Chapurukha M. Kusimba

Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either “foragers” or “farmers,” it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.

The rise and fall of Swahili states

chapter 1 Foreword by Joseph O. Vogel chapter 2 Preface chapter 3 Acknowledgments chapter 4 1.The Place of the Swahili Coast in the World chapter 5 2. The Archaeology of the Swahili Coast chapter 6 3. The Swahili Coast chapter 7 4. Before the Swahili States chapter 8 5. The Swahili Civilization chapter 9 6. The Colonial Period and Demise of the Swahili States chapter 10 7. Conclusions chapter 11 Afterword chapter 12 Index chapter 13 About the Author

East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders

Figures and Tables Preface 1. Comparing Prehistoric and Historic Hunter-Gatherer Mobility in Southern Kenya 2. The East African Neolithic: A Historical Perspective 3. Archaeological Implications of Hadzabe Forager Land Use in the Eyasi Basin, Tanzania 4. Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology: Some Examples from Kenya 5. Fipa Iron Technologies and Their Implied Social History 6. Early Ironworking Communities on the East African Coast: Excavations at Kivinja, Tanzania 7. Ironworking on the Swahili Coast of Kenya 8. Iron Age Settlement Patterns and Economic Change on Zanzibar and Pemba Islands 9. Politics, Cattle, and Conservation: Ngorongoro Crater at a Crossroads 10. Explaining the Origins of the State in East Africa 11. East African Archaeology: A South African Perspective References Contributors Index

The Development and Collapse of Precolonial Ethnic Mosaics in Tsavo, Kenya

Archaeologists and historians have long believed that little interaction existed between Iron Age cities of the Kenya Coast and their rural hinterlands. Ongoing archaeological and anthropological research in Tsavo, Southeast Kenya, shows that Tsavo has been continuously inhabited at least since the early Holocene. Tsavo peoples made a living by foraging, herding, farming, and producing pottery and iron, and in the Iron Age were linked to global markets via coastal traders. They were at one point important suppliers of ivory destined for Southwest and South Asia. Our excavations document forager and agropastoralist habitation sites, iron smelting and iron working sites, fortified rockshelters, and mortuary sites. We discuss the relationship between fortified rockshelters, in particular, and slave trade.

Archaeology in African Museums

Museums curate, document, conserve, and protect the earths diverse natural and cultural heritage for purposes of educating humankind. Through research, exhibitions, and other activities that stress our common demominators and achievements, museums help us to forge and affirm local, ethnic, national, and international identities, unity, and pride. To accomplish such diverse goals, museums require dynamic, dedicated, ethical, and fairly well-educated staff. Museums must also be well-funded and should have local, national, and international support systems. This paper discusses the challenges faced by museum professionals in Africa, especially archaeologists, as they attempt to unearth, and in some cases reinterpret, Africas cultural history.

Trade and State Formation in Ancient East African Coast and Southern Zambezia

Why is social inequality a feature of so many societies? Every generation of archaeologists has sought to understand the transformation from egalitarian bands to today’s world of ‘savage inequalities.’ In this chapter, we draw from recent archaeological research in Eastern and Southern Africa to explain the emergence of socially and politically hierarchical chiefdoms, polities, and states. We identify three main sources of social power: trade, investment in extractive technologies , and elite monopolization of wealth-creating resources. Along the East African Coast, we find that autonomous city-states developed here on local, regional, and trans-continental scales because of Indian Ocean trade. In spite of the wealth the Swahili elites amassed, their city-states remained independent. In Southern Africa, the Southern Zambezian Culture developed similar political formations, but in this highland fertile plain some polities were able to extend their political control over larger geographical areas. Like the Swahili , the Zimbabwe elites were wealthy through trade, taking tribute from foot caravans of gold and ivory bound for the southern Swahili Coast. In the case of Zimbabwe, militarism was a second strategy to consolidate power over the geography of these trade conduits. Studying the evolution of social complexity among the Swahili city-states and the Zimbabwe Plateau demonstrates that trade and militarism are sources of political power for African elites, as they were in other parts of the ancient world. We discuss the impact of these findings in understanding today’s dilemmas of power and inequality.

Intensification and Protohistoric Agropastoral Systems in East Africa

Agricultural systems can become complex in many different ways; nor do they necessarily intensify. In local histories, people employ varying agricultural strategies over time. In East Africa, the archaeological and ethnographic records demonstrate considerable variation in the use of extensive and intensive agricultural methods. After defining our terms, we will review some African examples of intensive agricultural systems and their comparative value in studying intensification. We will present an archaeological and ethnographic example of intensive agropastoral production from Mount Kasigau in the Taita Hills of southwestern Kenya.

Community archaeology and heritage in coastal and Western Kenya

ABSTRACT We have conducted research on the histories of slaving in Kenya, the growth and demise of urban centres along the Kenya coast, and the origins of inter-ethnic conflict and warfare in the Mount Elgon region since 1986. Our engagement with Swahili and Bukusu peoples of Kenya has blossomed into strong bonds of friendship and trust. We are fully aware that what we write has been and continues to be a collaborative effort between our host communities and ourselves. This paper reports aspects of my experiences and discusses how they have influenced how I approach and interpret the past and balance the often-conflicting perspectives and expectations of stakeholders.

AFRICA, EAST | The Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a cultural area comprising the modern nations of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Archaeological research over the past century shows an unbroken sequence of human occupation from the Middle Stone Age to the present. It has also been blessed with a unique location: on the crossroads of Asia and Africa, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and offering easy land access between western ports on the Red Sea and the Nile River. Epigraphic evidence from Egypt identifies this region as Punt and an active trading partner of Egypt during the reign of Queen Hapshetsut. Archaeological evidence suggests that the trade links between the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean world (Egypt) as well as Southwest Asia can be traced as far back as 2500 BC.

Printed and Dyed Textiles from Africa

This book, Printed and Dyed Textiles from Africa, is based on 30 textile samples from different parts of Africa, all pieces from the British Museum. It also includes ethnographic photographs, most made in the field by the author. John Gillow is a well-known and respected writer in this area. His choice of textiles is broad and fairly representative of the African traditions. The accompanying text, including the captions, is lucid, sympathetic, and celebratory. Gillow demonstrates a sensitivity and awareness of historical agency that was so rare only a few years ago, even in the academy. This book fortunately comes from a much traveled author and collector, who is not confined to the stuffiness that one often finds among professional and provincial academics or collectors, people who are often prone to generalizations based upon their research in a single culture. The fact that the author does travel over much of Africa enables him to write about the textiles with the authority and intimate knowledge we have become accustomed to among modern field-workers. Africa is, of course, huge, diverse, and filled with contrasting traditions, but beneath those contrasts are remarkably similar ways of thinking, knowing, and creating the world. One aspect of the book which I found especially impressive is Gillow’s treatment of Africa as one from Morocco to Madagascar. His wide knowledge of the textile traditions and weaving traditions of Africa, from the Adinkra of Ghana to the Ikat of Sakalava in Madagascar, and bogolanfini or mud cloth of Mali, is credible. He discusses possible influences in the textile traditions, making allusions to historical connections between Madagascar and Indonesia and Islamic North Africa, and from Southwest Asia to West Africa, without making the extreme claims we have become accustomed to hearing. This is a welcome beginning. It marks a departure from the old school of evaluating Africans’ achievements as ultimately derived from outsiders, while attributing all the failings to the continent itself. Through his analysis of diverse and complex dyeing traditions in Africa, John Gillow shows African textile traditions to have had a long homegrown history of making cloths, not only for kings and queens but also for hunters, funerals, and everyday life. In short, the Africans were always able to clothe themselves and like other peoples they had clothing for different occasions: weddings, funerals, hunting, warfare, and so on. Gillow subtly but very powerfully shows, through the imagery of textiles, that the knowledge of the chemistry