Pottery Types From Archaeological Sites in East Africa

Abstract

1. The few excavated sites with pottery in East Africa, apart from the coast, are confined to Western Uganda and the Central part of the Kenya Rift Valley. 2. Where absolute dating is impossible, relative dating by means of cultural introductions, viz., roulette decoration, the tobacco pipe, calabash pseudomorphs and graphite colouring must be used. 3. With the establishment of settled agricultural economies the variation of pottery forms increases. 4. An origin of pottery in Kenya cannot be accepted. The first pottery though is that of the Late Stone Age hunter-foodgatherers, and has simple forms. 5. The developed Elementeitan, Hyrax Hill and Gumban A wares of Kenya are part of an early, though isolated, complex of possible pre-Iron Age cultures. 6. The first true Iron Age pottery, the Dimple-based wares of Kenya and Uganda are part of a common Central African complex. 7. The roulette cord decoration appears in East Africa within the present millennium. Lanet, Bigo and Renge pottery wares all owe origins to the introduction. 8. The Lanet ware bears similarities to Hottentot pottery of Southern Africa and is dated to the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. 9. Bigo pottery was widespread over Western Uganda around a.d. 1500. Painted wares at chief sites. Basic forms and decoration continue in succeeding Western Uganda Kingdoms. Ritual ware developed. 10. Introduction of tobacco pipes, graphite wares and calabash forms by the late seventeenth century. 11. Copying of Banyoro graphite wares by neighbouring royal Uganda potters in last quarter of second millennium. 12. Evolution of a distinctive pottery, Entebbe Ware, amongst Lake Victoria hunter-fishing peoples.