Adria LaViolette

When Did the Swahili Become Maritime

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. [maritime, fishing and sailing, long-distance trade, Swahili, eastern Africa] RESUMEN En este artículo, evaluamos la hipótesis de que los pueblos Swahili de la costa oriental africana fueron una sociedad marítima a partir del primer milenio E.C. Basados en información histórica y arqueológica, proponemos que la asociación de la sociedad Swahili con el mar incrementó considerablemente con el tiempo y se manifestó de una forma significativa particularmente desde principios del segundo milenio E.C. Utilizando teorías recientes sobre maritimidad en otras áreas del mundo, así como investigaciones sobre los Swahili, discutimos tres temas que marcan las diferencias del nivel de orientación marítima de esta sociedad costera entre el primer y segundo milenio. Éstas son la variabilidad y discontinuidad en la localización y permanencia de los asentamientos; evidencia de una conexión mayor con el mar a través de la tecnología de pesca y navegación; y desarrollos arquitectónicos especializados que incluyen instalaciones portuarias, mezquitas, y casas. Las implicaciones de este estudio indican que debemos considerar otros aspectos de una sociedad aparte de su localización costera para determinar su maritimidad. Hay que considerar cómo el mar y sus productos son parte de la vida social y evaluar si existe una influencia recíproca entre el ambiente marítimo y los patrones de organización sociocultural, las prácticas, y las creencias de los Swahili y otras sociedades. [marítimo, pesca y navegación, comercio a larga distancia, Swahili, África Oriental]

The early Swahili trade village of Tumbe, Pemba Island, Tanzania, AD 600–950

Indian Ocean maritime networks have become a special focus of research in recent years, with emphasis not only on the economics of trade but also the movement of domesticated plants and animals (see Fuller et al. in Antiquity 2011: 544–58). But did such contacts inevitably lead to radical social change? Excavations at Tumbe reveal a settlement of the late first millennium AD that was heavily engaged in the traffic in exotic materials and may have been producing shell beads for export. This activity seems to have flourished within a domestic context in a village setting, however, and does not seem to have stimulated pronounced social stratification nor to have led inexorably towards urbanisation. These results demonstrate that some communities were able to establish a stable balance between the demands of the domestic economy and long-distance trade that could persist for several centuries. Activities at Tumbe should hence be viewed in their own right, not as precursors to the formation of the Swahili trading towns of the later medieval period.

Bead grinders and early Swahili household economy: analysis of an assemblage from Tumbe, Pemba Island, Tanzania, 7th-10th centuries AD

This paper focuses on a specific class of locally made artifacts known in the archaeological literature of the eastern African coast as bead grinders. Bead grinders are discarded potsherds or stone cobbles distinguished by long grooves abraded into their surfaces. Although they are some of the most commonly located artifacts on late first-millennium AD coastal sites, few close analyses of them have been conducted. Here we examine a particularly large assemblage of bead grinders from the site of Tumbe on Pemba Island, Tanzania, the largest such assemblage recovered from any site in eastern Africa. This essay is not aimed at determining whether or not these artifacts were in fact used to grind shell beads, the subject of considerable local debate, although we operate from that assumption. Rather, we treat them as artifacts related to production, and focus on standardization as a way to provide insight into the organization of production at Tumbe. Based on our analysis we argue that despite the intensive production implied by the sheer quantity of grinders recovered at Tumbe, the high degree of variation within relevant variables suggests that production was unstandardized and decentralized, carried on in individual households. We hope that this case study encourages more comparative research between coastal regions on bead grinders and other classes of artifacts related to production.

Swahili Archaeology and History on Pemba, Tanzania: A Critique and Case Study of the Use of Written and Oral Sources in Archaeology

In this chapter I explore the use of historical documents by archaeologists working on the Swahili coast of eastern Africa. I focus on one central region, Pemba-northernmost of Tanzania’s three major offshore islands-where both written and oral historical information has been put to use over the past half century of archaeological research. The use of historical documents has constituted a double-edged sword for those working in Swahili archaeology. Archaeologists have used various kinds of documents, the nature of which will be outlined below, to help choose which sites to excavate, to shape the questions being asked of the material evidence, and to interpret excavation results. It will be argued, however, that documentary ev; lence has not proven especially useful in most of these circumstances, and may have even hindered the progress made toward uncovering and reconstructing the past. Dissonance between the historical and archaeological records has been the norm for the Swahili coast (see Horton 1997; Fleisher this volume) including Pemba. No argument need be made here for how valuable historical sources can be, especially if they are in a dialectical relationship with archaeology, historical linguistics, ethnoarchaeology, or any of the other methodologies available for exploring the past, as their most fruitful uses illustrate (e.g. Miller 1980; Hantaan 1990; Deetz 1991; Kirch and Sahlins 1992; Stahl 1994; 2001; D’Agostino et al 1995; Schoenbrun 1998). It could be said that Swahili archaeology has not been well served when, rather than setting up such a dialectical relationship, we have privileged the ‘voice’ of written documents over that of the archaeological record, and have barely begun to explore the oral traditions and histories which have been so successfully used in African history. Perhaps the most resonant voice can be neither strictly historical or archaeological: a voice that can originate in the tension between sources that do not reinforce each other. The research I have conducted on Pemba has been largely archaeological, but has employed both oral and written documentation where it has been available. I offer this research below as a case study of how dissonance between different kinds of evidence-sites and cites-can sometimes be more useful than harmony between evidentiary voices, and how locally contextualized traditions can provide insights for archaeological interpretation. Before this presentation, I discuss Pemba as a research area within the Swahili coast, the nature of historical sources for eastern Africa in the context of their availability and use elsewhere in Africa, and the archaeology that has been carried out on Pemba to date.

Encountering Archaeology in Tanzania: Education, Development, and Dialogue at the University of Dar es Salaam

DEVELOPMENT IN THEORY From 1987 to 1989 1 taught in the Archaeology Unit of the History Department at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,1 and have returned to the Unit for extended periods on an average of nearly every year since, in the context of ongoing archaeological research in Tanzania and in collaboration with archaeology faculty and students at the University. The following are observations and reflections based on my initial two years of teaching there, and on the changes and continuities encountered subsequently. These may resonate with the increasing number of western-based anthropologists who have spent time engaged in educational development at the university level in Africa, and those others with longterm commitments to foreign education, conservation, and research in different capacities in non-western settings. I seek to portray certain aspects of life in the university as well as in the Archaeology Unit for both students and faculty, noting especially the challenges faced and overcome on a daily basis and in the course of academic careers. I then discuss the Archaeology Unit in terms of its effects on the personal and professional lives of Tanzanians, and on the practice of archaeology. These observations have additional meaning within an anthropology that, however self-aware and self-critical, continues to be dependent upon the hospitality of peoples and nations only several decades beyond their colonial history, a history in which anthropology was intimately involved (see Brokensha 1966; Hoben 1982; Escobar 1991,1995). The descriptions that follow are ones that could well apply in general outline to many university campuses in the developing world. I include them as background, but specifically to underscore the stressed atmosphere that prevailed in Tanzania during a period of great momentum for the Archaeology Unit and for the practice of archaeology there, and against which to chart more recent changes, many for the better, and their own repercussions. The University Setting The University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) Archaeology Unit was formed in 1985, and is the only venue for training in archaeology in the country. Initially the curriculum was designed and taught by a Tanzanian archaeologist trained to the M.A. level at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior American archaeologist who raised the generous private corporate and Ford Foundation funding that went into the establishment of the Unit. These funds provided teaching salaries, vehicles, field equipment, computers, a library, and operating funds to initiate the program. The Units founders were assisted by part-time instructors recruited from two other institutions in Dar es Salaam: the National Museum, and Muhimbili University College and Health Sciences, then the Faculty of Medicine. These faculty had earned foreign graduate degrees-M.A.s, Ph.D.s, and an M.D.and juggled teaching at the Archaeology Unit with their full-time jobs elsewhere. I was part of a team in the second phase of development (1987-1989), two recent Ph.D.s from the U.S., engaged as full-time lecturers to continue teaching and research duties begun during the Units start-up phase, assisted by some part-time instructors as before. Each year between three and six students began their threeyear program in archaeology, making the classes small and the resources adequate to support them. The archaeology students also took classes in history and geology to supplement their training. Following our departure in 1989, instructors from the U. K. and Norway took over the full-time teaching load, usually two at a time. Foreign lecturers were essential to the teaching force until 1993, when they were replaced with an entirely Tanzanian academic and support staff, a situation that remains today. The current full-time Tanzanian faculty have earned M.A.s, M.Phil.s, and Ph.D.s in the U.S., Sweden, Britain, and Canada, and they continue to be assisted by part-time teachers with relevant advanced degrees, whose primary work is elsewhere in Dar es Salaam. …

Developments in Rural Life on the Eastern African Coast, a.d. 700–1500

ABSTRACT The eastern African coast is known for its Swahili “stonetowns.” Archaeological study of stonetowns has overshadowed that of Swahili rural life, and how it reformulated in the context of urban transformations after a.d. 1000. To help redress that imbalance, we focus here on village research carried out in a Swahili heartland—Pemba Island, Tanzania—in the context of two archaeological projects. We feature four settlements: later 1st millennium Kimimba village and its large, trading village neighbor, Tumbe; and 2nd millennium Kaliwa village, neighbor to Chwaka stonetown. Their archaeology, contextualized within a regional landscape, allows us to say new things about the changing nature of rural life on Pemba, and to make a case for the potential of village complexity elsewhere on the Swahili coast.

AFRICA, EAST | Swahili Coast

The towns and hinterland communities of the Eastern African coast share characteristics that emerged in the first millennium AD in what became known as Swahili civilization. The Swahili coast extended 2500 kilometers from Somalia to Mozambique, and incorporated the Comoros Archipelago and northwestern Madagascar. This corresponds with the western edge of a monsoonal system, facilitating travel and communication along the Indian Ocean rim. Prior to the founding of Swahili settlements, the coast was home to smaller-scale pastoral and mixed agricultural societies sharing connections with interior peoples. By the 6th–10th centuries AD, a distinct Iron Age coastal lifeway emerged which included use of Tana Tradition ceramics, importation of goods from the Persian Gulf and beyond, and conversion to Islam from the 8th century. A number of larger Swahili settlements emerged from village foundations, and their wealth and power waxed in the 11th–14th centuries. Elaborate building in stone became the hallmark of many elite dwellings and public and ritual structures in these towns, although the majority of Swahili peoples continued to live in more humble structures. Gold obtained from the interior was a leading export, along with ivory, iron, animal products, and mangrove poles. Imports featured glazed ceramics, beads, cloth, and texts. The Swahili struggled with European and Arab colonizers beginning in the 16th century. Swahili urban and rural life prevailed throughout, although disruptions in trade and losses of regional autonomy weakened the strength of the entire coast and its ties to the interior and the Indian Ocean.