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African Section Research

Kathleen Ryan with Kenyan team members, Mulu Muia and Simon Katisiya, collecting soil samples for analysis to determine the nature of the occupation. Prungai rock shelter at Mpala Ranch. Photo: Lindsay Shafer.The Laikipia Plateau of Kenya, East Africa, was home to some of our earliest ancestors. Overlooking the Great Rift Valley, often referred to as the "cradle of mankind," it has evidence of hominid occupation from the Early Stone Age to the present. The focus of the present study is on the period of transition from Later Stone Age to the Pastoral Neolithic, approximately 4000 years ago when the first groups of cattle-herding peoples entered the area.

Where
The Laikipia Plateau, East Africa is located on the eastern edge of the Rift Valley in North Central Kenya.

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Skull from a Taita rockshelter shrine removed by Louis Leakey in the 1920s and now housed at the Duckworth Laboratory at Cambridge University.  Skeletally the Taita are very distinct and it is easy to see the differences between the Taita skull above and the skull of a Haya (neighboring African people) below.  Who are the Swahili? Many avenues of research indicate that the cultural, technological, and biological ties of the famous trading peoples of the East African coast are more complex than previously imagined.

Where
Coastal Kenya

When
1000 CE to recent

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Photograph of Locus A excavations (which yielded many house floor burials), facing south with the Atlantic Ocean in the background. Photo courtesy of Chris DeCorse. The Elmina Bioarchaeological Project: One of the most important archaeological sites in Africa, spans the period of European contact, trade, and colonization.

Where
Elmina is located in coastal southern Ghana.

When
The Elmina Bioarchaeological Project examines skeletal material from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

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View of Smugglers' CaveSmugglers' Cave is one of the key sites of the Aterian stone tool industry with modern human fossils, shell beads, and stemmed stone tools.

Where
Smugglers’ Cave is located in Temara Plage on the Atlantic coast of Morocco – 20 km southwest of Rabat.

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