Kinto Rock Shelter

During the 1930s several research expeditions were conducted by the German ethnologist and physician Professor L. Kohl-Larsen in the region east and south of Lake Eyasi. Although he was mainly interested in ethnology, he and his wife Margit undertook important archaeological excavations, one of which was at Mumba Rock Shelter at the north-eastern end of Lake Eyasi. This excavation, which lasted about nine months, yielded not only more than one hundred thousand cultural remains, but also skeletal remains of 18 individuals from the Later Stone Age and Iron Age (Br�uer 1978a, 1979b). Moreover, he discovered the well-known, probably early Upper Pleistocene jaw fragments from Garusi and the Eyasi cranial remains, which are hitherto the only representatives of the East African remains with Neandertaloid features. (Protsch 1977).

In the spring of 1935 the Kohl-Larsens excavated another important rock shelter, which yielded the skeletal material presented in this paper. The shelter is situated south of Lake Eyasi about 12 kilometres east of Mkalama village (see Fig 1) and was named Strauss-H�hle (Strauss Rock Shelter) because it showed the painting of an ostrich (German: Strauss), about 30 cm the height and red in colour (see Kohl-Larsen 1958). The shelter (Fig II) which is called Kinto Rock Shelter by the local inhabitants is situated on a small hill, and is made up of two rocks which areopen to the east and west. The main rock, which is the bigger of the two, has a length of 8 to 9 m and lies upon the smaller one, so that the shelter is closed at the top. The eastern side is protected by rock blocks against the wind and rain (Kohl-Larsen 1943). A comprehensive analysis of the cultural remains (Tomsky, in preparation) and the human skeletal remains was conducted only recently.