The exact dates of this time period remain inexact, but early Pastoral Neolithic sites support the beginning of herding by 5000 BP.

In contrast to the Neolithic in other parts of the world, which saw the development of farming societies, the first form of African food production was nomadic pastoralism, or ways of life centered on the herding and management of livestock.

The pottery and stone tools found near Lake Turkana supports that migrants from Ethiopia and Sudan traveled south in small bursts and introduced pastoralism.

A considerable amount of evidence supports the case of there being two major expansions (associated with the spread of Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages) in eastern Africa which transformed the food systems of the region.

[14] A study by Prendergast et al. (2019) analysed genome-wide DNA data from 31 Pastoral Neolithic individuals from sites in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Pastoral Neolithic individuals were modelled as deriving ~40% of their ancestry from Chalcolithic Levantines (sampled by Harney et al. 2018[15]), ~40% from a population related to present-day Dinka, and ~20% from East African hunter-gatherers, represented by an ancient forager from Mota in Ethiopia.

This admixed population then migrated southwards, mixing further with East African foragers, before reaching the Turkana Basin around 5000 BP (3000 BC).

"[19] A study by Wang et al. (2022) analyzed a sample from Kadruka in Upper Nubia, dated to roughly 4000 BP (c. 2000 BC), and found it to be genetically indistinguishable from those of the Pastoral Neolithic, harbouring a similar mix of Levantine-related and East African-related ancestry.

[20] These findings are consistent with the Kadruka individual representing "a possible genetic source population for the earliest eastern African pastoralists who settled in the Rift Valley."

The authors of the study suggest that the Pastoral Neolithic likely arose through a rapid migration from the Nile Valley, without significant admixture with the indigenous foragers of East Africa as was previously thought.

Their point is that the advantage of yield is not, in the African context, a significant driver compared to the risks of aridity and the need to move so as to ensure feed for cattle.

[23] Neolithic pastoralists employed various subsistence strategies (e.g., fishing, herding) and are generally associated with stone tools, ceramics, and burial traditions.

[8] For example, at the Enkapune Ya Muto rock shelter site of central Kenya, among evidence of mostly wild fauna, there are few caprine (goat/sheep) teeth dated to around 4400 BP.

[11] Additionally, paleoclimatic evidence from Lake Naivasha, Kenya suggests that rain patterns may not have been favorable for dairy pastoralism until around 3000 BP.

These stone tools found at Luxmanda, Tanzania challenge established ideas about travel patterns and food systems during the Pastoral Neolithic.