Ele Bor

A rock shelter site which was first occupied in the Middle Stone Age. There was a backed-microlith industry used by them and the following group of the Aquatic Civilization. Domestic sheep/goats and camel were present in small numbers from about the 3rd millennium BC, at which time pottery also came into use. The climate at the time was somewhat moister than that of the present. With the subsequent drier climate, cereal use was abandoned, but both hunting and small-scale pastoralism continued into the present millennium.

A group of rocky outcrops in the north Kenya plains, not far from the foothills of the Ethiopian escarpment. A group of rock shelters yielded a composite sequence extending from ‘Middle Stone Age’ into recent times. A backed-microlith industry appeared at an as yet unknown date and continued in use by hunter-gatherers into the period when fishermen of the ‘aquatic civilization’ were established beside Lake Turkana to the west. Domestic sheep/goat and, it appears, camel were present in small numbers from about the 3rd millennium be, at which time pottery also came into use. Seeds and numerous grindstones suggest intensive exploitation of — presumably wild — cereals. The climate at this time was somewhat moister than that of the present. With subsequent desiccation, cereal use was abandoned, but both hunting and small-scale pastoralism continued into the present millennium.