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Prehistory in the upper Nile Basin1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Peter Robertshaw
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Extract

The results of recent archaeological research in the Upper Nile basin are summarized and placed within the context of the anthropological-historical debate concerning the origins of the Nuer, Dinka and Atuot as distinct ethnic groupings. The archaeological evidence demonstrates a considerable antiquity for cattle-keeping in the region, the existence of what appears to be a very widespread cultural tradition in the late first millennium a.d. characterized by a distinctive form of burial, and a hiatus in settlement in the area east of Rumbek early in the present millennium, possibly around the time when humped cattle were introduced further north. The implications of these data for the explanation of the origins of the Luo migrations are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , July 1987 , pp. 177 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

2 I hasten to exclude the meticulous work of Douglas Johnson from this charge; see Johnson, D. H., ‘The fighting Nuer: primary sources and the origins of a stereotype’, Africa, LI, i (1981), 508–27;CrossRefGoogle Scholar‘Tribal boundaries and border wars: Nuer—Dinka relations in the Sobat and Zaraf valleys, c. 1860–1976’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIII, ii (1982), 183–203.Google Scholar

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39 McLaughlin, J., ‘Tentative time depths for Nuer, Dinka and Anuak’, J. Ethiopian Studies, V (1967), 13–27.Google Scholar Glickman, ‘The Dinka and the Nuer’ regards this ‘date’ as conservatively recent. However, given the various complexities of Nuer–Dinka relations, both present and historical, as outlined by Burton and Johnson, to put any trust in the glottochronological ‘date’ would seem to be extremely foolhardy. Furthermore, the concept of a linguistic ‘split’ with its connotations of a population separating at a single point in time into two isolated groups appears far too simplistic.

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