Urewe Ware

Characteristic Early Iron Age pottery type of the interlacustrine region of East Africa: southwest Kenya, northwest Tanzania, Rwanda, east Zaire, and south Uganda. It dates from the last centuries BC to the first centuries AD and is the name of a tradition of the Chifumbaze complex. Urewe ware was ancestral to the varied wares of the Early Iron age complex further south. Named after a site in southwest Kenya, Urewe ware's makers were clearly skilled workers of iron.

The characteristic Early Iron Age pottery type of the interlacustrine region of East Africa. There are good reasons, both typological and chronometric, for regarding Urewe ware as ancestral to the varied wares of the Early Iron Age complex further south. Named after a site in southwestern Kenya, Urewe ware is also attested in southern Uganda, northwestern Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and adjacent parts of Zaire. In most areas its appearance is dated to the first three centuries ad, but in northwestern Tanzania, as at Katuruka, it may be significantly earlier. No local antecedents for Urewe ware are known from the interlacustrine region. Its makers were clearly skilled workers of iron, but so far virtually no direct evidence has been recovered to indicate their subsistence base.