Paul Lane

African Historical Archaeologies

This is the first summary of historical archaeology on the African continent in book form. A range of authors explore the variations in approach that are possible across the continent.

The 'moving frontier' and the transition to food production in Kenya

Abstract Since at least the 1960s, models of the transition to food production in East Africa have tended to be driven by various hypotheses derived from historical linguistics concerning the spread of various language families across the continent through the process of population migration. In more recent years, archaeologists, historians and historical linguists have offered various refinements to the initial models. This has certainly encouraged more nuanced reading of the different sources of evidence. However, such accounts rarely consider in any detail the possible variable rates of adoption or the different social conditions under which this occurred. Consequently, despite awareness of the likely complexity of the processes and the growing range of critiques, this critical transition in the history of East Africa is still widely thought of as having universally entailed the co-appearance and/or adoption of particular ‘packages’, namely cereal cultivation, iron smelting and proto-Bantu languages in the case of early farming communities, and domestic livestock and proto-Cushitic or Southern Nilotic languages in the case of early herders. In the former case, this transition is also often thought to be signalled in the archaeological record by a single diagnostic marker—the presence of Urewe and other Early Iron Age pottery styles. Building on the pioneering work of John Alexander in the application of ‘frontier theory’ to account for variable rates and mechanisms for the transition to agriculture, this paper offers a summary of the current state of knowledge regarding the transition to food production in parts of western and central Kenya.

Archaeological approaches to East Africa’s changing seascapes

The East African coast has a relatively uniform topography and environment but has been witness to a complex mosaic of human and cultural influences. This paper examines these influences from a chronological and theoretical perspective over the last 2500 years and argues that increased attention should be paid to the sea and its influence on and role in past cultural activity. Such an approach would build on and complement the existing ‘Swahili’ or coastal archaeology research traditions which are vibrant along this littoral. A selected case study on the historic port town of Mombasa examines the relationship of its varied temporal settlements with the sea and looks at the integrated approaches to maritime research which have recently been undertaken there.

Possibilities for a postcolonial archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa: indigenous and usable pasts

Abstract It has long been recognized that archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa, and its public manifestation through the medium of museums, emerged within the context of European colonial rule, and that legacies of colonialism continue to shape archaeological practice across the continent. Following independence there has been steady indigenization, initially in terms of personnel but subsequently also in terms of organizational structure and research agendas. Recent calls for a ‘post-colonial archaeology’ liberated from the constraints imposed by ‘the colonial archive’, have highlighted many of the challenges that remain. Nevertheless, indigenization has also resulted in the production of more nationalistic and/or Afrocentric perspectives. These echo some of the sentiments voiced by the first generation of African political leaders regarding the need to recover a truly ‘African past’, which have also been revived in more recent calls for an African Renaissance as articulated by NEPAD, among others. This paper explores these developments so as to highlight some of the inconsistencies and inherent contradictions of current conceptualizations of postcolonial archaeology in sub-Saharan African contexts.

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]

Anthropological contributions to historical ecology: 50 questions, infinite prospects

This paper presents the results of a consensus-driven process identifying 50 priority research questions for historical ecology obtained through crowdsourcing, literature reviews, and in-person workshopping. A deliberative approach was designed to maximize discussion and debate with defined outcomes. Two in-person workshops (in Sweden and Canada) over the course of two years and online discussions were peer facilitated to define specific key questions for historical ecology from anthropological and archaeological perspectives. The aim of this research is to showcase the variety of questions that reflect the broad scope for historical-ecological research trajectories across scientific disciplines. Historical ecology encompasses research concerned with decadal, centennial, and millennial human-environmental interactions, and the consequences that those relationships have in the formation of contemporary landscapes. Six interrelated themes arose from our consensus-building workshop model: (1) climate and environmental change and variability; (2) multi-scalar, multi-disciplinary; (3) biodiversity and community ecology; (4) resource and environmental management and governance; (5) methods and applications; and (6) communication and policy. The 50 questions represented by these themes highlight meaningful trends in historical ecology that distill the field down to three explicit findings. First, historical ecology is fundamentally an applied research program. Second, this program seeks to understand long-term human-environment interactions with a focus on avoiding, mitigating, and reversing adverse ecological effects. Third, historical ecology is part of convergent trends toward transdisciplinary research science, which erodes scientific boundaries between the cultural and natural.

New Dates for Kansyore and Urewe Wares from Northern Nyanza, Kenya

Since 1999, the British Institute in Eastern Africa has been conducting periodic surveys and excavations in northern Nyanza Province, Kenya under the overall direction of Paul Lane. The aims of this fieldwork have been as follows: 1) to expand current knowledge of the distribution of midto late Holocene archaeological sites in the survey areas, up to and including historic Luo settlements; 2) to improve current dating of Kansyore, Urewe and so-called Middle Iron Age (MIA) occupation phases; and 3) to refine current understanding of the transition from purely hunting, gathering and fishing subsistence strategies to ones based, at least in part, on farming and/or herding (cf. Lane, 2004). Survey work thus far has been concentrated in two localities: i) the area around Lake Saru and Usenge village, Bondo District and ii) the north-eastern portion of the Uyoma Peninsula and around Asembo Bay, also in Bondo District. Briefer surveys have also been conducted along stretches of the Yala River, especially downstream from the known Urewe sites near Yala Bridge (see Leakey, et al. 1948; Soper, 1969), and close to the shores of Victoria Nyanza to the west of Kisumu, where ephemeral traces of Kansyore, Urewe and MJA activity and Entebbe ceramics have been found (Fig. 1). The purpose of this note is to report briefly on the sites with Kansyore, Urewe and/or ‘Middle Iron Age’ (MIA) ceramics that have been located thus far, with particular reference to those that have been excavated and for which radiocarbon dates are now available. Full excavation reports will be published in due course, while a longer discussion of the faunal and artefactual evidence associated with the transition to farming in the broader area appears elsewhere (Lane etal., in press).

Archaeology in the age of the Anthropocene: A critical assessment of its scope and societal contributions

Abstract Recent decades have witnessed heightened public and governmental awareness of the nature and scale of environmental challenges likely to face the planet over the course of the next fifty to one hundred years. Scholars from across a broad range of disciplines have been drawn into these debates and have begun to reorient their research towards finding solutions to some of the most pressing problems and to devising more sustainable and resilient livelihoods. Archaeologists, with their conventional orientation toward past events and processes have been rather slower to engage with these issues. Recently, however, there has been a steady shift within the discipline so as to incorporate more future-oriented perspectives, and ‘the use of the past to plan for a better future’ is rapidly becoming a common theme within archaeological research projects and publications. While welcoming some of these developments, this paper offers a critical assessment of the various claims that are now being made of archaeologys potential to help overcome current environmental challenges and its contributions to defining and understanding ‘the Anthropocene.’

Developing Landscape Historical Ecologies in Eastern Africa: An Outline of Current Research and Potential Future Directions

The concept of ‘landscape historical ecology’ has been adopted by many researchers across the spectrum of earth sciences, social sciences and humanities in recent decades as a means of offering both conceptual and practical tools for joining very different kinds of information into an assessment of human-environment interaction. The aims of this article are to outline the analytical potential of adopting the key precepts of historical ecology for the interpretation of the archaeological and historical signatures of the last 500 years of human settlement in eastern Africa, and to describe ongoing research being undertaken as part of the HEEAL project, with particular reference to the ecological and other transformations initiated following intensification of the ivory trade. The concluding section discusses the relevance of adopting similar approaches to the investigation of different southern African landscapes within the context of the FYI project.

African Historical Archaeologies: an introductory consideration of scope and potential

The past does not exist. This may seem a strange way to start a book on archaeology and history, but this is a view now widely accepted. What does exist are interpretations of the past constructed in the present. Academics, in their wisdom, create theories and methodologies which allow them to evaluate, select and exclude different pasts. Nevertheless, this inherent relativism gives rise to differing and often opposing constructions of the past. And it is important to remember that these constructs not only lay emphasis on particular issues and themes but also create silences, issues which histories avoid. Nowhere is this sense of construction more starkly evident than on the African continent. It is well known that history and its various interpretations across Africa has been the subject of considerable contestation and conflict. Slavery, Ancient Egypt, Afrocentrism and Great Zimbabwe are but the best known of numerous examples of contested issues in the African past. Outsiders have sought to discuss the continent in terms which were culturally appropriate to their own societies. Africans themselves have equally demonstrated a vast sense of history, expressed in traditions, beliefs and practices: rulers and ruling elites have encouraged histories which rationalise their dominance; communities have intertwined stories of their foundation with features in the physical landscape to strengthen their association with particular lands; men and women have created their own exclusive spatial boundaries behind which they construct their distinct versions of the past in order to mediate disputes in the present. Throughout Africa - the oldest of human landscapes - myriad histories have been, and continue to be, played out.