| 1. |
- Fitton, Tom, et al.
(författare)
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Integrating spatial and legacy data to understand archaeological sites in their landscape. A case study from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar
- 2023
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Ingår i: Archaeological Prospection. - : Wiley. - 1075-2196 .- 1099-0763. ; 30, s. 185-208
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Spatial analysis is paramount for understanding, monitoring, and conserving ancient settlements and cultural landscapes. Advancing remote sensing and prospection techniques are expanding the methodological frame of archaeological settlement analysis by enabling remote, landscape-scale approaches to mapping and investigation. Whilst particularly effective in arid lands and areas with sparse or open ground cover, such as vegetation and buildings, these approaches remain peripheral in tropical environments because of technical and contextual challenges. In tropical Eastern Africa, for example, scales, resolution and visibility are often compromised by thick vegetation cover, inadequate access to, if not lack of, imagery resources and technologies, and the availability of comparative archaeological data for interpretation. This paper presents the initial results of spatial analysis, using historic landscape characterisation, remote sensing, published and legacy data, and a pilot ground survey to examine the earliest settlement of Zanzibar, Unguja Ukuu. Comparing multiple strands of evidence in a Geographic Information System (GIS), we use each as a test on the others to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of each technique in the context of tropical and coastal Eastern Africa. Drone photogrammetry, geophysical prospection, and ground survey were compared with legacy remote sensing resources and the results of a coring survey conducted across the site during the 1990s into a GIS platform to produce multi-phase hypothetical maps of the archaeological site in the context of its potential resource landscape. These were then tested against the results of recent excavations. The discussion highlights the challenges and potential of combining these techniques in the context of Eastern Africa and provides some suggested methods for doing so. We show that remote sensing techniques give an insight into current landscapes but are less useful in understanding or modelling how sites would have fitted into their surroundings in the past, when conditions were potentially very different.
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| 2. |
- Fleisher, Jeffrey, et al.
(författare)
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When Did the Swahili Become Maritime?
- 2015
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Ingår i: American Anthropologist. - : Wiley. - 0002-7294 .- 1548-1433. ; 117:1, s. 100-115
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we examine an assumption about the historic Swahili of the eastern African coast: that they were a maritime society from their beginnings in the first millennium C.E. Based on historical and archaeological data, we suggest that, despite their proximity to and use of the sea, the level of maritimity of Swahili society increased greatly over time and was only fully realized in the early second millennium C.E. Drawing on recent theorizing from other areas of the world about maritimity as well as research on the Swahili, we discuss three arenas that distinguish first- and second-millennium coastal society in terms of their maritime orientation. These are variability and discontinuity in settlement location and permanence; evidence of increased engagement with the sea through fishing and sailing technology; and specialized architectural developments involving port facilities, mosques, and houses. The implications of this study are that we must move beyond coastal location in determining maritimity; consider how the sea and its products were part of social life; and assess whether the marine environment actively influences and is influenced by broader patterns of sociocultural organization, practice, and belief within Swahili and other societies.
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| 3. |
- Kohtamäki, Marjaana, 1986-
(författare)
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Transitions : a landscape approach to social and cultural changes in southern Mozambique 5000 BC-1000 AD
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The discussion of interactions between foragers and farmers in southern Africa has conventionally been linked to the migrations of Bantu-speaking farmers and their associated material culture. Further, the transition from foraging to farming has typically been interpreted as a rapid replacement of the former lifestyle by the latter, allegedly superior socio-economic package. The aim of this thesis is to find alternative means of approaching transitions in technologies and activities through space and time in the landscapes of southern Mozambique. The new approaches are used for elucidating the nature of transitions and interactions through material culture in different types of landscapes. The methodological approaches employed here are tested against a range of potential scenarios of interactions between foragers and farmers. The material culture described and analysed in this thesis is derived from surveys and excavations of two ecologically distinctive landscapes in Maputo province. The material culture is analysed by employing a range of field and post-excavation analyses. The analyses are particularly focused on ceramic and lithic assemblages. The distribution and use of material culture are further considered in relation to the differing types of landscapes in the study area. The methodologies used for the analysis of material culture and landscape are evaluated and the applicability of the varied scenarios of interactions considered.
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| 4. |
- Marchant, Rob, et al.
(författare)
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Drivers and trajectories of land cover change in East Africa : Human and environmental interactions from 6000 years ago to present
- 2018
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Ingår i: Earth-Science Reviews. - : Elsevier. - 0012-8252 .- 1872-6828. ; 178, s. 322-378
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- East African landscapes today are the result of the cumulative effects of climate and land-use change over millennial timescales. In this review, we compile archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data from East Africa to document land-cover change, and environmental, subsistence and land-use transitions, over the past 6000 years. Throughout East Africa there have been a series of relatively rapid and high-magnitude environmental shifts characterised by changing hydrological budgets during the mid- to late Holocene. For example, pronounced environmental shifts that manifested as a marked change in the rainfall amount or seasonality and subsequent hydrological budget throughout East Africa occurred around 4000, 800 and 300 radiocarbon years before present (yr BP). The past 6000 years have also seen numerous shifts in human interactions with East African ecologies. From the mid-Holocene, land use has both diversified and increased exponentially, this has been associated with the arrival of new subsistence systems, crops, migrants and technologies, all giving rise to a sequence of significant phases of land-cover change. The first large-scale human influences began to occur around 4000 yr BP, associated with the introduction of domesticated livestock and the expansion of pastoral communities. The first widespread and intensive forest clearances were associated with the arrival of iron-using early farming communities around 2500 yr BP, particularly in productive and easily-cleared mid-altitudinal areas. Extensive and pervasive land-cover change has been associated with population growth, immigration and movement of people. The expansion of trading routes between the interior and the coast, starting around 1300 years ago and intensifying in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries CE, was one such process. These caravan routes possibly acted as conduits for spreading New World crops such as maize (Zea mays), tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) and tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), although the processes and timings of their introductions remains poorly documented. The introduction of southeast Asian domesticates, especially banana (Musa spp.), rice (Oryza spp.), taro (Colocasia esculenta), and chicken (Gallus gallus), via transoceanic biological transfers around and across the Indian Ocean, from at least around 1300 yr BP, and potentially significantly earlier, also had profound social and ecological consequences across parts of the region. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis of information and metadatasets, we explore the different drivers and directions of changes in land-cover, and the associated environmental histories and interactions with various cultures, technologies, and subsistence strategies through time and across space in East Africa. This review suggests topics for targeted future research that focus on areas and/or time periods where our understanding of the interactions between people, the environment and land-cover change are most contentious and/or poorly resolved. The review also offers a perspective on how knowledge of regional land-use change can be used to inform and provide perspectives on contemporary issues such as climate and ecosystem change models, conservation strategies, and the achievement of nature-based solutions for development purposes.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Rødland, Henriette, et al.
(författare)
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No such thing as invisible people : toward an archaeology of slavery at the fifteenth-century Swahili site of Songo Mnara
- 2020
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Ingår i: Azania. - : ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. - 0067-270X .- 1945-5534. ; 55:4, s. 439-457
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper seeks to challenge the notion of the invisible slave in the archaeological record and investigates the way in which material culture may reflect the movements and practices of enslaved labourers on the East African Swahili coast. Archaeological approaches to enslavement have revealed the nuanced and complex experiences of a group of people often under-represented or absent in historical records, while also grappling with the challenges presented by the ambiguity of the material evidence. This paper presents a case study from the fifteenth-century Swahili site of Songo Mnara in Tanzania, an architecturally and materially wealthy stone town in the Kilwa archipelago. It focuses on the context, use, and spread of beads across the site, and considers the possibility of interpreting some classes - such as locally made terracotta beads - as proxies for the underclass and enslaved in an otherwise wealthy settlement. It presents a key study towards the aim of building a highly necessary methodology for the archaeology of slavery in East Africa and beyond, and suggests that certain types of material culture might be used to explore the activities of enslaved and/or underclass individuals.
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| 7. |
- Rødland, Henriette, 1991-
(författare)
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Swahili Social Landscapes : Material expressions of identity, agency, and labour in Zanzibar, 1000–1400 CE
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the social and productive landscapes of Tumbatu and Mkokotoni, two neighbouring Swahili sites in the Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania, which are dated to the 11th to 15th centuries CE. Emerging on the East African coast around the 7th century CE, the Swahili culture has traditionally been associated with vast Indian Ocean trade networks, stone towns, and a cosmopolitan hierarchical Islamic society, within which social status was negotiated through imported prestige goods and stone architecture. Departing from this traditional view, this thesis seeks to investigate how social identity and status were expressed and negotiated through labour, foodways, and different types of material culture, with a view to examine (and question) the hierarchies so often assumed to have been present in Swahili towns of the second millennium. Two seasons of archaeological fieldwork were carried out in Tumbatu and Mkokotoni; the former was a large town with extensive stone architecture, while the latter was a smaller settlement with few extant architectural features. Shovel Test Pit surveys covering the known habitation areas at both sites allowed for site-wide comparisons of material culture and food remains, while targeted excavations uncovered the remains of two domestic structures on Tumbatu and a glass bead workshop in Mkokotoni — the first of its kind. Analyses of the data from the two sites revealed a large and economically homogenous urban landscape, within which the two sites can be considered as two neighbourhoods of the same town, each with their own distinct role: Tumbatu was as a trading settlement with links to regional and long-distance networks, while Mkokotoni functioned as a productive area. Crucially, the sites yielded little material evidence for status distinction, indicating that trade wealth and imported material culture were not monopolised by a small group of elites or integral to maintaining social hierarchies. Instead, this study approaches social identities and structures through the lens of activity and labour, and highlights how socio-economic differentiation was expressed and negotiated through knowledge, production, the use of space, and adherence to various group identities.
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| 8. |
- Sulas, Federica, et al.
(författare)
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Geoarchaeology of urban space in tropical island environments : Songo Mnara, Tanzania
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Archaeological Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-4403 .- 1095-9238. ; 77, s. 52-63
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Past urban settlements in tropical island environments offer particularly challenging sites for mainstream archaeology. Often associated with shallow stratigraphic sequences, archaeological sediments and soils in these sites are strongly influenced by local geology and seawater. This study discusses the advantages and challenges of developing an integrated geoarchaeological programme to examine the use of space at the Swahili stonetown of Songo Mnara Island, Tanzania. This exceptionally well preserved site, occupied for less than two centuries (C14th-16th AD), comprises a complex urban layout with stone built houses, wattle-and-daub structures, funerary complexes, activity areas such as wells, and open areas. The programme has combined geoarchaeological (soil macro-and micromorphology, ICP-AES, pH, EC), geophysical (magnetic susceptibility) and archaeological (large excavations, test trenches, artefact distribution mapping) techniques to investigate the use of space across different contexts. Initial geoarchaeological prospection and opportunistic soil sampling have allowed framing of the island's environmental settings and archaeological deposits as well as outlining open spaces in between buildings. Subsequent research applied a systematic sampling strategy to map geochemical and artefact distributions in conjunction with context-specific soil micromorphology. The results provide a means to map out the impact of occupation across the site as well as to differentiate between open, roofed and unroofed spaces. ICP-AES results, for example, demonstrate that measurements of Ca, Mg, P, S and Sr levels can help discriminate occupation/activity areas in tropical island environments. They also indicate that the depletion of certain elements (e.g. Na, K, and Ni) should be considered as a means of differentiating between roofed and unroofed spaces. The combination of different methodologies demonstrates the importance of addressing discrepancies as well as correlations between multiple datasets for deciphering features within urban spaces in tropical environments and interpreting ancient activities that occurred within them.
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| 9. |
- Sulas, Federica, et al.
(författare)
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Soil geochemistry, phytoliths and artefacts from an early Swahili daub house, Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Archaeological Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-4403 .- 1095-9238. ; 103, s. 32-45
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The organisation and use of space in domestic contexts remain challenging areas of investigation for archaeology due to the complexity and range of site formation and post-depositional processes. In tropical environments, soil processes speed up the degradation of archaeological and environmental records, and relatively ephemeral structures built of mud or clay degrade quickly after abandonment, leaving almost no traces of human activities behind. This paper presents the results of bulk soil and chemical analyses, artefact distribution, and phytolith analysis from the excavation of a daub house at the early medieval site of Unguja Ukuu (c. 7th–14th c. AD), Zanzibar. High-resolution, systematic sampling for microscopic and elemental analyses proved effective in detecting spatial variability in relatively small areas. However, soil chemical enrichment (e.g. Ca, Mg, Mn, P) usually linked to anthropogenic impact on archaeological deposits appears hardly visible in the Unguja Ukuu house deposits. Instead, measurements of a wider range of elements, including trace and rare earth elements (REEs) proved to be important for detecting elemental signatures related to human activities. Contextual sampling of artefacts and phytoliths were crucial to identify sources of chemical enrichment and, thus, build a picture of spatial organisation within the house. The combined multi-scalar sampling strategy with a multi-proxy analytical approach enabled us to define the layout of the daub structure, indoor/outdoor spaces and activity hot-spots. Although macroscopic traces of past activities were almost completely obliterated, archaeological remains of earthen architecture and the use of space can be detected even in such complex tropical settings.
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| 10. |
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The Swahili world
- 2018
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Swahili World presents the fascinating story of a major world civilization, exploring the archaeology, history, linguistics, and anthropology of the Indian Ocean coast of Africa. It covers a 1,500-year sweep of history, from the first settlement of the coast to the complex urban tradition found there today. Swahili towns contain monumental palaces, tombs, and mosques, set among more humble houses; they were home to fishers, farmers, traders, and specialists of many kinds. The towns have been Muslim since perhaps the eighth century CE, participating in international networks connecting people around the Indian Ocean rim and beyond. Successive colonial regimes have helped shape modern Swahili society, which has incorporated such influences into the region’s long-standing cosmopolitan tradition. This is the first volume to explore the Swahili in chronological perspective. Each chapter offers a unique wealth of detail on an aspect of the region’s past, written by the leading scholars on the subject. The result is a book that allows both specialist and non-specialist readers to explore the diversity of the Swahili tradition, how Swahili society has changed over time, as well as how our understandings of the region have shifted since Swahili studies first began. Scholars of the African continent will find the most nuanced and detailed consideration of Swahili culture, language and history ever produced. For readers unfamiliar with the region or the people involved, the chapters here provide an ideal introduction to a new and wonderful geography, at the interface of Africa and the Indian Ocean world, and among a people whose culture remains one of Africa’s most distinctive achievements.
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