was named after Tumba in modern Congo (formerly Zaire), where it was reported, and it is characterized by polished stone ax heads. Similar artifacts found in the Ugandan and Kenyan Lake Victoria basin were attributed to this culture. The Kenyan Wilton C was also identified in the Lake Victoria basin but on shell mounds. The Tumbian was subsequently renamed Sangoan and is now attributed to the middle Stone Age.

Research in Uganda by T.P. O’Brien and E.J. Wayland revealed three Neolithic cultures named Kageran, Wilton Neolithic A, and Wilton Neolithic B. The Kageran culture, named after River Kagera on the banks of which it was found, was characterized by cores, choppers, scrapers, and flakes. The characteristic features of Wilton Neolithic A, found at the Nsongezi rock shelter, were pottery, backed blades, crescents, and thumbnail scrapers. The pottery was decorated by codrouletting, herringbone, and crosshatching designs. The Wilton B was identified near Mt. Elgon on the Uganda/Kenya border, and it was characterized by currents, burins, and thumbnail scrapers. In Uganda, the thumbnail scrapers were indicators of the Neolithic period since most sites in the country did not have polished stone artifacts, stone bowls, or pottery.

During the 1960s and 1970s, research on the Neolithic period continued in the Naivasha and Nakuru basins and in other parts of the Kenyan and Tanzanian highland regions. Barbara Anthony and Mark Cohen excavated a farm site where they recovered flaked stones, pottery, stone vessels, and faunal remains, which included domestic stock. A University of California team led by glyn isaac attempted to relocate the site of Long’s Drift in Kenya, previously excavated by Leakey, but instead discovered a site they named Prolonged Drift. This site yielded numerous flaked stone vessel fragments, pottery, and faunal remains, some of which were of domestic stock. Further south in Tanzania (then Tanganyika), Hans Reck had excavated burial mounds in the Ngorongoro Crater from 1915 to 1916 and discovered beads similar to those found at the Njoro River cave site. Sassoon excavated the Engaruka ruins and cairns in Tanzania, though these cairns were discovered to be purely Iron Age.

A number of rock-shelter sites in the Lake Victoria region, especially around the Winam Gulf, were excavated by C. Gabel between 1966 and 1967, and these yielded flaked stones and pottery as well as wild and domestic animal remains. At Lothagam in northern Kenya, Larry Robbins excavated a site that yielded pottery, flaked stones, and abundant faunal remains, most of which were aquatic. Robbins also recovered a number of bone harpoons. John Bower excavated the site of Seronera on the Serengeti plains in central Tanzania, and Golden and Odner excavated the Narosura site in southwestern Kenya. Both the Seronera and Narosura sites yielded stone vessels, pottery, flaked stones, and wild and domestic fauna. Harry Merrick and Michael Gramly also excavated the Lukenya hills east of Nairobi, where they recovered domestic stock and wild animal remains, pottery, flaked stones, and stone vessels. Onyango Abuje began working in the Naivasha and Nakuru basins.

Most, if not all, of the research just described was concerned with tracing the origins of food production (Neolithic) in East Africa. The aim was not to synthesize the finds on a regional basis, but to see whether one could locate the exact location where the process may have started or intruded into the region. Thus, between the 1920s and 1950s, Neolithic was an acceptable term for the cultures that were unearthed. After the 1950s, however, most researchers started arguing that no part of sub-Saharan Africa had gone through a Neolithic stage, and such names as stone-bowl cultures, terminal-late Stone Age, and late–Stone Age food-producing cultures were suggested instead. In the early 1970s, however, the tide turned back, and most archaeologists reverted to the use of the term Neolithic but with specific definitions. For instance, it was argued that because of the preponderance of domestic fauna among the stone-bowl cultures of the central Rift Valley, the cultures of the area should be named “pastoral Neolithic,” a period defined as being characterized by a later Stone Age technology and a pastoral economic base relying heavily on domestic cattle and sheep and goats (Bower and Nelson 1978).