Sirikwa

The Sirikwa were a people inhabiting the Great Lakes region of East Africa, in an area that is believed to have extended from Lake Turkana in the north to Lake Eyasi in the south. Most prominent from the 12th to 15th centuries, they are credited with having built many of the historic stone ruins and irrigation systems that are found locally.

The name Sirikwa derives from the name that various Kalenjin societies gave to the builders of the Sirikwa Holes, it is taken to be a term for "the people who were before us".

Other Nilotic and Bantu peoples that today inhabit the eastern Great Lakes region have other names for this vanished people. The Dorobo refer to them as the Mokwan, the Meru as the Mwoko, the Kikuyu as the Enjoe, and the Maasai as the Eboratta.

What is known of the Sirikwa is what has been preserved in the archaeological record. Artifacts found in numerous sites across the central Rift Valley of Kenya holes tell of the history and way of life of this society.

Radio carbon dating of artifacts from the sites indicates that the culture formed in the central Rift Valley around 1000 A.D. and possibly earlier.

This society expanded over the plateaus and hills of Western Kenya, spreading their territories across the Mau-Nyanza, the Western Highlands, Cherangani Hills and Mt. Elgon areas in both Kenya and Uganda by the 12th century A.D.

This way of life would decline and eventually disappear by the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Sirikwa have traditionally been viewed as descendants of the Neolithic Afro-Asiatic peoples who introduced domesticated plants and animals to the Great Lakes region – a succession of societies collectively known as the Stone Bowl cultural complex. Most of these early northern migrants are believed to have been absorbed by later movements of Nilotic and Bantu peoples.

Sirikwa-inhabited territory is believed to have extended from Lake Turkana in the northern part of the Great Lakes region to Lake Eyasi in the south. Its cross-section stretched from the eastern escarpment of the Great Rift Valley to the foot of Mount Elgon. Some of the localities include Cherengany, Kapcherop, Sabwani, Sirende, Wehoya, Moi's Bridge, Hyrax Hill, Lanet, Deloraine (Rongai), Tambach, Moiben, Soy, Turbo, Ainabkoi, Timboroa, Kabyoyon, Namgoi and Chemangel (Sotik).

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