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Archaeological and Environmental History of the Central Rift Valley of Kenya

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Archaeological and Environmental History of the Central Rift Valley of Kenya International Journal of Innovative Research and Knowledge Volume-3 Issue-7, July-2018 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE ISSN-2213-1356 www.ijirk.com ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF THE CENTRAL RIFT VALLEY OF KENYA Dr. Ben N. Nyanchoga Abstract This paper is a product of archaeological field research that was carried out in the Central Rift Valley of Kenya. The Central Rift valley of Kenya is key in understanding the prehistory of East Africa. Some of the earliest human technological and cultural developments can be traced to this region. The Central Rift is sandwiched between the Mau Escarpment to Southwest and the Aberdare ranges to the North. The region has provided insurmountable information on the palaeoecology and archaeological literature of the Central Rift Valley of Kenya. This paper discusses the archaeological and environmental history of the Central Rift Valley of Kenya making reference to potential sites. Keywords: Pleistocene; Volcanic tuff; Volcanic ash; Palaeo-lithic; palaeo-environment; palaeo-ecology Introduction The Central Rift valley of Kenya is strategic in understanding the history of Pleistocene landscape of East Africa. It occupies a special position in the study of East African prehistory. The area is rich in environmental history as it home to variety of biodiversity, Pleistocene lakes and unique landforms. It is also postulated that the Central Rift valley of Kenya is one of the earliest centers of human evolution as there exists many archaeological sites dating to the Early Stone Age period. www.ijirk.com Page 227 International Journal of Innovative Research and Knowledge ISSN-2213-1356 The volcanic tuff, Lake Sediments, and caves lying in the region contain many unmapped and undiscovered archaeological sites. Most importantly, volcanic ash characteristic of the area has aided in the preservation and dating of archaeological remains spanning millions of years ago. The Central Rift and specifically the Nakuru- Elmentaita basin contains key archaeological sites like Kariandusi (Paleolithic/Stone Age site), Gambles Cave, Hyrax Hill, Lanet among others. Gambles, Hyrax and Lanet are all Late Stone Age sites. Archaeological and palaeontological studies in the Central rift begun with Louis Leakey in the early 1930s, who was later joined by his wife and fellow palaeontologist Mary Leakey. Since then a series of researches have been conducted in the area that is rich in archaeological information. Palaeoenvironment and Palaeoecology of the Central Rift The interpretation of the East African palaeoenvironment was originally based on the pluvial theory (Leakey, 1931) which itself was based on stratigraphic deposits with pluvial and interpluvial periods. Climate change in East Africa caught the curiosity of early explorers in the latter part of the 19th century and it continued to be the subject of investigations up to the 1980s (Hastenrath, 1984; Nicholson, 1998, 1999). Lake level measurements, historical accounts, observation, and analysis of glacier variations in the tropics are an indicator of this climatic change. East Africa experiences rain between March and June with its core around April to May. The Eastern Rift Valley was formed by plate tectonic processes on a global scale (Leakey 1931; Ambrose, 1984b, 2003:97). Tectonic uplift raised the East African region 1500m above sea-level during the Middle Pleistocene. This was accompanied by fissure eruption of flood basalts and volcanic mountains within the Rift Valley which created several lake basins, for example, Naivasha, Elementaita and Nakuru. The Central Rift Valley is located at the highest point of uplift on the East African dome. From East to West across the Rift Valley the main topographic features are the Nyandarua Range, an elongated North-South trending mountain chain, 400m from a base level of 2400m on the Kinangop plateau. The Rift floor in the Naivasha basin is about 30km wide and is bounded by the Mau escarpment on the west, which rises to 3100m (Ambrose 1984b, 2003:98). The widespread evidence of tectonic deformation in the Naivasha-Elementaita and Nakuru basins has certainly influenced both the sedimentological and hydrological history of the region. In its narrowest segment, vegetation grades from open grasslands through savannah woodlands up through various forest types to Alpine Meadows. The bottom of the valley is dotted with a series of lakes including, from North to South, Baringo, Bogoria, Nakuru, Elmenteita and Naivasha (Gifford-Gonzalez and Kimengich, 1984: 457). Rapid oscillations of lake levels with amplitudes of 60-190m are likely to have been largely climatically determined. During this time precipitation could have been at least 65% greater than at present in the case of the Nakuru-Elementaita basin and 50% in the case of the Naivasha basin (Butzer et al., 1972). The Nakuru-Elementaita basin is bounded by Mt. Eburru to the South and Mt. Menengai to the North. The basin outlet was through the Menengai caldera. The basins of Lakes Naivasha, Elementaita and Nakuru have received greater attention from palaeo-environmentalists than any other areas of comparable size in Eastern Africa. The three lakes lie just south of the equator at a point where the floor of the Eastern Rift Valley reaches its greatest elevation. Lake Naivasha is the largest (though nowadays it has reduced considerably) and freshest, while Lakes Elmentaita and Nakuru are smaller, shallower and highly saline. Lake Naivasha was four times its present area and stood about 58 metres above the present shoreline (Butzer et al., 1972; Richardson 1966; Richardson and Richardson 1972; Washbourn-Kamau 1967, 1970, 1975). Figure 3.2 shows the flactuations of Lake Naivasha since the 1800s. www.ijirk.com Page 228 International Journal of Innovative Research and Knowledge Volume-3 Issue-7, July-2018 Fig 3.1: Lake levels of Elmenteita, Nakuru and Naivasha during the Early Holocene Source: Adapted from Butzer et al. 1972 Fig. 3.2: Flactuations of Lake Naivasha since the 1800s Source: Modified from Nicholson 1996 www.ijirk.com Page 229 International Journal of Innovative Research and Knowledge ISSN-2213-1356 The modern potential outlet of the Nakuru-Elmentaita basin stood at 1949m which was 191m above the modern level of Lake Nakuru which stood at 1758m. Two raised shorelines could be traced in the basin. The older of this, the Gamble’s Cave shoreline, was represented by prominent shoreline notches and lithoral deposits along the outer slopes of Menengai crater, on the Karterit volicanic cone and at Gamble’s Cave, the lake level stood at 180m and the enlarged lake is believed to have seeped into the Menengai Crater .The shoreline dates to 10,000- 8000BP. In Naivasha basin, a possible beach ridge and the presence in many places of beach gravels indicate that the lake stood at 2000m compared to the 1972 level of 1890m. The lake overflowed into Njorowa Gorge the floor of which then stood at a higher level than its present day altitude of 1940m-1950m (Butzer et al., 1972; Richardson 1966; Richardson and Richardson 1972). Lakes of the Nakuru-Naivasha depression are most sensitive to climatic change and are surrounded by several sets of strandlines of known geologic age. Radiocarbon dating and uranium-thorium have shown that high water levels correspond generally to times 6000 to 10000, 23000 to 27,000 and 90,000 years ago when world glaciers were relatively small. Strand lines give a reasonable record of times when the water level was high, but times of low water level are registered only in the sediments, often as unconformities, gaps in deposition due to periods of non- deposition, erosion or weathering (Livingstone, 1996:10). Plate 3.1 shows Lake Nakuru and an expanding human settlement in the middle ground. Plate 3.1: Lake Nakuru as viewed from the summit of the Hyrax Hill prehistoric site In understanding the palaeoenvironment and palaeoecology of the region indicators of climate, vegetation and faunal communities are key. Climate The factors which pattern ecological relationships in tropical areas are more complex and subtle, generating communities with diffuse boundaries and complicated interrelationships. The diversity and flexibility of cultural adaptations in East Africa reflect these uncertainties, both today and in the past, making it difficult to generalize about the adaptive economic behaviour of even a single society in the absence of detailed, longitudinal studies. Climatic changes have undoubtedly produced subtle, but pervasive effects in the ecology of human adaptations. In arid and semi-arid zones of East Africa, temperatures are continuously warm to hot and little variation occurs www.ijirk.com Page 230 International Journal of Innovative Research and Knowledge Volume-3 Issue-7, July-2018 throughout the year (Swift et al., 1996:246). It is also probable that the development and diversification of pastoral and agricultural adaptations have produced cumulative, irreversible changes in many regional environments, necessitating complex adaptive readjustments which have changed the basic character of human adaptations from time to time. The two most important features of climate are rainfall and temperature (de Voos, 1975:21). The author states that temperature is strongly influenced by the altitude of the land surface and to some extent the same is true of rainfall, for the higher areas tend to have a high rainfall. These elements form a climate pattern that together with the soil type determines vegetational zones or ecosystems (Morais, 1988:15). Subtropical pressure areas situated about 20-300 North and South of the Equator are important controls of the climate of tropical Africa (Boucher, 1975). The sub-tropical high pressure cells tend to move North during the Northern Summer and South during the Southern Summer, and the outflow of air from their centres is reducing during Summer months as a consequence of thermal heating. The North-East Trade Winds, which blow out from the North African and Arabian high-pressure cells are very dry and often laden with dust.
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