As the name suggests, Njoro River Cave is a small shelter situated on the banks of the Njoro River in the central East African Rift Valley on the Mau Escarpment. The cave is suggested to be a cremation site belonging to the Elmentaitan Neolithic period and dating from around 2500 to 1300 years ago. When the cave was first excavated in 1938 by Mary and Louis Leakey, it yielded the remains of at least 78 individuals and a wide range of grave goods that include obsidian (volcanic glass) artefacts, stone bowls, grindstones, pestle rubbers and stone beads, as well as bone and ivory pendants. Organic materials in the form of seed beads, a wooden vessel, gourd fragments and bits of leather and basketry were also excavated.
Njoro 1 Cave entrance on Njoro river
A carbonised wooden vessel from Cave 2
A quartzite bead assemblage from Cave 4. Over 800 beads and pendants were excavated along the Njoro River
Did you know?
The organic remains excavated from Njoro River Cave were the first to be radiocarbon dated in East Africa in 1950, just a few years after the innovative dating method was proposed by Willard Libby in 1946.
Sources
1. H. V. Merrick & M. C. Monaghan (1984) The Date of the Cremated Burials in Njoro River Cave, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 19:1, 7-11. [Link]
2. Leakey, M and L.S. B. Leakey 1950 Excavations at Njoro River Cave: stone age cremated burials in Kenya Colony. Clarendon Press.
