have used remnant excavation profiles as the basis for re-dating the site, or have employed his typology to facilitate comparison with other sites in the Serengeti region.17

  • 18 C.A. Tryon & J.T. Faith, 2016.
  • 19 K. Ranhorn, 2017; K. Ranhorn, in review; C.A. Tryon & K. Ranhorn, 2020.

9Our investigations continue this cycle. Tryon previously used raw data tabulated and reported, but largely unused, by Mehlman, to explore changes in past environment and site use at Nasera rockshelter across the ‘Middle/Later Stone Age transition’.18 Ranhorn curated Mehlman’s artifact collections housed at Oldupai Gorge in 2015. Her work led to a reconsideration of the impact of curation on comparative studies, showing how lithic artifacts from the site might inform how ideas are transferred across generations and documenting problems caused by the use of quartz as a raw material in recognizing some of these behavioral patterns.19

  • 20 K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018.
  • 21 W.D. Sharp et al., 2019.

10During her analysis, Ranhorn also selected ostrich eggshell fragments from the Mehlman collections housed in Tanzania to aid in constructing a new and robust chronology for Nasera,20 material selected because of our efforts to demonstrate the suitability of this material for dating, particularly from museum contexts in eastern Africa.21 Similarities between the archaeological sequences at Nasera and the nearby site of Mumba had led Mehlman to construct a common culture-historical framework for the region. However, Mehlman’s efforts to radiometrically date both sites consisted largely of dating approaches that are now considered unreliable, particularly for sites in the tropics >10 ka, including U-series dating of bone or radiocarbon dates on bone apatite.

  • 22 L. Gliganic et al., 2012.
  • 23 K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018.
  • 24 cf. C.A. Tryon & J.T. Faith, 2013.
  • 25 D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020.

11Using specimens from clearly labeled bags in Mehlman’s handwriting stored at Oldupai Gorge, we radiocarbon-dated ostrich eggshell fragments to re-date the Nasera sequence and test the hypothesis that the Nasera and Mumba sequences were in fact chronologically equivalent. This was possible because Mumba had recently been re-dated largely using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).22 Our results indicate that some strata at Nasera were substantially older than previously assumed and that archaeological layers deemed taxonomically equivalent on the basis of their artifacts at Nasera and Mumba were in fact of different ages.23 Our results do better align Nasera with others across the region that indicated a shift around 46 ka towards greater use of backed pieces (stone flakes with one edge blunted or ‘backed’ to facilitate handling or hafting) but, overall, amplify the extremely variable nature of Late Pleistocene sites in eastern Africa.24 Our radiocarbon dates from ostrich eggshell fragments from the Mehlman artifact collections at Nasera are also supported by the preliminary luminescence dates at the site by another team from renewed sampling of what remains of Mehlman’s excavations profiles.25

What are in the Mehlman archives and what can be done with them?

12We outline here the nature and status of the Mehlman archival collections currently housed at the University of Connecticut, our ongoing efforts to preserve and study them, and their use as a case study to highlight some of the difficulties inherent in archival studies in general. Because these collections were discovered only recently, we orient our consideration around a series of key questions we have confronted during our ongoing analyses.

How was the archive discovered?

  • 26 e.g. S.E. Bailey & C.A. Tryon, 2023; J.A. Baird & L. McFadyen, 2014; C. Ward, 2022.
  • 27 S. McBrearty, 2011.
  • 28 See C.A. Tryon, 2023.
  • 29 R. Kraus et al., 2023.

13Some scholarly collections used by archaeological researchers are donated to a museum, library, or other formal archive, housed in acid-free folders and boxes, accessible through structured procedures for access and use, with a finding aid to guide investigation.26 This is not the case here. At some point in the early 21st century and likely after his retirement in 2004 and a few years before his death in 2011,27 Michael Mehlman gave a collection of field notebooks to his friend Sally McBrearty, as well as related research ephemera (e.g. heavily annotated monographs), hand-drawn stratigraphic sections and sedimentary profiles, color and black-and-white photographs, and artifacts. Upon McBrearty’s passing in 2022,28 Tryon recovered this material from her estate, bundled in an old East African Airways bag. These documents joined a collection of artifacts from Nasera that McBrearty had also received from Mehlman and left in her office in 2019 following her retirement from the University of Connecticut. As described in Kraus and colleagues for collections from Mumba, the artifacts are in the process of being returned to Tanzania.29

Who owns the archive?

  • 30 See C. Colwell, 2015 for an example from the US.

14Institutions such as museums or libraries typically establish formal guidelines on access and reproduction of materials and conditions specifying who owns the intellectual property rights to a given collection, although these guidelines continue to evolve, especially when collections related to local, Indigenous, and descendent communities are involved in colonial and post-colonial contexts.30 For personal archives of individuals, particularly those who have passed away prior to formally donating them to a person or institution, the issue can be less clear, as it is in this case, where the current stewardship model is an informal one. Efforts to contact and engage the Mehlman family continue. At present, the collections are housed in the Tryon laboratory at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA, as part of the McBrearty archive, which is maintained by Tryon with permission from the McBrearty family. This is a work in progress, and we are investigating ways to make digital copies available, clarify issues related to access rights, and facilitate access for scholars elsewhere, particularly in Tanzania.

15Whether or not the archives that are presently located in Connecticut can be considered personal archives of Mehlman, or rather cultural heritage belonging to the Tanzanian government, is a longstanding question dating back to the colonial era and before Independence in 1964. As a former German and later British colony, it was common practice for European researchers to remove collections and documentation out of the country, often to Nairobi to the Coryndon Museum—later known as the National Museums of Kenya—for safekeeping, with the argument that no proper research and storage facilities existed in Tanzania.

16With Independence and the formation of the modern Tanzanian state came the Antiquities Act of 1964, which protected cultural objects and relics, designating them as property of the Republic. These laws were already in place at the time when Mehlman excavated the site in 1975–76. Laws applying to field notes, photographs, and today, 3D scans, however, remain somewhat ambiguous; while research reports and copies of publications are required to be submitted to the government, currently there is no legal requirement to deposit copies of field documentation (Tanzanian Antiquities Act, revised 2025).

  • 31 Mehlman’s fieldwork was reported in the Annual Report of the Antiquities Division for the years 197 (...)

17Mehlman, unlike many foreign researchers, made a clear effort to engage locally: he learned Swahili and named lithic industries after Tanzanian place names rather than European ones. He appears to have supported Tanzanian stewardship of the collection, working with an Antiquities officer, John Kang’wezi, between the 1975–1976 excavation seasons at a time of severe staff shortages at the Antiquities Division.31

18Mehlman’s support for Maasai communities living near Nasera may have been one of the reasons why he originally stored the majority of the stone, bead, and ochre artifacts at Leakey’s Camp near Oldupai Gorge rather than exporting them. However, without access to the associated field notes and other archival materials currently held in Connecticut, the artifact collections remain largely decontextualized. Publishing these archives is a step toward reintegrating crucial contextual data and advancing more accountable stewardship of Tanzanian cultural heritage.

What does the archive contain?

19Within the Mehlman archive currently housed in the Tryon lab at the University of Connecticut, the material relevant to Nasera rockshelter comprises:

  • One notebook labeled “Apis Rock L.S.B. Leakey 1932.” It includes 43 pages of handwritten transcription of portions of Leakey’s East African Archaeological Expedition’s Second Volume and Daily Field Report for Season 1931–1932, as well as hand-drawn copies of figures and sketches originally made by Leakey, with an additional six loose-leaf pages related to the collections. It also includes 21 pages of notes on other collections in Nairobi, and 4 pages of time and distance calculations from Nasera to adjacent areas.

  • One notebook labeled “Apis Rock Notebook 1975–1976 (Nasera #1)” that includes 189 pages of handwritten notes from 24 April 1975–10 August 1975 (the end of his first season), later continuing until 3 August 1976. Within the notebook is also “Apis Rock Notebook (II) 1976,” with 22 pages covering from 7 August 1976–17 August 1976 (when fieldwork for the second season terminated), along with later entries about specific artifacts being shipped for analysis dated up to 25 June 1978. An additional 15 loose-leaf pages and one black-and-white print are within this notebook.

  • One notebook labeled “Day Journal” that includes 28 pages of notes from 30 September 1975–16 October 1975. The remainder of the notebook contains notes on various papers, books, and conferences Mehlman attended, including the 1977 Pan-African Congress held in Nairobi.

    • 32 Mehlman’s misspelling of ‘debe,’ a Swahili word the Oxford English Dictionary considers to be of po (...)

    One field catalog from the excavations, labeled “Apis Rock Shelter at Nasera Rock, log of artifact bags and debbies32 in which they are packed, 1975/76 excavations,” 95 pages plus 30 loose-leaf pages within.

  • 58 hand-drawn illustrations of stratigraphic profiles on graph paper.

  • 100 4½” x 3¼” black-and-white and color prints, some of them hand annotated by Mehlman. Most were taken by Mehlman, others likely by his friend and fellow student Preston Staley. An additional 16 enlarged photos and two contact sheets are also present.

  • Five slide duplicates of Nasera Mehlman made and gave to Sally McBrearty.

  • ~1000 lithic artifacts from levels 3B/4 of excavation square E5N3 W1/2 and ~300 lithic artifacts that Mehlman recovered from L.S.B. Leakey’s ‘backdirt’ (as Mehlman labeled it), or spoil heap of sediment removed from his excavations at Nasera rockshelter.

What can the archive tell us that we did not know before?

20In addition to providing a document of the evolution of Mehlman’s thinking over time, the notebooks are useful for humanizing the fieldwork process. We learn about the daily joys and stresses that come with directing a large excavation, which many of us have shared. These include Mehlman’s concerns about using the right excavation method, funding shortages, a sense of being overwhelmed and isolated, and occasionally petty theft, generally weathered with a dry sense of humor. For example, his 29 April 1975 entry notes: “Today I feel as though we struck it rich, but not because of any special artifacts—rather, we located the farthest extension of Leakey’s #7 trench”; but an entry only a week later on 6 May reads: “Well, I am beginning to wonder if one person can really conduct excavations on such a scale effectively.”

  • 33 These numbers may have been further reduced since (J.-M. Maíllo-Fernández, personal communication, (...)

21The field catalog data from Nasera are already tabulated in Mehlman (1989), but unpublished accounts in his other notebooks support Mehlman’s initial observations that the Leakey collections were insufficient, justifying his own excavations. Leakey was known to be highly selective in which material he retained and sent to Nairobi or Dar es Salaam. But Mehlman’s notebooks indicate that by the 1970s, even these highly selected collections had suffered severe attrition, with 836 artifacts missing out of the ~2,500 that Leakey had documented in 1932.33

22The photographs provide context for the site as it appeared in the early-to-mid 1970s, provide good documentation of the field crew (Figure 4), and emphasize the massive extent of the excavations by Mehlman and by Leakey before him (Figure 3).

Figure 4. Photograph from the Mehlman archives

Figure 4. Photograph from the Mehlman archives

Image with handwritten label on the reverse that reads: “Nasera Rock, Tanzania—14 August 76. Lohay, Juma [Hamisi], Juma, Daniel [Maruna], Mike, Akonaay [Akounai], Josh, Benedicto, Paulo [Ally or Mshanga].”Names in brackets are inferred from the acknowledgements of Mehlman’s (1989) dissertation.

  • 34 D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020; I. Patania et al., 2022.

23Some photographs also serve to precisely document changes to the site over time, highlighting the loss of the upper ~50 cm of the main profile that has been removed by erosion and reburied by sediment mobilized by the excavation process, a pattern we have also documented at the nearby site of Kisese II34 (Figure 5).

Figure 5. The loss of overlying sediments

Figure 5. The loss of overlying sediments

Left: Image from a 35 mm color slide from the Mehlman archives with handwritten marginal label that reads: “Nasera central excav. Section 1976.”
Right: The same sedimentary profile as seen in 2018, originally published in D.M. 
Martín-Perea et al., 2020. Arrows point to a boulder visible in the 1976 and 2018 profiles, highlighting the loss of overlying sediments in the intervening 42 years.

Left : Photograph by M.J. Melhman. Right : Photograph by D.M. Martín-Perea, used with his permission.

  • 35 D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020; K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018.

24The hand-drawn stratigraphic sections are particularly important, as Mehlman only ever provided partial views of his excavations, and the precise locations of the stratigraphic profiles within the excavation are rarely made clear, problems noted both by us and other teams.35 The published sections are also mostly of the southern or western walls of the excavation; the archives include profile drawings of units without a published section (e.g. E3N3) or additional views of northern or eastern walls of others.

  • 36 M.J. Mehlman, 1989.
  • 37 Specifically for collections from Mumba; see R. Kraus et al., 2023.
  • 38 M.J. Mehlman, 1989, p. 116.

25Lastly, the collection includes artifacts from excavation square E5N3 W1/2 and material recovered from Mehlman’s excavation of Leakey’s ‘backdirt’ pile. The reasons why artifacts from E5N3 W1/2 were retained by Mehlman is unclear, as it samples only the upper portions of the sequence and likely derives from a disturbed area where Mehlman’s trenches intersected those of Leakey. The material from the ‘backdirt’ lacks provenience but, importantly, it does retain the classifications by Mehlman himself using a typology that he devised.36 Given that one of us (Tryon) has encountered severe difficulties when attempting to apply the Mehlman system as described in his thesis to actual artifact collections,37 this collection has substantial utility as a training tool. The daily journals make it clear that Mehlman used the excavation of Leakey’s ‘backdirt’ to both train those members of the crew new to archaeology and to test a system of standing sieves he was trying out, which Ranhorn also did at the nearby site of Kisese II. Mehlman exported large numbers of artifacts to the US for illustration by Judith Ogden,38 but those from Nasera are not among the collections at the University of Connecticut, and their location remains unknown.

Discussion and conclusions

26We conclude by making two observations about the periodicity and precarity of archival research in archaeology as key considerations for future work. There is a cyclical pattern of using archives to reinvestigate sites in eastern Africa. Table 1 lists sites in eastern Africa (used here to mean Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia) that sample Middle and Later Stone Age deposits like Nasera does, comparing the publication dates of successive investigations. The composite results suggest re-study on average after about 34 years. The studies at Oldupai Gorge are often on different sites within a geological unit and may not be directly comparable to some of the other sites listed; excluding these suggests a 43-year span between analyses. The re-study of Nasera fits neatly within this cycle of about 34–43 years.

Table 1. Cycles of reanalysis of Middle and Later Stone Age sequences in Eastern Africa

Site

Initial publication

Date of restudy initial publication

Difference (years)

References

Gorgora

1943

2024

81

Leakey, 1943; Sahle et al., 2024

Porc-Épic

1930

1978

48

Teilhard de Chardin, 1930; Clark and William, 1978

Porc-Épic*

1975

2005

30

Pleurdeau, 2005

Aladi Springs

1978

2012

34

Clark and Williams, 1978; Gossa et al., 2012

GaJj17 (Turkana)

1992

2023

31

Kelly and Harris, 1992; Ranhorn et al., 2023b

Magosi

1931

1967

36

Wayland and Burkitt, 1931; Cole, 1967

Muguruk

1945

1986

41

Leakey and Owen, 1945; McBrearty ,1986

GvJm22 (Lukenya Hill)

1976

2015

39

Gramly, 1976; Tryon et al., 2015

Nasera

1935

1977

42

Leakey, 1935; Mehlman, 1977

Nasera

1977

2016

39

Mehlman, 1977; Tryon and Faith 2016; Ranhorn, 2017

Oldupai Gorge, Ndutu Beds

1972

1990

18

Leakey et al., 1972; Mabulla, 1990

Oldupai Gorge, Ndutu Beds

1990

1993

3

Mabulla, 1990; Manega, 1993

Oldupai Gorge, Ndutu Beds

1993

2014

21

Manega, 1993; Eren et al., 2014

Oldupai Gorge, Ndutu Beds

2014

2019

5

Eren et al., 2014; Maíllo-Fernández et al., 2019

Oldupai Gorge, Naisiusiu Beds

1931

1972

41

Leakey et al., 1972

Oldupai Gorge, Naisiusiu Beds

1972

1993

21

Leakey et al., 1972; Manega, 1993

Oldupai Gorge, Naisiusiu Beds

1993

2003

10

Manega, 1993; Skinner et al., 2003

Oldupai Gorge, Naisiusiu Beds

2003

2025

22

Skinner et al., 2003; Martín-Perea et al., 2025

Mumba

1943

1979

36

Kohl-Larsen, 1943: Mehlman, 1979

Mumba

1989

2007

18

Mehlman, 1989; Prendergast et al., 2007

Njarasa

1943

2020

77

Kohl-Larsen, 1943; Bader et al., 2020

Kisese II

1962

2018

56

Inskeep, 1962; Tryon et al., 2018

Mean and std. dev. (total sample)

 

 

34.0±21.8

 

Mean and std. dev. (excluding Oldupai Gorge)

 

43.4±25.4

 

Based on the difference between initial publication year and the start of renewed investigations. Sites are listed from north to south. *1975–1976 Williamson excavations were never published, nor were the 1931 excavations in the Naisuisui Beds. Nasera, Mumba, and Porc-Épic have multiple cycles of analysis by different teams, and slightly different dates could be used; but this has little impact on the overall pattern.

  • 39 e.g. C.L. Borgman, 2019; I.M. Faniel et al., 2018.

27The reasons for this approximate 34–43-year periodicity may relate to undetermined cycles in research agendas that change over time. It may reflect the outer limits of the length of a working career for most academics: revisiting (and possibly critiquing) the work of scholars is certainly easier after they have retired from the discipline. Nasera is particularly interesting in this regard, given that there have already been multiple cycles of the archives being used for this site, with Mehlman relying on the work of Leakey and later teams relying on the work of Mehlman. This emphasizes the importance for us to make the Mehlman archive stable, secure, and accessible for future efforts to re-study the site again. These results have implications for how data lifecycles and patterns of reuse are conceptualized.39

  • 40 S.R. Carroll et al., 2020; M.D. Wilkinson et al., 2016.

28Lastly, we want to emphasize the roles of chance and social networks in the preservation of archival materials. Despite the importance of Nasera rockshelter, Mehlman’s archive exists only because he gave it to his friend Sally McBrearty shortly before he died, and because Tryon found the materials while recovering other items from Sally’s estate after she died, to ensure her academic legacy. Had the right people not been in place at the right time, all of these data and archival materials would almost certainly have been discarded, because the value of battered field notebooks is obscure to most outside of academia. The time is now to begin to think about how to preserve and share these kinds of archives for future generations of archaeologists and to consider ways to ensure that, wherever the physical materials are housed, access for scholars in Tanzania (or wherever an excavation was completed) is free and easy. Moving forward, this will include a digital repository following FAIR and CARE principles.40

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Notes

1 See H. Helton, 2021.

2 J.D. Lewis-Williams, 2013; V. Mariotti et al., 2014; S.C. Munro-Hay, 1989; D.W. Phillipson, 1997; K. Ranhorn et al., 2023a; C.A. Tryon et al., 2019.

3 B.A. Asogwa, 2011; K.D. Wright et al., 2023.

4 L.S.B. Leakey, 1936; M.J. Mehlman, 1977; D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020.

5 C.A. Tryon, 2019.

6 M.J. Mehlman, 1977, 1989.

7 M.J. Mehlman, 1977, 1989.

8 L.S.B. Leakey, 1937, p. 315.

9 L.S.B. Leakey, 1974.

10 L.S.B. Leakey, 1935, 1953

11 L.S.B. Leakey, 1936.

12 S. McBrearty, 2011.

13 M.J. Mehlman, 1989, p. 570-585.

14 E.J. Wayland & M.C. Burkitt, 1932; M.J. Mehlman, 1989.

15 G. Cole, 1967.

16 K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018; D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020.

17 J.R.F. Bower et al., 2012; P. Bushozi, 2011; D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020; I. Solano-Megías et al., 2021.

18 C.A. Tryon & J.T. Faith, 2016.

19 K. Ranhorn, 2017; K. Ranhorn, in review; C.A. Tryon & K. Ranhorn, 2020.

20 K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018.

21 W.D. Sharp et al., 2019.

22 L. Gliganic et al., 2012.

23 K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018.

24 cf. C.A. Tryon & J.T. Faith, 2013.

25 D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020.

26 e.g. S.E. Bailey & C.A. Tryon, 2023; J.A. Baird & L. McFadyen, 2014; C. Ward, 2022.

27 S. McBrearty, 2011.

28 See C.A. Tryon, 2023.

29 R. Kraus et al., 2023.

30 See C. Colwell, 2015 for an example from the US.

31 Mehlman’s fieldwork was reported in the Annual Report of the Antiquities Division for the years 1974–1975 and 1976–1977, both of which also make clear the staff shortages at the time. Both the official reports and Mehlman’s “Day Journal” indicate that Kang’wezi received his degree in Geography from the University of Dar es Salaam, and Mehlman indicates that Kang’wezi’s work with him on the Nasera collections was his first introduction to archaeology. Kang’wezi was later involved in the 1977 field surveys by John R.F. Bower in the Serengeti (J.R.F. Bower & P. Gogan-Porter, 1981, p. iv).

32 Mehlman’s misspelling of ‘debe,’ a Swahili word the Oxford English Dictionary considers to be of possible Hindi origin, referring to a square four-gallon tin that often originally stored kerosene or petrol, widely reused for other purposes such as, in this case, artifact storage.

33 These numbers may have been further reduced since (J.-M. Maíllo-Fernández, personal communication, 2025)

34 D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020; I. Patania et al., 2022.

35 D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020; K. Ranhorn & C.A. Tryon, 2018.

36 M.J. Mehlman, 1989.

37 Specifically for collections from Mumba; see R. Kraus et al., 2023.

38 M.J. Mehlman, 1989, p. 116.

39 e.g. C.L. Borgman, 2019; I.M. Faniel et al., 2018.

40 S.R. Carroll et al., 2020; M.D. Wilkinson et al., 2016.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1. Topographic map of eastern Africa, showing the location of Nasera and other sites discussed in the text
Crédits Map modified in Adobe Illustrator from a base map made in ArcGIS, with the base map image being the intellectual property of Esri and used herein under license. Copyright © 2025 Esri and its licensors. All rights reserved.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5647/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 530k
Titre Figure 2. Image from a 35 mm color slide from the Mehlman archives
Légende Image with handwritten label on the reverse that reads “Nasera and Campi [sic] ya Chai viewed south from Silale, 4/75 [April, 1975].”
Crédits Photograph by M.J. Melhman.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5647/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 334k
Titre Figure 3. Photograph from the Mehlman archives
Légende Image with handwritten label on the reverse that reads: “Apis Rock—completion of first season excavation July 1975, view ESE. Ranging pole marks beginning of LSB Leakey trenches to West (i.e. Right).”
Crédits Photograph by M.J. Mehlman.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5647/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 567k
Titre Figure 4. Photograph from the Mehlman archives
Légende Image with handwritten label on the reverse that reads: “Nasera Rock, Tanzania—14 August 76. Lohay, Juma [Hamisi], Juma, Daniel [Maruna], Mike, Akonaay [Akounai], Josh, Benedicto, Paulo [Ally or Mshanga].”Names in brackets are inferred from the acknowledgements of Mehlman’s (1989) dissertation.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5647/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 531k
Titre Figure 5. The loss of overlying sediments
Légende Left: Image from a 35 mm color slide from the Mehlman archives with handwritten marginal label that reads: “Nasera central excav. Section 1976.” Right: The same sedimentary profile as seen in 2018, originally published in D.M. Martín-Perea et al., 2020. Arrows point to a boulder visible in the 1976 and 2018 profiles, highlighting the loss of overlying sediments in the intervening 42 years.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/docannexe/image/5647/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 388k
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Christian A. Tryon, Hope Romain et Kathryn Ranhorn, « The Mehlman archives and the archaeology of Nasera rockshelter, Tanzania »Afriques [En ligne], 16 | 2025, mis en ligne le 13 mars 2026, consulté le 14 mai 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/5647 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/161vw

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Auteurs

Christian A. Tryon

University of Connecticut, Department of Anthropology, Storrs, CT USA and Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC USA

Hope Romain

Yale University, Council on Archaeological Studies, New Haven, CT USA

Kathryn Ranhorn

School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Institute of Human Origins; Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ USA

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