Landscape Historical Ecology and Archaeology of Ancient Pastoral Societies in Kenya

The origin of livestock herding in eastern Africa dates to around c. 5000 BP and entailed a combination of demic migration of new populations into the region pushed southward as a consequence of increasing aridity at the termination of the early-mid Holocene pluvial; diffusion of domesticates and cultural practices, including new forms of burial, settlement, lithic technologies and ceramic styles and forms; and acculturation of some autochthonous hunting-gathering-fishing communities.

Known as the Pastoral Neolithic, this phase of initial establishment and subsequent expansion across eastern Africa has attracted extensive archaeological interest, stimulated by advances in bioarchaeological, biochemical and geoarchaeological research, and higher precision radiocarbon dating.

The ensuing Pastoral Iron Age, commencing c. 1200 CE, with the uptake of iron smelting technologies among herding communities, new ceramic styles, reductions in mobility, and changes in food production, has received much less archaeological attention.

Yet, understanding these transitions and the factors that gave rise to them are critical for understanding the origins of many of the region's contemporary pastoralist communities, key cultural systems such as age-sets, and the socio-ecological viability and resilience of specialised pastoralism in the context of climatic uncertainty and periodic catastrophic regional droughts.

The goals of this research are i) to provide, for the first time, an archaeological landscape and materials analysis of the origins and evolution of Pastoral Iron Age societies in north-central Kenya, through integrated analysis of patterns of human and livestock mobility, dietary practices, exchange networks, and responses to periods of known drought and increased rainfall over the last c. 1800-years, and ii) demonstrate the value of understanding these pastoralist pasts as paths for planning more sustainable futures for the region's contemporary pastoralist societies.