Four months in the hot Baringo sun was not enough for the archaeological team of Baringo, so we returned for a third and final time. This time we wanted to blow everyone away with our discoveries and, by the end of the fieldwork in July, we surprised even ourselves. The fieldwork had everything: beautiful and […]
Excavations in Baringo, Fieldwork Pt. 2
From January to March, the extraordinary team exploring the archaeology around Lake Baringo set out on another adventure. Rather than endlessly walking through the landscape, discovering scatters of worked stone and shapely pottery, we returned to three sites we recorded during our previous fieldwork. The sites were subject to small excavations that uncovered a great […]
Archaeological fieldwork in Baringo Pt. 1
The REAL archaeological expedition to Lake Baringo began this autumn. From September to November 2014 a team of experienced researchers criss-crossed the southern Baringo lowlands looking for signs of past human occupation. In their quest for knowledge they traversed kilometres under the hot African sun, battling spitting cobras, gruesome thorn shrubs, and the ferocious (but […]
Collecting historical data in Rhodes House and the National Archives
Studying archival sources can be a way to triangulate and contextualise a social science study of social-ecological relations in Kenya. One can study Kenya’s recent past by examining colonial district records of the times of the British colonial involvement in Kenya – mostly from the 1910s to the 1970s. Such files and reports are available […]
Fieldwork at Lakes Baringo and Bogoria, July 2014
The REAL ESRs from Ghent University carried out field work in Lakes Baringo and Bogoria in the Kenyan rift valley in July. Together with Prof. Dirk Verschuren, ESRs Geert van der Plas and Aynalem Degefa and other members of the Limnology Unit at Ghent University (Gijs de Cort and Yoeri Torsi), were involved in the […]
CHIESA Vegetation from space and from the ground Workshop
Between the 17th to 22nd March 2014, several members of the REAL group (Aynalem, Chris, Christine and Esther) participated in the Vegetation from space and from the ground workshop (KITE-CHIESA). This workshop was facilitated by Dr. Phil Platts and Dr. Marion Pfeifer. The course provided an introduction to the use of Earth Observation (EO) products in the […]
Survey of Kenya visit
The Survey of Kenya, with headquarters in Nairobi, was involved in field mapping alongside the Directorate of Overseas Surveys and Directorate of Colonial Surveys during British colonial rule and remains the main centre of geospatial information in Kenya. The Survey maintains the air photography, maps, cadastrals and geospatial data of Kenya and is an important […]
Obsidian tools
Obsidian is a volcanic extrusive rock with a glassy texture that is very hard and dense. The volcanic glass is usually black in colour, but it can also be dark green and brown. In rare cases trace elements of mineral crystals can cause obsidian to reflect light in various colours, or even the colour spectrum […]
Amboseli fieldwork
Assorted REALers accompanied Esther and Colin on their fieldwork trip to the Amboseli region. Two swamps were targeted for analysis, resulting in some beautiful cores and a ton of fun, all under the watchful eye of Mount Kilimanjaro. Further activities included mapping the sediment depth, taking pictures with the trusted Quad “Don’t land me in […]
First visit to Lake Baringo region
The Lake Baringo Basin is a place the vast majority of people have not heard of, and neither would I if it were not for the Tugen Hills, just west of the lake, famous for their hominin remains. If I had to describe it in a few words, I would say it is an area […]