Mancala is played on a board with several holes organized in rows, 48 chips (or “seeds”) are used and its basic movement is called “seeding”. It has been played for thousands of years in Africa and also in the Middle East and Asia, although it has currently spread throughout the planet.
Two years ago, Yale University archaeologist Veronica Waweru was in central Kenya when she received a call from a local contact. On the other end of the phone, a voice explained that tourists were looting prehistoric stone axes from a site within a private nature reserve.
Waweru contacted the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, the organization that manages the site, and they explained that the site was known but had never been excavated or dated. So the researcher took the initiative to visit the area with the idea of carrying out some preliminary studies.
Last summer he headed to the site along the equator in the central highlands of Kenya, on the eastern side of the Great Rift Valley. The reserve is situated in a basin surrounded by highlands where water flows down from the surrounding hills.
A guide explained that he had discovered many other ancient sites in the reserve, including a funerary complex consisting of 19 stone mounds, and that he himself had taken steps to preserve the handaxe site. But upon arriving at the place, an unexpected element surprised Waweru.
Among the numerous rhinos that roamed the region, the archaeologist noticed the presence of several rows of shallow wells drilled into a rock outcropping. Some of the holes had eroded to light marks. Others, however, were deep enough to contain a handful of stones.
Veronica Waweru found the arrangement of the receptacles familiar and after some preliminary analysis she concluded that what she had in front of her were boards from different periods used to play an old version of Mancala. “It was like an old arcade. A valley full of gaming tables,” recalls the Yale archaeologist.
"Given the erosion of some of the boards, I think people played these games there a long time ago," he adds. In this area there was always “a source of water”, which could be “one of the reasons why the first humans arrived there. It has been occupied again and again over time. For the last 10 thousand years, people played Mancala there.”
In total there were about 20 gaming tables that could be related “in some way” to the 19 burial mounds located nearby, the researcher says in a statement. “Maybe there was some ritual there on a regular basis for long periods of time,” Waweru notes.
The exact age of the boards is difficult to determine, as they are carved from 400 million year old rock. Although DNA analysis of the material found in the graves could indicate how the people buried in them related to their environment. "It is possible that they were reopened and to bury new bodies, as was done in other prehistoric sites," he adds.
Experts believe that there were probably pastoral societies in the area at least 5,000 years ago. "People who currently live in the region tend to play games like Mancala when they are herding," they say. The rocks also have wear marks linked to the sharpening of metal knives. "If they were sharpening knives, they were probably partying and barbecuing," they conclude.
