The Lukenya Hill excavations and early East African pastoralism

Record summary

Lukenya Hill rock shelters were among the East African sites investigated during the first half of the twentieth century and later became significant for sequences involving Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and early food producers. The lead matters for comparing how archaeologists identify mobility, herding, exchange, and cultural continuity from mixed cave deposits. Early excavation records and broad typological labels left uncertainties about chronology and association. Later radiocarbon dating and zooarchaeological work have refined, but not eliminated, questions about the timing and character of pastoral adoption.