Njoro River Cave
archaeological site
Njoro River Cave is an archaeological site on the Mau Escarpment, Kenya, that was first excavated in 1938 by Mary Leakey and her husband Louis Leakey. Excavations revealed a mass cremation site created by Elmenteitan pastoralists during the Pastoral Neolithic roughly 3350-3050 BP. Excavations also uncovered pottery, beads, stone bowls, basket work, pestles and flakes. The Leakeys' excavation was one of the earliest to uncover ancient beads and tools in the area and a later investigation in 1950 was the first to use radiocarbon dating in East Africa.
Dating
The Njoro River Cave was the place of first use of radiocarbon dating in East Africa. Though the Leakeys only made a single observation in 1950, later tests were conducted in the 1980s. Results from four total radiocarbon dates cluster at 3350-3050 BP.
Cremation and burial
Seventy-eight individuals were originally recovered. While there is nothing that would suggest the items were only left for certain genders, the number of male remains found doubled the amount of female remains. Each body was buried with some type of potsherd, basket, bead, stone bowl, pestle, gourd or other various items. It appears the bodies underwent a series of steps to complete the ritual. First the bodies were wrapped in skins.
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This entry incorporates text from “Njoro River Cave” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.