History & Archeology Research Papers/Topics

Population Movements and the Consolidation of Authority in the Inter-Lacustrine Region of Western Kenya: A Political Transformation of Gem Community in Pre-Colonial Times

Abstract/Overview During the time before European colonisation, the gem people of Kenya did not have any kind of state organisation or formal chiefdoms. The breadth of this paper is limited by the primary focus of this investigation. Beginning with the formation of the gem people around the year 1800 and continuing up until the eve of the Second World War, we tin trace the progression of political authority within the gem community. The clan, which was a small and highly localized social ...

The historical Earth bank enclosures of Western Kenya

Abstract/Overview An investigation into the distribution, design and origins of 'Gunda-Buche' -the Luo term for the bank-and-ditch enclosures unique to the northern Nyanza region of western Kenya. No archaeological work had been undertaken on these structures prior to this study. Pressure for land means these unique sites are now fast disappearing.

Age of the oldest known Homo sapiens from eastern Africa

Abstract: Efforts to date the oldest modern human fossils in eastern Africa, from Omo-Kibish1,2,3 and Herto4,5 in Ethiopia, have drawn on a variety of chronometric evidence, including 40Ar/39Ar ages of stratigraphically associated tuffs. The ages that are generally reported for these fossils are around 197 thousand years (kyr) for the Kibish Omo I3,6,7, and around 160–155 kyr for the Herto hominins5,8. However, the stratigraphic relationships and tephra correlations that underpin these...

The Mystery of Yam

It  locates the place of Yam in Nigeria Society in general and Igbo society in particular. It shows the stages of human development from early time and how these stages evolved with change in human environment. Finally it dealt on state formation which is the super structure of the base.