Archaeology of Rwanda

Rwanda's prehistory is a relatively unexplored concept as compared to other regions of Africa. Most archaeological works regarding Rwanda past 1994 are associated with conflict and ethnic violence. However more recently, archaeologists have been attempting to focus on archaeological works from the first and second millennia A.D. For example, some archaeological research has been focusing on the Nyiginya Kingdom, which is the pre-colonial predecessor of the current Rwandan state. Other research has been focusing on the excavations of the earliest agricultural sites, likely from the Iron Age, as well as ceramics to indicate chronology of when certain agricultural groups migrated to Rwanda.

Nyiginya Kingdom

The Nyiginya Kingdom is the predecessor of the modern state of Rwanda. The emergence of this kingdom is considered by scholars to be somewhere between the 14^th and 17^th centuries AD, although royal court officials and their passed down rich oral tradition claims that the kingdom emerged in 959 AD. The Nyiginya Kingdom emerged from “agricultural and pastoral communities in… central Rwanda” (223)

• “By the time the first Europeans arrived in the late 19^th century, the kingdom contained highly complex and effective political and ritual institutions, including shifting capitals, armies, craft specialists, a single language, and specialised subsistence practices, including foraging, agriculture, and pastoralism” (223-224)

The Twa, Tutsi and Hutu ethnic identities were important in the Nyiginya Kingdom. Colonial and post-colonial conceptions of Twa, Tutsi, and Hutu were seen as “ethnoracial identities with associated, well-defined, immutable, specialised subsistence orientations”.

Archaeologically speaking, archaeologists in the later 20^th century grouped each ethnic group “through the attribution of particular archaeological materials” such as: “subsistence remains, burials, and archaeological ceramics”. The current understanding of these prevalent Rwandan ethnicities are seen as “non-ethnoracial, dynamic, polyvalent, political identities”. In contemporary Rwanda, archaeological discussions on ethnicities have been made illegal by the Rwandan government since discussion of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa identities are seen as divisive and against national unity.

Colonial context for Rwandan ethnicities

Before the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Rwanda was divided racially along three main groupings: the Hutu (85 percent of the population), the Tutsi (14 percent of the population), and the Twa (less than one percent of the population).

The Belgian colonial authorities are credited with polarizing ethnic relations in Rwanda to a high extent:

• “the Belgian colonial administration enacted this polarization via the official census of 1933-1934, which gave every Rwandan an official identity card, detailing, among other things, their specific ethnie, which equated to physical (racial) difference identified through the measurement of particular anatomical features, alongside subsistence practice.”

According to Belgian colonial ideologies, the Tutsi were seen as “racially superior Hamitic colonisers from the northeast” who conquered the inferior Hutus, who themselves had conquered the most inferior Twa. The “Hamitic Myth” was pushed by the Belgians to justify their colonial subjugation of the Rwandan peoples. According to this myth, the Hamites were a “Caucasoid people” who migrated from the Middle East to into Africa and are the true reason for any civilization present. To explain the lack of white people in Rwanda, Belgian authorities claimed that the “Hamites had been corrupted and assimilated with the indigenous Negroid race as they migrated southward”. In order to explain why complex societies existed in Africa, such as those found in Rwanda, the Belgian colonialists claimed that Hamite influence was clearly present in these lands. Due to this myth, preferential status was given to some "races" in Rwanda over others. The ruling Tutsi elites that the Belgians had encountered were tall, had narrow noses, and were fair-skinned. They were likened to be Hamitic descendants who had conquered inferior Hutus (219).

Archaeology of the Nyiginya kingdom

Second millennium AD archaeological sites in Rwanda are “usually found on hilltops or hillsides and more rarely in caves or beside lakes and rivers.” Sites are “commonly identified by the surface occurrence of roulette-decorated ceramics, which display twisted cord, knotted-strip, and possible cord-wrapped stick rouletting and evidence of iron production, such as furnace pits, tuyeres, and iron slag”. It is very challenging to accurately date these sites due to a lack of radiocarbon dates. However, some sites from early in the second millennium AD have been properly excavated and dated. One example is the site of Ryamuri in northeast Rwanda. Ryamuri was a “17^th century Ndorwa Kingdom capital”. A high volume of ceramics and evidence of subsistence were discovered in 18 large earthwork enclosures.

Other important sites that were excavated are the graves of Nyiginya Kingdom rulers at Remera. The rulers whose bodies and grave goods were excavated are: Cyirima Rujugira, Kigeri Rwabugiri, and Reine-mere Kanjogera. The last two aforementioned rulers were from the 19^th and 20^th centuries but King Cyirima “died in the 17^th century but was not buried immediately” since his successor died early on, complicating Cyirima's burial rites. Cyirima’s body and grave goods were kept in a hut until 1931, when the royal court decided to bury him. Cyirima’s “burial revealed a wealth of grave goods including, among other things, objects associated with hunting, pastoralism, agriculture, and metal work”. These burial items reveal that Nyiginya Kingdom highly valued the aforementioned economic activities and that they were symbolically related to ones status.