Africa’s Cultural Crossroads: Archaeological Evidence for Ritual Syncretism in Western Uganda from Western Kansyore, Transitional Urewe, and Bigo-Period Burials

Abstract Archaeological research in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) in western Uganda has contributed significant insights into first millennium AD multilingual communities. These diverse communities, sharing food ways, ceramic technologies, and ritual beliefs, are traced to Bantu speakers who interacted with Sudanic speakers who made Kansyore ceramics. One of the significant exchanges of cultural beliefs was the adoption of Kansyore burial urns by Bantu makers of Transitional Urewe and Boudiné ware (Early Iron Age). This article provides additional evidence for a region of tropical Africa where burials are well preserved. These conditions allow unusual opportunities to assess syncretism in ritual treatments of the dead, using funerary practices that add significantly to evidence previously documented in the NCLR. Ritual interment of the dead on western caldera rims, where celestial renewal is assured, shows long-term continuities through documentation of later Bigo-period burials.