UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
The identity and language affiliation of the inhabitants of Engaruka have
not been definitely established. For it was a group which was broken up
and assimilated piecemeal some 200 years ago. Despite the remarkable
quality and extent of the dry-stonework, it seems that the people who lived
and cultivated here had stagnated in relative isolation, by being forced
to over-exploit the resources of their soil and their water supplies in very
restricted areas. Theirs was a way of life which had specialized so far in
a particular direction that it could not adapt.
This then is the answer to romantically inclined historians who would
make so much of Engaruka. It cannot be used to support theories of wideranging
megalithic civilizations. Nor was it a city of 30 000 or more people,
as was once conjectured -and as has been repeated in several books. Rather,
it was a concentrated peasant community depending for subsistence on
an unusually intensive agricultural system. It is remarkable, but in its local
context and as an example of rural cultural development and collapse in
a very special situation. Moreover, its main dating in the second millennium
of our era now seems clear enough following recent investigations and radiocarbon
tests. A first millennium date for some of the remains here, which
was suggested in the 1960s as a result of some unexpectedly early radiocarbon
determinations, is now believed to be an error, or at least unrepresentative
of the remains as a whole.
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