Cultural relations between North and East Africa in the Holocene and their influence on the first use of pottery and the transition to livestock farming in Kenya
Project leader: PD Dr. Birgit Keding
Project collaborator: Dr. Erik Becker
Cooperation partners: National Museums of Kenya; Koobi Fora Field School (KFFS)/Rutgers University (New Jersey/USA)
Funding: German Research Foundation (since October 2011) – Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Cologne.
The history of Neolithization in East Africa, and Kenya in particular, has been little researched. Both the oldest pottery and the earliest evidence of a productive economy come from northern Kenya (Fig. 1). East of Lake Turkana (Fig. 2), the earliest pottery finds date to after 9000 BP and are occasionally found in hunter-gatherer contexts, while well-dated pastoralist sites date to 4000 BP.
Both phenomena are often causally linked to southward migrations or other types of contact between North African and more southerly groups. These hypotheses are based on general similarities, particularly in the ceramic decorations and lifestyles of the various archaeological groups in North and East Africa, but have never been verified using the material found. Fluctuations in climatic and environmental conditions in northern Africa during the Middle and Late Holocene are often cited as factors promoting or triggering the postulated cultural connections between the East Sahara/Northeast Africa region and East Africa.
The aim of the project is to investigate whether cultural and population-biological connections between East Saharan-Northeast African (Chadian-Sudanese) and East African (Kenyan) finds can actually be proven and, if so, in what form, and whether conclusions can be drawn from the results about the underlying social and economic processes – such as migration or other types of cultural contact (Fig. 1).
Two key phases are being studied: Firstly, Kenya's cultural position with regard to the North African “Aqualithikum” is being determined and the social and economic relationships between the archaeological groups of the East Sahara/Northeast Africa region and Kenya in the Early and Middle Holocene are being analyzed (Figs. 3, 4). Second, the transition to pastoralism in northern Kenya in the Late Holocene is being researched (Fig. 5).
These topics are being investigated as part of a reanalysis of East African Early and Middle Holocene finds and a comparison with Northeast African inventories.
The studies are based on sites in the Koobi Fora-Ileret region on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana, which were excavated and evaluated by John Barthelme in the 1970s. The second regional focus is the southern eastern Sahara, in particular the Wadi Howar and Wadi Shaw regions, but also the adjacent Nile Valley. Well-documented cultural sequences are already known here, with numerous sites of the “African Aqualithic” and of various later pastoral societies. More information can be found here: SFB 389, subprojects A2, A8, and A9.
In order to achieve the most reliable results possible, an interdisciplinary approach involving anthropology is being pursued. This means that the questions are investigated using two “strands” that are independent in terms of sources and methods, and the results are then combined at the end: Material culture, especially ceramics, and settlement remains are analyzed to reconstruct the socio-economic systems of prehistoric groups as well as the development and spread of cultural elements; skeletal remains are examined to uncover the biological origins of prehistoric groups and their relationship to other populations.