Tethered mobility and riparian resource exploitation among Neolithic hunters and herders in the Galana River basin, Kenyan coastal lowlands

Abstract

Human activity along the Galana River inside Tsavo National Park, Kenya extends from 6000 years BP until at least 1300 years BP. This time period in East Africa predates and includes the Pastoral Neolithic – geographically and temporally linked early cattle-herding cultures comprised of autonomous communities with loose cultural connections to one another. Data from some sites located in the Great Rift Valley, Lake Victoria Basin and Central Kenyan Highlands indicate that after 3000 years BP, residential mobility patterns increased and pastoralists adopted a strong dependence on maintaining and culling herds of domesticated animals. This pattern is not borne out in Tsavo, where artefact analyses indicate that people had restricted mobility and relied primarily on exploitation of an endoaquatic resource base. This study hypothesises that subdecadal periodicity in El Niño/Southern Oscillation index (ENSO) along with a general trend toward aridification of East African landscapes provided the environmental backdrop for a subsistence regime focused primarily within riparian environments of the Coastal Lowlands region.