With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kathleen Ryan and an international team of colleagues will conduct three field seasons of archaeological mapping and test excavation at Mpala Ranch, Laikipia, Kenya. The team brings together U.S., Kenyan, British, and Israeli specialists in archaeology, geoarchaeology and biogeochemistry to carry out a systematic study of early pastoral and hunter-gatherer sites. The goal is to identify the strategies employed by in-migrating cattle herding groups during the introduction of cattle pastoralism into Laikipia, around 4000 years ago, and by extension, to assess the impact on the lifestyle of the indigenous hunter-gatherers.
The proposed research will complement and build on the regional survey and test excavations already completed by the team between 2002 and 2005 at the Laikipia Nature Conservancy in western Laikpia and ongoing exploration in 2005 at Mpala in central Laikipia. Because of their size, together Mpala (ca. 20,000 ha.) and Laikipia Nature Conservancy (ca. 35,000 ha.) offer the opportunity to identify and sample a large number of sites over an extensive area.
Crucial to the success of this project will be the ability to (i) distinguish pastoral and hunter-gatherer sites and (ii) test the hypothesis that the earliest incoming cattle herders arrived with a fully developed pastoral package heavily reliant on dairy products. This will require integration of cutting-edge geoarchaeological and biogeochemical analyses with more conventional methods of survey and excavation, to identify stockholding areas and other features of pastoral settlements, as well as the chemical signatures of dairy fat residues in pottery vessels. Research includes archaeological survey, excavation and the analysis of cultural and sediments recovered.
The project will contribute to our understanding of the advent and spread of cattle pastoralism throughout Africa. This is of significance in the context of modern Africa where cattle pastoralism still forms an important part of the modern subsistence base.
Obtaining direct evidence, as well as dates and social context, for milking of African cattle by prehistoric herders-a pivotal part of the study-can contribute to recent discussions of the genetic basis of lactose tolerance in East African populations.
In a region where anthropological knowledge has generally been generated by foreign researchers, the collaboration between researchers at the National Museums of Kenya and the United States International University (USIU), in Nairobi, with the Univeristy of Bristol, the Weizmann Institute of Israel, and the University of Pennsylania Museum will help redress this imbalance. It will also build research capacity by offering hands-on experience to US and Kenyan students. All five institutions are involved in the creation of knowledge through research. USIU will further aid the dissemination of such knowledge through teaching in the classroom.
