Excavations at Masai Gorge Rockshelter, Naivasha

Abstract

Dr. Ambrose has been working for several years in the Central Rift of Kenya, with special interest in the Late Stone Age and Pastoral Neolithic and their environmental adaptations. Apart from his detailed survey and ecological studies, he has excavated three main sites, two on Mount Eburu overlooking Lake Naivasha from the north, namely Masai Gorge and Marula Rockshelters, with the third, Enkapune ya Muto, on the Mau escarpment to the west of the lake. This work is incorporated in his thesis submitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1984, ‘Holocene environments and human adaptations in the Central Rift Valley, Kenya’.

The present article is a report on Masai Gorge, which makes numerous comparisons with other sites and offers new interpretations of the Rift Valley sequence. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez' report on the bones excavated by Ambrose from Masai Gorge, as well as on the interesting sample of teeth from the nearby Marula Rockshelter, follows as a separate article.

As Ambrose explains, the Masai Gorge sequence is broadly similar to that at Gamble's Cave, excavated by Dr. L.S.B. Leakey in the 1920s. It includes early Holocene Eburran (Lower Kenya Capsian), late Holocene Eburran (Upper Kenya Capsian Phase C), Elmenteitan, Neolithic and iron Age occurrences. This excavation and analysis thus largely confirm many parts of the archaeological succession for the Central Rift Valley proposed by Leakey over fifty years ago.