East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders

2. The East African Neolithic: A Historical Perspective

2 The East African Neolithic: A Historical Perspective Karega-Munene This chapter examines the historical development of Neolithic studies in East Africa. The early use of type artifacts to define the time period obscured much variation in the East African Neolithic, which was eventually better understood through study of the various pottery wares. Competing schemes to organize the wares in time and space are evaluated .None accommodate the existing data adequately. A new interpretation alleges a strong link between pottery ware distributions and ethnic group boundaries that obscures much of the cultural processes governing Neolithic pottery ware production and dispersal, which probably included individual and local potter styles as well as exchange. The term “Neolithic” was first used in an archaeological context in East Africa by the geologist John Walter Gregory (1896, 1921) working in the Rift Valley system. The term was then used to describe obsidian artifacts found on the Athi Plains, Kikuyu Escarpment, and near Lake Baringo in present -day Kenya (Fig. 2.1). Subsequently, the word “Neolithic” was used to describe isolated finds of stone bowls, polished stone ax-heads, and bored stones or stone rings that were made in various parts of the country (Dobbs 1914, 1918; Hobley 1913). This definition was also used in European and Near Eastern archaeology, where it referred to cultures associated with polished stone artifacts (Lubbock 1872).Early in the 20th century the definition was expanded to include cultures with domestic animals and plants (Burkitt 1925; Childe 1953), and this definition was used in East Africa during the first half of the 20th century. In the 1950s,the criteria identifying the EastAfrican Neolithic were expanded to include stone bowls and, in the mid-1970s, skeletal remains of domestic East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders 18 KENYA ETHIOPIA SUDAN ZAIRE UGANDA TANZANIA ZAMBIA MOZAMBIQUE SOMALIA Mt. Kenya Mt. Kilimanjaro Mt. Elgon L. Baringo L. Bogoria L. Nakuru L. Naivasha L. Magadi T a n a R . Galana R. L. Turkana INDIAN OCEAN RWANDA BURUNDI L. Victoria Nairobi Salasun Akira Naivasha Railway Causeway site Crescent Is. Remnant Prospect Farm Gambles cave Nderit drift Prolonged drift Njoro cave Egerton cave Hyrax Hill Lion Hill Njoro L. Nakuru L. Elmenteita L. Naivasha 0 50 km 0 500 km N Fig. 2.1 Sites and other place-names associated with the Central African Neolithic. animals.This latter development resulted in the renaming of Neolithic cultures as Pastoral Neolithic.This term unduly emphasized herding as a subsistence strategy, relative to other food resources like plants, fish, and wild animals. In reality, the archaeological evidence for a more diversified subsistence base is overwhelming.Thus, I will use the term “Neolithic” to indicate food-producing cultures that possess domestic animals or crop cultivation. In the former French colonies, however,“Neolithic” still often denotes cultures characterized by polished stone tools and pottery (De Barros 1990; Shaw 1977). Pioneer Research Systematic research on the Neolithic started with Louis Leakey’s 1931 expedition to the Lake Nakuru-Naivasha Basin in the Kenya Rift Valley (Fig. 2.1). Although the principal aim of that research was not to investigate the Neolithic, the presence of polished stone artifacts, stone bowls, human burials , and pottery indicated three Neolithic cultures. These were named Njoroan, after a farm near present-day Njoro township (Fig. 2.1), and Gumban A and Gumban B, after the mythical pygmy peoples whom the central Kenya Gikuyu knew as Gumba (L. Leakey 1931; Muriuki 1974).The three cultures were viewed as derivations of Kenya Wilton and Elmenteitan Mesolithic cultures ,both of which were also identified in the research area (L.Leakey 1931). Subsequent research failed to yield more sites with finds similar to those of the Njoroan culture; therefore, the term was dropped from the region’s archaeological vocabulary.The research,however,revealed two more cultures in the Uganda and Kenya Lake Victoria basins, the Tumbian and Kenya Wilton C, which were then considered Neolithic cultures.The Tumbian culture was divided into four phases: Proto-, Lower, Middle, and Upper (L. Leakey 1936; Leakey and Owen 1945; O’Brien 1939). Subsequently, the Upper phase was renamed Lupemban and the older phases, Sangoan (Leakey and Cole 1952). However, because of inherent difficulties in separating the phases, they are now described as Sangoan-Lupemban and have been dated to the Middle Stone Age (McBrearty 1986). On the other hand, the term “Wilton” is inapplicable for the East Africa Neolithic (Nelson and...