Stratigraphic and geochronological context of human habitation along the Galana River, Kenya

Abstract

Geoarchaeological investigations along the Galana River, eastern Kenya, document a pattern of channel aggradation and then degradation from the Middle to Late Holocene. Archaeological occupations at six sites in fluvial terraces along a ˜100 km stretch of the Galana River in Tsavo East National Park correspond with fluvial aggradation beginning ca. 6000 years ago. Artifact analyses indicate that the inhabitants of these sites utilized ceramics and stone tools similar to Pastoral Neolithic traditions detected at other penecontemporaneous archaeological sites in East Africa and possessed domesticated cattle from ca. 3700 years ago. The site occupations that occur during this period have dense artifact concentrations of predominantly locally procured items. The Galana River incised after ca. 900 years ago and there is a noticeable paucity of archaeological material, reflecting more peripatetic lifestyles. This shift in settlement pattern may reflect a decrease in reliance on riverine food sources during the Late Holocene, with diminished riparian environments associated with channel incision. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Renewed Geoarchaeological Investigations of Mwanganda's Village (Elephant Butchery Site), Karonga, Malawi

“…100 ka (see also Sitzia et al., ). Dating of fluvial sediments in Africa has been ongoing for over a decade (Woodward, Macklin, & Welsby, ; Feathers, ; Wright et al., ; Rittenour, ). In large drainage systems, OSL is effective in reconstructing large‐scale changes in hydrology and geomorphology related to continental‐scale shifts in climate (e.g., Williams et al., ), whereas in smaller catchments OSL has proven effective in identifying localized sources of groundwater (Ashley et al., ).…”

Late Holocene wetland transgression and 500 years of vegetation and fire variability in the semi-arid Amboseli landscape, southern Kenya

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Pastoralists in the northeastern Mara Plains, Kenya: archaeological investigations of the Pastoral Neolithic and the Pastoral Iron Age

“…Little attention seems to have been paid to the formality of the retouched artefacts, and there is very little standardisation in the lithic assemblage. This lack of formality and the reliance on flake production are often described as typical for quartz-based lithic assemblages (see for example Robertshaw 1991), although this is not always the case (Seitsonen 2006;Wright et al 2007). A gradual increase in the informality of lithic assemblages has also been suggested to have been amongst the consequences of the transition to iron technology in East Africa (Bower and Nelson 1978).…”