Kenya - Tanzania - Uganda - Geometric rock art in Lake Victoria Region

Rock art, whether painted or engraved, serves as windows into the past, offering us insights into the lives of people who lived within specific landscapes. Research over many decades has taught us that these paintings and engravings were not simply for decorative purposes. Rather, these images were representations of spiritually important experiences (Lewis-Williams 1981; Smith 1997; Namono 2010; Ndlovu 2013). Such findings were a significant move from the days when interpretations of rock art were highly simplistic – anchored on the belief that authors of paintings and engravings were not human enough. The African continent is characterized by various kind of rock art, dotted throughout the continent. These vary at many levels and beyond simple stylistic analyses. For instance, the southern African region is well known for the many fine-line paintings made largely along the coastal areas. As a result, there are several rock art landscapes that have been inscribed as World Heritage Sites. Among these are the (i) Maloti Drakensberg Park, a transboundary site covering Lesotho and South Africa, (ii) Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe, (iii) Tsodilo Hills in Botswana, and Twyfelfontein in Namibia. The dominance of rock art among the inscribed sites of southern Africa is not replicated in East Africa. Kondoa rock art landscape stands tall as the only one that has been inscribed into the list of World Heritage Sites (Bwasiri 2016).

Uganda - Bigo bya Mugyenyi (Archaeological Earthworks)

"Bigo bya Mugyenyi is 10 sq. kms series of archaeological earthworks dating to between the 14th and 16th centuries A.D. There is an outer trench system which runs around the ridge and joins the Katonga river banks on the north and south (see plan I attached). The inner trench system is composed of four enclosures which open into each other (see plan II attached). Bigo bya Mugyenyi earthworks is associated in oral traditions with legendary Bacwezi, a two-reigns dynasty which was short lived. These were Ndahura and Wamala. The oral traditions also associate the Bacwezi with introduction of long horn cattle which came to dominate the economy of the Great Lakes region."

Source: UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List

Uganda - Nyero and other hunter-gatherer geometric rock art sites in eastern Uganda

The Nyero Rockpaintings site is a three tiered rockshelters with primitive paintings on their inner surfaces. Archaeologically the site is of a Later Iron Age period. The makers of the paintings cannot be traced but the ingenuity in which they were painted demonstrates a high degree of appreciation of their aesthetic values.

Uganda - Ntusi (man-made mounds and Basin)

There are three archaeological features within the Ntusi village which deserve recognition and preservation. These are the two man-made mounds which are locally known as Ntusi male (NTIV) and Ntusi female (NT III) (in the plan attached) and the basin also known as Bwogero. Although most other features have been disturbed by human habitation, Ntusi village of a 1 km square, is another unique example of an island of heavy archaeological depositions of Later Iron Age surrounded by a very wide expanse of barren rolling grassland of up to 16 km which is the distance between Ntusi and Bigo bya Mugyenyi. In the traditions, Bigo and Ntusi are related, both being associated with the legendary Bacwezi rulers but archaeologiacally Ntusi is two centuries older than Bigo. Archaeological excavations which have been carried out at both the Ntusi mounds have shown 4-metre depositions from their bases to the apexes of bone and pottery mixed with stones and ash. Throughout the village there are pottery scatters and bone. At site NT VI, large pots were excavated which suggested that underground storage of food stuffs was practised.

Uganda - Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (MGNP)

MGNP is situated in the corner of south-western Uganda in Kisoro District, 10 km south of Kisoro town, bordered by the Republic of Rwanda to the south and the DRC to the west. It covers an area of 33.7 km2 and lies at latitude 1o 23' South and longitude 29o 39' East. MGNP is contiguous with Parc National des Virunga (240 km2) in the DRC, and Parc National des Volcans (160 km2) in Rwanda, all forming the proposed transboundary PA known as the Virunga Conservation Area covering an area of 434 km2. The park includes three of the Virunga volcanoes - Mt Muhabura (4,127 m), Mt Gahinga (3,474 m) from which the park derives its name, and Mt Sabyinyo (3,645 m). It lies in Bufumbira county, Nyarusiza and Muramba sub-counties and adjacent to the three parishes of Gisozi, Rukongi and Gitenderi.

Uganda - Kibiro (Salt producing village)

Kibiro salt producing village demonstrates a unique example of an industry which has sustained its people for eight to nine hundred years ago and continues to do so perhaps for posterity from fishing on Lake Albert, the people of Kibiro have depended on the production of ash salt which is obtained by recycling residual earth with fresh soil which is spread on salt gardens for the salty water to get absorbed by capillary system. Through repeated scraping, spreading and heaping of the salty soil over a seven days period, it is leached and the scam is boilt to crystallisation point to produce the ash salt. The residual soil from leaching is then mixed with fresh soil to repeat the salt production process. Salt production was and is a female hereditary occupation. Before the introduction of metallic vessels, pottery ware was used during the leaching and boiling processes and this is evidenced by the rich archaeological depositions of potsherds throughout the village going as deep as 4 metres and dating to between eight and nine hundred years to the present. Kibiro village is a sandy beach along Lake Albert where food does not grow. The Kibiro population therefore have depended for its livehood on the exchange of salt and fish for food through time with farming communities on the platea above the Ugandan side of the Western Rift Valley. The village therefore forms an important cultural site which has combined both archaeology and ethnography through time in the production of ash salt.