A review of the Turkwel tradition: cultural variability and social change in the first millennium CE East Africa

Abstract

Collating all available information, literature, data, and research history on the Turkwel tradition and the material, narratives, and interpretations that have been linked to it, the paper reviews the similarities, differences and nuances of the assemblages and sites associated with the 1st millennium CE tradition found across South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. It discusses issues and shortcomings in how we treat the distinctive grooved pottery as a fossil directeur, but also highlights the area-specific localisations in material culture, production processes, and subsistence that make this tradition so variable. Through the analysis focused on ceramics, it also proposes a division of Turkwel into two phases and a northern and southern facies, links the former typological isolate to South Sudan’s Lokabulo tradition, and points to new avenues of research that could shed light on social dynamics in the 1st millennium CE and the Pastoral Neolithic-Pastoral Iron Age transition. The review proposes to treat the Turkwel tradition and its peoples as bricoleurs, adopting and appropriating new and existing practices and ideas into their culture. The trait might be a symptom of broader socio-cultural and technological developments happening in East Africa at the time that contributed to a flurry of new ceramic wares and which indicates new attitudes towards the ‘materialisation’ of identity.