Fort Ternan Museum
Fort Ternan Museum | |
Photo by The Standard | |
Type: | Archaeological Museum |
Country: | Kenya |
The Fort Ternan Museum is an archaeological museum in Kericho County in western Kenya, the museum is dedicated to displaying fossils of hominid species found in prehistoric sites in this area of Kenya.
History
The site where the museum is located was excavated between the 60's and 80's, for the discovery of fossil remains of hominid species such as Rangwapithecus, Micropithecus and Kenyapithecus that inhabited in prehistoric times around various regions of East Africa.[1]
Some of the fossils found at the prehistoric site were taken to the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi. In the 2010s, a gourd was found near Chilchila Primary School by a group of women who were digging in the earth for the construction of traditional huts. The skull gourd was later transported to the museum and the archaeological remains were identified as belonging to Cro-Magnon, one of the earliest species of humans by Nairobi archaeologist Isaiah Odhiambo Nengo.[2]
Additionally, the prehistoric site has remains of plants native to East Africa such as Euphorbia abyssinica, commonly known as Desert Crandle, within this area of Kericho County, these plants are known locally as Kapkures. In addition to ancient fossils of elephants and rhinos that inhabited the area around this county, the museum's elephant fossils are characterized by four mammoth tusks.[3]
One of the fossils identified at Fort Ternan is of a Paradiceros mukirii rhino, an extinct species that inhabited several areas of East Africa during the Miocene Epoch, characterized by no tusks and two horns, related to the ancestral stock of modern Diceros bicornis, also known collocially as "black rhinoceros".[4]
In the 2010s, the Kericho County government and National Museums of Kenya undertook processes to rehabilitate the historic site in addition to integrating an ablution block within the archaeological complex.[5]
References
Ishida, H., Tuttle, R., Pickford, M., Ogihara, N., & Nakatsukasa, M. (2006). Human Origins and Environmental Backgrounds. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN: 978-0-387-29798-9 (Page 21)
Tanui, N. (2021-04-28). The five wonders of Fort Ternan. The Standard.
Fort Ternan: A tunnel to Kenya’s mixed colonial past. (2022-01-21). The East African.
Hooijer, D. A. (1968). A rhinoceros from the late miocene of Fort Ternan, Kenya. Zoologische Mededelingen, 43(6), 77–92. ISBN: 0024-0672
2017-2019 Biennial Report - National Museums of Kenya (Page 29)