9313577 Marshall Under the direction of Dr. Fiona Marshall, Mr. Kennedy Mutundu will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will interview Mukogodo peoples who live in northern Kenya and will also excavate two rock shelters which were inhabited by them in historic times. The Mukogodo are, from an anthropological perspective, extremely important because they are one of the few African groups which followed a hunting and gathering way of life until recent times. Within the lifetime of living tribal members, they obtained livestock from herding neighbors and became pastoralists. In the course of their yearly rounds this group also occupied a number of known rock shelters or overhangs and preliminary information indicates that these contain stratified material remains which both document the earlier way of life and the transition to pastoralism. Mr. Mutundu will excavate two of these and collect faunal as well as other cultural remains. Given excellent historical data as well as detailed information from the final occupants of these sites he will be able to relate subsistence pattern with archaeological signature. This research is important because it provides an insight into a process which took place over almost all of Africa and much of the rest of the world in prehistoric times. In many regions peoples who lived by hunting and gathering gradually changed their way of subsistence after contact with pastoral populations. This transition is extremely interesting to archaeologists because it provides a context to study culture change. When confronted by a new subsistence source, what are the processes involved in the rejection or the acceptance and incorporation of it? Preliminary data indicates that this process differed in varying regions. The problem that archaeologists face is that it is difficult to determine what constitutes a pastoral "signature" in the archaeological record since domestic animals per se may also be obtained through trade or theft. The Mukogodo situation, because of the excellent historical and ethnographic control, provides a controlled case in which to examine this question. This research is important for several reasons. It will yield archaeological tools which may be useful in many parts of the world. It will capture data which otherwise soon would be irretrievably lost and finally it will contribute to the training of a promising young scientist. ***
