Paper short abstract:

The Baringo Basin extends for around 120 km north-south in the Eastern or Gregory Rift Valley in Kenya. Pleistocene research has taken place since the 1970s. We discuss in particular the very long Pleistocene sequences of the extinct Kilombe volcano and its geology, palaeoecology and archaeology

Paper long abstract:

The Baringo Basin extends for around 120 km north-south in the Eastern or Gregory Rift Valley in Kenya. It is bounded to east and west by the Laekipia escarpment and the Tugen Hills. The area was extensively mapped by the East African Geological Research Unit (EAGRU) during the 1970s under the direction of Bishop and King. Since then successor projects have taken place at localities in different parts of the basin, locating important faunal localities, some with hominin remains, and with discoveries of artefact localities ranging from Oldowan to the Later Stone Age technologies, and pastoral Neolithic. Chesowanja to the east of Lake Baringo preserves one of the longest records of this kind. The Kapthurin Formation to the west of the lake, investigated by Hill, McBrearty and colleagues, provides a particularly strong record of the last 500kyr, with indications of advanced late Acheulean, and very early Middle Stone Age. Recently Blegen and colleagues have shown that MSA sites with obsidian artefacts in this area go back at least 200,000 years, and assemblages include components of obsidian transported long distances from the Lake Naivasha region. The extinct early Pleistocene Kilombe volcano stands at the south end of the basin. A major Acheulean site on its southern flanks is long known , but recent work has expanded the record, and revealed details of a long early Pleistocene sequence in the caldera of the volcano, providing evidence of a caldera lake, fauna and traces of hominin occupation which we discuss in these papers.