UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
the cultural foundations of this highly populous zone of East Africa are
more ancient than its present Bantu and Lwoo languages.
The East African 'megalithic' problem
In the older literature on eastern Africa and its history there was
considerable discussion of advanced civilizations in Antiquity. These were
posited in the interlacustrine region and more particularly in the highlands
of Kenya and northern Tanzania (the old Kushitic zone, interestingly),
among others. Such historical views were based on a mixture of
ethnographic traits, unscientifically collected 'oral traditions' and archaeological
observations, the last consisting of the remains of supposed
'engineering' works and the ruins of buildings and terraces of dry-stone
(that is 'megalithic'). Unfortunately, much of the primary evidence was
inaccurately recorded, or even where accurate, was illogically interpreted
or correlated with quite irrelevant materials to please fanciful historical
outlooks which were fashionable at the time, notably the notorious Hamitic
ideas. This tendency was all too eagerly taken up by secondary writers
who uncritically accepted and in some cases irresponsibly exaggerated the
supposed primary evidence. Equally illogical was the presumption so often
made that various types of archaeological features, whether genuine or
bogus, whether with or without stonework, distributed over a wide region,
should be attributable to a single people or culture at a particular period
of the past. Such a presumption underlay Huntingford's theory of an
Azanian civilization in Kenya and northern Tanzania, which he attributed
to Hamites, and equally Murdock's hypothesis of megalithic Kushites
having once inhabited the same general region. (Murdock, by the way, was
specifically opposed to the Hamitic prejudices of earlier writers.)
The word megalithic is thus a loaded one which serves no cultural or
historical purpose in East Africa. It is worth, nevertheless, briefly noting
and commenting on those features which have been cited as evidence of
ancient megalithic cultures. Not all are in fact stone constructions. In this
chapter mention was made of the cairns (or stone mounds), which represent
graves, frequently encountered in the pastures of Kenya and northern
Tanzania. Many, if not most, of these date to the end of the late stone
age between two and three thousand years ago and are probably the work
of Kushitic-speaking peoples. But some may be more recent. It is possible,
but by no means certain, that some of the rock-cut wells which occur
in the drier pastures of southern Masailand in Tanzania and also of eastern
and northern Kenya may date back to the same period, when cattle were
introduced. So perhaps may some of the so-called ancient roads in the
highlands, which are in fact nothing more than cattle-tracks accidentally
eroded by the continual passing of herds across ridges and down slopes
to water over periods of time. Many of these are still being enlarged, and
new ones started. Less likely to extend back so far are the practices of
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