Kibiro

Kibiro is a small fishing village in Uganda that lies on the south eastern shore of Lake Albert The residents of the village are unable to produce their own agricultural products, and must trade with other communities for most of their necessities. Residents of Kibiro support themselves primarily through the production and trade of salt. Due to its cultural value, this site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on September 10, 1997.

Kibiro is located at the bottom of the Western Rift Valley on the Continent of Africa, and on the eastern shore of Lake Albert. "Kibiro is in a rain shadow and has markedly less rain than the adjacent country" “There is no road to Kibiro, the main access being a steep footpath down the escarpment. The soil at Kibiro is shallow and rocky and the adjacent escarpment creates a local rain shadow. The present village of Kibiro is a settlement of relatively scattered dwellings extending for several kilometers along the coastal plain. The coastal plain at Kibiro has two levels: a slightly higher area of gently sloping, usually stony ground that abuts the escarpment base; and a lower, flatter, often swampy, sand area adjacent to the lake but separated from it by two beach ridges.

The production of salt in Kibiro is an important industry. Kibiro’s economy revolves around salt. The salt is produced exclusively by women. The process of salt production in Kibiro is a bit more sophisticated than others. The process used to produce the salt in Kibiro constantly reuses the same soil. With the unique technique that is done to produce salt, it is believed that Kibiro will most likely never run out of salt, the only way in which the salt would run out is if the hot springs dry up, but before that is an actual possibility, it is believed that the salt workers are more likely to run out of firewood. The Bunyoro shore of Lake Albert has relatively few resources except the salt produced at Kibiro and formerly at other places.

No record of the salt production process exists prior to the reports of Europeans in the 1800s. This is a unique for there is no place else that has the same “deep extensive, well stratified occupation deposits created by iron using agriculturalists over the last millennium”. There were fragments of wood charcoal as well as sherds of pottery. There was also animal bones that were discovered at the deposit.

At the site of Kibiro there were pottery sherds found. The variation in the roulette patterns were more than just a type of decorations, they different types of roulette patterns also showed chronological variations at Kibiro. There were other materials that were found when excavating at Kibiro. Apart from there being pottery and other cultural materials found at the Kibiro excavation site, there were also animal remains uncovered. The animal bones typically that the people of Kibiro relied on fish for a source of food as well as on domesticated cows, goats and/or sheep. When the cuttings were more closely examined, they found that Cuttings I, III and IV were all found to be horizontal but in comparison, Cutting II was found to be tilted, in areas that were very steep. “Cutting II was located at the edge of what seemed the deepest archaeological deposits, revealed sloping rock rubble which had probably resulted from long continuance of the practice of removing stones from adjacent salt gardens and heaping them out of the way”. The other cuttings had a variety of thicknesses which were made up of earth, sand, gravel or silt, blended with stones that were different sizes and also had a phenomenal number of potsherds in the majority of the cases. In the process of excavating Cutting II, there was one hearth that was discovered which was believed to have been used in the process for salt boiling. With the hearths being uncovered it also brought to light that the making of salt in Kibiro was produced throughout the occupation. According to Graham Connah in his article published in 1991, he states that “because Cutting I was a limited test hole, Cutting II had partly tilted deposits, and Cutting IV sampled the shallower part of the archaeological deposits near the edge of Lake Albert, Cutting III provides the most reliable and most complete stratified sequence.

With there being many excavations being done in Kibiro, one must be aware of the consequences that come with the archaeological work being done. If it had not been for the salt industry, the village of Kibiro would have only been known as a small fishing village. With there being a demand for the salt, it created the demand for people to want to go and live in the area to make be part of the industry. There had to be some understanding that, “as time goes on the village population increases, it seems inevitable that more and more of the important Kibiro deposits will be destroyed by the digging of these pits”. Though it is important to know the origins of an old kingdom, it comes at the cost of exploiting the resources that make the small village of Kibiro unique and cause it to no longer be the place in which the beginnings can be traced.