The Sirikwa culture flourished between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and disappeared by the eighteenth century at the latest. To judge from material remains, the settlement area of the Sirikwa extended throughout the western highlands of Kenya between Mount Elgon in the northwest and Lake Nakuru in the southeast. The Southern Nilotic Kalenjin groups living in this region today refer to the Sirikwa as their ancestors.
The Sirikwa culture may well represent a development from the local pastoral neolithic (the so-called Elmenteitan Culture), as well as a locally limited transition from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Thus far, however, only a few iron remains have been found.
The main archaeological sites lie on Hyrax Hill near Nakuru in Kenya. Hyrax Hill comprises a series of prehistoric sites that date back to the Stone Age. The Sirikwa sites are characterized principally by shallow round depressions, the so-called Sirikwa holes (better termed “Sirikwa hollows”), which have a diameter of 30 to 40 feet (10 to 20 meters) and an average depth of
7.9 feet (2.4 meters). These depressions always lie on hillsides; they show the outline of an entrance of some sort, always pointing downhill, one side of which is always flanked by low rubbish mounds with a height of about one meter. Other features of these sites are potsherds in the Sirikwa/Lanet style, crude obsidian implements, bone tools, domestic faunal remains, and structures indicating remains of houses. The depressions occur in groups of five to one hundred. Surrounded by wooden fences or stone walls, they served as cattle enclosures; small farmsteads, encompassing two or three buildings, were situated on the perimeter of the enclosure and could only be entered through the latter. The enclosures both kept the flocks together and protected them from cattle raids.
The Sirikwa culture is documented mainly by evidence from archaeology and oral history. Excavations at Hyrax Hill over the last 60 years have yielded little in the way of grain remains, while grindstones and mortars are lacking entirely. Isolated botanical samples like food plants and medicinal plants, which were found at the beginning of the 1990s near Hyrax Hill, provide no indication of a real agrarian-based culture. Instead, archaeologists have found a series of animal remains, mostly of cattle, sheep, and goats, leading to the conclusion that cattle raising was the economic mainstay of the Sirikwa. Pollen analyses indicate that wild plants such as fruits, nuts, berries, and tubers were also gathered as dietary supplements. Small-scale agriculture, however, must have been carried out in the wetter regions of Nandi and Kericho, for here mortars, grindstones, and the remains of longer-term dwellings have been found.
The Sirikwa certainly were not the first Highlands people to raise cattle, sheep, and goats, but they were the first to pursue an elaborated economy based on the production of milk and fresh meat. They did not lead nomadic lives, but founded new settlements every few years, which explains the great number of depressions over such a large area. A settlement would probably be abandoned when the rubbish mound at the entrance to the enclosure became too large, or when the grazing lands needed recovery.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries these cattle-raising techniques were given up, presumably because of an increase in large-scale cattle theft, against which the traditional defensive measures were ineffective. The Maasai in particular are said to have acted as cattle thieves. The Sirikwa must have responded to this threat with more mobile cattle-raising techniques.
Engaruka is situated in Northern Tanzania, on the floor of the Rift Valley near the base of the escarpment; archaeological sites occur in great number, particularly along the Engaruka River and at the northern tip of Lake Eyasi. This mainly savanna area, characterized by dust and thornbushes, offers little opportunity for conventional agricultural techniques. From the crater highlands, however, rivers flow down to the bottom of the Rift Valley—some only seasonally, others, such as the Engaruka River, throughout the year. Between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries these wild rivers, gushing naturally out of clefts in the escarpment, were regulated in stone channels by levelling, diking, and regular maintenance. A few of these channels had a length of several kilometers and ran along the base of the escarpment and through the foothills of the mountains.
The channels were further subdivided to supply small, leveled fields, which were laid out in gridlike form. These fields were delimited by stonewalls, which helped to prevent erosion of the soft and dusty ground. Archaeologists have identified these formerly irrigated sites over an area of at least 5000 acres (2000 hectares). The abandoned fields and irrigation facilities point to a highly specialized and integrated agricultural economy. The main crop was sorghum, grains of which have been found in village fireplaces at old Engaruka. In addition, a few cattle, goats, and sheep were kept. Excavation at Engaruka has revealed seven large villages, which were built on the hillsides in series of terraces, just above the highest fields and channels. Several thousand people must have lived there.
In approximately 1700, Engaruka was abandoned, probably because economic success brought about a population increase which led to overexploitation of land resources. The gradual drying out of the natural water supply, caused in part by deforestation over the centuries, may have been another factor contributing to this exodus. The agricultural system of Engaruka has been copied by several contemporary ethnic groups of the East African savanna; thus the irrigation systems described above can be found today among the Sonjo and Marakwet of southern Kenya.
Reinhard Klein-Arendt
See also: Iron Age (Later): East Africa.
Further Reading
Kyule, David M. “The Sirikwa Economy: Hyrax Hill.” Azania, no. 32 (1997): 21-31.
Leakey, Mary D. “Report on the Excavations at Hyrax Hill, Nakuru, Kenya Colony, 1937-1938.” Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 30, no. 4 (1945): 271-409.
Robertshaw, Peter. “Engaruka Revisited: Excavations of 1982.” Azania, no. 21 (1986): 1-27.
Sassoon, Hamo. “New Views on Engaruka, Northern Tanzania.” Journal of African History, no. 8 (1967): 201-17.
Sutton, John. “Hyrax Hill and the Sirikwa: New Excavations on Site II.” Azania, no. 22 (1987): 1-37.
-. A Thousand Years of East Africa. Nairobi: British Institute
In Eastern Africa, 1990.
Six Day War: See Egypt: Nasser: Foreign Policy: Suez Canal Crisis to Six Day War, 1952-1970.
World History
