Paper short abstract:

Kakapel rock art site is situated at Chelelemuk Hills, Busia County, in western Kenya. This paper gives preliminary results on ongoing analysis of cultural materials recovered from Kakapel, and assesses their contribution towards understanding human responses to environmental change in this region

Paper long abstract:

Rock art at Kakapel has been attributed to pastoralists and to hunter-gatherers by others, due to the unique geometric shaped components, similar to those of Nyero in eastern Uganda. Initial archaeological survey indicated that the site has archaeological deposits, making it a good candidate for interdisciplinary research in rock art and archaeology for understanding of intra-regional cultural connections especially with neighboring eastern Ugandan sites, which have similar rock art characteristics. This study was aimed at determining the authors, antiquity, cultural and environmental context of the rock art at Kakapel using material culture evidence associated with the site and similar sites in the region. The project involves excavation of the rockshelter deposits, documentation and analysis of rock art panels, new radiocarbon dating and an ethnographic survey of the local Iteso communities of Kenya and Uganda. Large collections of lithic artefacts, pottery and domestic and wild faunal species remains have so far been recovered from excavations at the Kakapel rock art site. Similar, but smaller rock art sites with little sediment and cultural material scatters are recorded in the region, indicating that the practice of rock art painting was widespread in the region but probably centered at Kakapel. This paper gives preliminary results on ongoing analysis of cultural materials recovered from Kakapel, and assesses their contribution towards understanding human responses to environmental change in this region through the Later Stone Age and subsequent periods.