The Turkwel settlement at Oltioki in Baringo: exploring cultural variation in the terminal Pastoral Neolithic of Kenya

In the last millennium of the Pastoral Neolithic in East Africa (<i>c.</i> 5000–1200 BP) there is a great deal of diversification of material culture, with new traditions and wares appearing in the archaeological record. One of these is Turkwel, mostly known from a single research project from the 1970s. The Turkwel are considered to have been pastoralists who relied extensively on wild animals for subsistence and are characterised by their grooved ceramics, unstandardised microlithic toolkit and semi-permanent settlements. The site of Oltioki, in Kenya’s Baringo County, is the first Turkwel site to have been excavated in over 40 years. It is dated to approximately 1500 BP and extends the presence of Turkwel to the Central Rift, while its location in an anthropogenic grove provides a tentative link to the long-term ecological influence of the settlement and of Turkwel pastoralists. While the lithic and pottery assemblages show ties to the broader Turkwel culture, they also exhibit evidence of localisation in material culture and resource use. The lithic assemblage also shows links to obsidian sources in the Nakuru-Naivasha basin associated with Elmenteitan and Savanna Pastoral Neolithic communities and there is also evidence for potential early use of iron implements. Oltioki shows the need to revisit what a Turkwel tradition is, while at the same time highlighting the general increase in cultural variation across the Pastoral Neolithic-to-Iron Age transition.