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The megalithic pillar sites found around Lake Turkana, Kenya, are monumental cemeteries built approximately 5000 years ago. Their construction coincides with the spread of pastoralism into the region during a period of profound climate change. Early work at the Jarigole pillar site suggested that these places were secondary burial grounds. Subsequent excavations at other pillar sites, however, have revealed planned mortuary cavities for predominantly primary burials, challenging the idea that all pillar sites belonged to a single 'Jarigole mortuary tradition'. Here, the authors report new findings from the Jarigole site that resolve long-standing questions about eastern Africa's earliest monuments and provide insight into the social lives, and deaths, of the region's first pastoralists. Keywords: Eastern Africa, megalithic architecture, funerary archaeology, mortuary practices, pastoralist society, Introduction The earliest evidence of monumentality in eastern Africa coincides with the initial spread of food production into sub-Saharan Africa during a period of profound climatic, economic and social change [...]

Common assumptions about the ephemeral archaeological signature of pastoralist settlements have limited the application of geophysical techniques in the investigation of past herding societies. Here, the authors present a geophysical survey of Luxmanda, Tanzania, the largest-known settlement documented for the Pastoral Neolithic era in eastern Africa (,c. 5000-1200 BP). The results demonstrate the value and potential of fluxgate gradiometry for the identification of magnetic anomalies relating to archaeological features, at a category of site where evidence for habitation was long thought to be undetectable. The study provides comparative data to enable archaeologists to identify loci for future investigations of mobile populations in eastern Africa and elsewhere. Keywords: Africa, Tanzania, geophysical survey, pastoralism, mobility, Introduction Archaeologists worldwide are now applying geochemical, biomolecular and ethnoarchaeological approaches to understand the long-term social and environmental histories of ancient pastoralism (Honeychurch & Makarewicz 2016). Common early assumptions held [...]

This article describes the mineralogy and sources for a spectacular stone bead industry associated with the first pastoralists in eastern Africa ca. 5000–4000 cal b.p. Around Lake Turkana, northwest Kenya, early pastoralists constructed at least seven mortuary monuments with platforms, pillars, cairns, and stone circles. Three sites—Lothagam North, Manemanya, and Jarigole—have yielded assemblages of stone and ostrich eggshell beads that adorned interred individuals. Mineralogical identification of the stone beads reveals patterns of material selection, including notable differences among the pillar sites. Geological sourcing indicates use of many local raw materials and two (amazonite and fluorite) whose known sources lie > 200 km away. The data suggest that bead-making represented a significant investment by early pastoralists in personal ornamentation. New sociopolitical factors emerged, such as access to grazing grounds and water, and definitions of self and society manifested in novel mortuary traditions as people coped with a drying, cooling climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using excavation and radiocarbon dating, the authors show that construction of megalithic pillar sites begins in eastern Africa by the fifth millennium BP, and is contemporary with the earliest herding in the region. Mobile herders and/or hunter-gatherers built and used these sites in a dynamic context of economic and social change. We are more familiar with monumentality as an adjunct of cereal cultivators--but this study demonstrates a relationship between early herding and monuments, with clear relevance to pre-cultivation monumentality of very much earlier periods elsewhere. Keywords: sub-Saharan Africa, fifth millennium BP, herders, pillar sites, ostrich eggshells, radiocarbon, Introduction Stone or earthen monuments are associated with early food production in many parts of the world, but their emergence is more evident among early cultivators than among groups focusing [...]

Megalithic ‘pillar sites’ built by middle Holocene peoples of the Turkana Basin in northwestern Kenya provide eastern Africa's earliest known example of monumental architecture. Radiometric dates place pillar site construction and use ~5000-4000 cal. BP. This social innovation occurred during a period of marked environmental and economic change: the level of Lake Turkana dropped dramatically, vast plains opened between the lake and neighbouring volcanic ridges and herding was added to the previous local subsistence repertoire of fishing, gathering and hunting. Material culture recovered from the pillar sites suggests that they supported diverse commemorative practices including, but not limited to, the mortuary sphere, and that they may have been built and used by multiple social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]