Savanna Pastoral Neolithic

The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic or SPN (formerly known as the Stone Bowl Culture) is a collection of ancient societies that appeared in the Rift Valley of East Africa and surrounding areas during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic. Through archaeology, historical linguistics and archaeogenetics, they conventionally have been identified with the area's first Afroasiatic-speaking settlers. Archaeological dating of livestock bones and burial cairns has also established the cultural complex as the earliest center of pastoralism (cattle, goats and sheep) and stone construction in the region.

The makers of the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic culture are believed to have arrived in the Rift Valley sometime during the Pastoral Neolithic period (c. 3,000 BCE-700 CE). Through a series of migrations from Northeast Africa, these early Cushitic-speaking pastoralists brought cattle and caprines southward from the Sudan and/or Ethiopia into northern Kenya, probably using donkeys for transportation. According to archaeological dating of associated artifacts and skeletal material, they first settled in the lowlands of Kenya between 5,200 and 3,300 ybp, a phase referred to as the Lowland Savanna Pastoral Neolithic. They subsequently spread to the highlands of Kenya and Tanzania around 3,300 ybp, which is consequently known as the Highland Savanna Pastoral Neolithic phase.

Excavations in the area indicate that the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic peoples were primarily cattle pastoralists. They milked this livestock, and also possessed goats, sheep, and donkeys. They typically buried their deceased in cairns. Their toolkit was characterized by a blade and bladelet-based lithic industry,earthenware pots, stone bowls and pestles, and occasional grindstones. The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic peoples sometimes hunted medium and large game on the plains, and during the culture's lowland phase, they likewise fished in Lake Turkana.

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