Multi-Directional Connectivity in Eastern and Southern Africa during the First and Early Second Millennia AD: Archaeological Evidence from Lupilo, Southern Tanzania
In: Journal of African ArchaeologyAbstract
Archaeology of connectivity has attracted researchers since the beginning of the discipline when migration theories reigned in archaeological research. In East Africa, it started close to the mid-twentieth century with a strong emphasis on coastal archaeology, because that is where imported and datable materials such as glass beads and porcelain were plentiful. Apart from contributing to the chronology of the culture history of the west coast of the Indian Ocean, such materials also acted as strong proofs for the connectivity between East Africa and the northern coast of the Indian Ocean and the Far East. As archaeological research expanded into the interior, these materials came to be used as markers of connectivity between the coast and the hinterland, and through it with the eastern world. Gradually, false assumptions emerged: first, that connectivity is almost always coast-interior oriented, and second, that it is almost always evinced by imported materials. This paper attempts to refute these assumptions using an inland site from southern Tanzania, which has proven to have strong links with the coast and, more strongly, with other inland sites as far as in what is today Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa. The evidence for this connectivity varies from symbolism and technology to trade objects.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Abungu, G. 1989. Communities on the River Tana, Kenya: an archaeological study of relations between the delta and the river basin 700–1890 A.D. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cambridge.
-
Abungu, G. & Mutoro, H. 1993. Coast-interior settlements and social relations in the Kenyan coastal hinterland. In: Shaw, T., Sinclair, P., Andah, B. & Okpok, A. (eds.), The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns. Routledge, London, pp. 694–704.
-
Alpers, E. 1975. Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa: changing patterns of international trade to the later nineteenth century. Heinemann, London.
-
Antonites, A. 2013. Archaeological salt production at the Baleni spring, northeastern South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 68 (198), 105–118.
-
Beachey, R. 1967. The East African ivory trade in the nineteenth century. Journal of African History 8 (2), 269–290.
-
Biginagwa, T. 2009. Excavation of 19th century caravan trade halts in north-eastern Tanzania: a preliminary report. Nyame Akuma 72, 52–60.
-
Biginagwa, T. 2012. Historical archaeology of the 19th century caravan trade in north-eastern Tanzania: a zooarchaeological perspective. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of York.
-
Biginagwa, T. 2015. Archaeological investigation at Kilwa Kivinje: a 19th century coastal caravan terminus in southern Tanzania. Studies in the African Past 12, 60–97.
-
Biginagwa, T. & Mapunda, B. 2018. The Kilwa-Nyasa Caravan Route. In: Wynne-Jones, S. & LaViolette, A. (eds.), The Swahili World. Routledge, London, pp. 541–554.
-
Biginagwa, T. & Ichumbaki, E. 2018. Settlement history of the Islands on the Pangani River, north-eastern Tanzania. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 53 (1), 63–82.
-
Biginagwa, T. & Katto, P. 2020. Archaeological perspective on the impact of caravan trade expansion in East Africa: emerging alternative histories. Journal of Education, Humanities and Sciences 9 (3), 35–58.
-
Brain, C. 1981. The hunter or the hunted: an introduction to African cave taphonomy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
-
Burton, R. 1872. Zanzibar: city, island, and coast. 2 vols. Tinsley, London.
-
Calabrese, A. 2000. Interregional interaction in southern Africa: Zhizo and Leopard’s Kopje relations in northern South Africa, southwestern Zimbabwe, and eastern Botswana, AD 1000 to 1200. African Archaeological Review 17 (4), 183–210.
-
Chami, F. 1994. The Tanzanian Coast in the First Millennium AD. An Archaeology of the Iron-Working, Farming Communities. Studies in African Archaeology 7.
-
Chirikure, S. 2014. Land and Sea Links: 1500 Years of Connectivity between Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean Rim Regions, AD 700 to 1700. African Archaeological Review 31 (4), 705–724.
-
Chirikure, S., Nyamushosho, R., Bandama, F. & Dandara, C. 2018. Elites and commoners at Great Zimbabwe: archaeological and ethnographic insights on social power. Antiquity 92 (364), 1056–1075.
-
Chittick, N. 1966. Six early coins from near Tanga. Azania: Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa 1 (1), 156–157.
-
Chittick, N. 1974. Kilwa; an Islamic trading city on the East African coast, 2 vols. British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi.
-
Collar, A., Coward, F., Brughmans, T. & Mills, B. 2015. Networks in archaeology: phenomena, abstraction, representation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22 (1), 1–32.
-
Connah, G. 1991. The salt of Bunyoro: seeking the origins of an African Kingdom. Antiquity 65 (248), 479–494.
-
Cory, H. 1956. African Figurines: their ceremonial use in puberty rites in Tanganyika. Faber & Faber, London.
-
Coutu, A. 2011. Tracing the links between elephants, humans and landscapes during the 19th century East African ivory trade: a bioarchaeological study. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of York.
-
Croucher, S. & Wynne-Jones, S. 2006. Slave Routes in Western Tanzania: A preliminary report on survey in Tabora and Ujiji. African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter 9 (4), 18.
-
Davison, C. 1973. Chemical resemblance of garden roller and M1 glass beads. African Studies 32 (4), 247–257.
-
Davison, S. 1993. Salt making in early Malawi. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 28 (1), 7–46.
-
De Vaal, J. 1943. ’n Soutpansbergse Zimbabwe. South African Journal of Science 40, 303–327.
-
Dederen, M. 2010. Women’s power, 1000 AD: figurine art and gender politics in prehistoric southern Africa. Nordic Journal of African Studies 19 (1), 23–42.
-
Ehret, C. 1998. An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400. James Currey, London.
-
Fagan, B. 1969. Early trade and raw materials in south central Africa. The Journal of African History 10 (1), 1–13.
-
Felix, L. 1990. Mwana Hiti: life and art of the matrilineal Bantu of Tanzania. Fred Jahn, Munich.
-
Fleisher, J. & Wynne-Jones, S. 2011. Ceramics and the early Swahili: deconstructing the Early Tana Tradition. African Archaeological Review 28 (4), 245–278.
-
Flexner, J., Fleisher, J. & LaViolette, A. 2008. Bead grinders and early Swahili household economy: analysis of an assemblage from Tumbe, Pemba Island, Tanzania, 7th–10th centuries AD. Journal of African Archaeology 6 (2), 161–181.
-
Gardner, T., Wells, L. & Schofield, J. 1940. The Recent Archaeology of Gokomere, Southern Rhodesia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 28, 219–253.
-
Haaland, R. & Msuya, C. 2000. Pottery production, iron working, and trade in the Early Iron Age: the case of Dakawa, east-central Tanzania. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 35 (1), 75–106.
-
Hanisch, E. 1981. Schroda, a Zhizo site in the Northern Transvaal. In: Voigt, E. (ed.), Guide to Archaeological Sites in the Northern and Eastern Transvaal. Southern Africa Association of Archaeologists, Pretoria, pp. 37–53.
-
Helm, R. 2000. Conflicting histories: the archaeology of the iron-working, farming communities in the central and southern coast of Kenya. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bristol.
-
Horton, M. & Middleton, J. 2000. The Swahili: The social landscape of a mercantile society. Blackwell, Oxford.
-
Horton, M. 1986. Asiatic colonization of the East African coast: the Manda evidence. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 118 (2), 201–213.
-
Horton, M., Fleisher, J. & Wynne-Jones, S. 2017. The mosques of Songo Mnara in their urban landscape. Journal of Islamic Archaeology 4 (2), 163–188.
-
Huffman, T. 2009. Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The origin and spread of social complexity in southern Africa. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28 (1), 37–54.
-
Ichumbaki, E. & Pollard, E. 2015. Potsherds coated with lime mortar along the East African coast: their origin and significance. African Archaeological Review 32 (3), 443–463.
-
Iliffe, J. 1979. A modern history of Tanganyika. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
-
Juma, A. 2004. Unguja Ukuu on Zanzibar: an archeological study of early urbanism. Studies in Global Archaeology 3.
-
Kamanga, H. 2011. Impact of climate change on food systems along Lake Nyasa shore in Mbinga District. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Sokoine University of Agriculture.
-
Katto, P. 2016. Coast-interior connectivity during the nineteenth century: archaeological evidence of the caravan trade from southern Tanzania. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Dar es Salaam.
-
Kelly, A. 2019. Western activism and the veiling of primitive accumulation in the East African ivory trade. Historical Archaeology 53 (3–4), 575–590.
-
Kimambo, I. 1996. Environmental control and hunger in the mountains and plains of nineteenth century north-eastern Tanzania. In: Maddox, G., Giblin, J. & Kimambo, I. (eds.), Custodians of the land: ecology and culture in the history of Tanzania. James Currey: London, pp. 71–95.
-
Kinahan, J. 2000. Cattle for beads: The archaeology of historical contact and trade on the Namib Coast. Studies in African Archaeology 17.
-
Kusimba, C. 2004. Archaeology of slavery in East Africa. African Archaeological Review 21(2), 59–88.
-
Kusimba, C. & Killick, D. 2003. Iron working on the Swahili coast of Kenya. In: Kusimba, C. & Kusimba, S. (eds.), East African archaeology: Foragers, potters, smiths, and traders. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 99–115.
-
Kusimba, C. & Kusimba, S. 2000. Hinterlands of Swahili Cities: Archaeological Investigations of Economy and Trade in Tsavo, Kenya. In: Kropacek, L. & Skalnik, P. (eds.), Africa 2000: Forty Years of African Studies in Prague. Romna Misek, Prague, pp. 203–230.
-
Kusimba, C. & Kusimba, S. 2005. Mosaics and interactions: East Africa, 2000 B.P. to the present. In: Stahl, A.B. (ed.), African Archaeology: A critical introduction. Blackwell, Boston, pp. 394–419.
-
Kusimba, C. & Kusimba, S. 2018. Mosaics: Rethinking African connections in coastal and hinterland Kenya. In: Wynne- Jones, S. & LaViolette, A. (eds.), The Swahili World. Routledge, London, pp. 403–418.
-
Lane, P. 2010. Developing landscape historical ecologies in eastern Africa: an outline of current research and potential future directions. African Studies 69 (2), 299–322.
-
LaViolette, A. & Fleisher, J. 2009. The urban history of a rural place: Swahili archaeology on Pemba Island, Tanzania, 700–1500 AD. International Journal of African Historical Studies 42 (3), 433–455.
-
Leach, M. & Mearns, R. (eds). 1996. The Lie of the Land: challenging received wisdom on the African environment. International African Institute & James Currey, London.
-
Mapunda, B. & Burg, S. 1991. Preliminary report on archaeological reconnaissance along the Ruhuhu River Basin, southern Tanzania. Nyame Akuma 36, 32–40.
-
Mapunda, B. 1995. An archaeological view of the history and variation of iron working in southwestern Tanzania. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Florida.
-
Mapunda, B. 2004. East African slave trade: unraveling post-abolition slave coverts in the interior of southern Tanzania. Utafiti 5 (1), 61–76.
-
Mapunda, B. 2008. The Indian Ocean and its hinterland during the Iron Age. Indian Ocean Archaeology 5, 85–96.
-
Mapunda, B. 2010. Contemplating the Fipa iron technology. Fountain Publishers, Kampala.
-
Mapunda, B. 2017. Encounter with an “Injured Buffalo”: slavery and colonial emancipation in Tanzania. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 6 (1), 1–18.
-
Mapunda, B. 2018. Metals and metal-working along the Swahili Coast. In: Wynne-Jones, S. & LaViolette, A. (eds.), The Swahili World. Routledge, London, pp. 306–318.
-
Masao, F. 2005. Archaeological research in mainland Tanzania up to the 1990s. In: Mapunda, B. & Msemwa, P. (eds.), Salvaging Tanzania’s Cultural Heritage. Dar es Salaam University Press, Dar es Salaam, pp. 59–80.
-
Matenga, E. 1993. Archaeological figurines from Zimbabwe. Studies in African Archaeology 5.
-
Mgombere, C. 2017. Archaeobotanical evidence of crop economies practised along the nineteenth-century caravan route in southern Tanzania. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Dar es Salaam.
-
Mitchell, P. 2005. African connections: Archaeological perspectives on Africa and the wider world. AltaMira Press, Oxford.
-
Mjema, E. 2015. Maritime community settlement history in Pangani Bay, Tanga coastal region, Tanzania. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Frankfurt. http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/36974.
-
Moffett, A. & Chirikure, S. 2016. Exotica in context: reconfiguring prestige, power and wealth in the Southern African Iron Age. Journal of World Prehistory 29 (4), 337–382.
-
Msanya, B., Maggogo, P. & Kimaro, D. 1995. Pedological investigations and land resources characterization in Lupilo village, Mbinga district, Tanzania. Sokoine University of Agriculture and ARI Mlingano.
-
Msemwa, P. 2001. Archaeology of Upper Rufiji catchment. Studies in the African Past 1, 40–52.
-
Mshana, S. 2016. The Art of the Zaramo: identity, tradition, and social change in Tanzania. Mkuki & Nyota, Dar es Salaam.
-
Pawlowicz, M. 2013. A review of ceramics from Tanzania, Malawi, and Northern Mozambique, with implications for Swahili archaeology. African Archaeological Review 30 (4), 367–398.
-
Pawlowicz, M., Fleisher, J. & de Luna, K. 2020. Capturing People on the Move: Spatial Analysis and Remote Sensing in the Bantu Mobility Project, Basanga, Zambia. African Archaeological Review 37, 69–93.
-
Phillipson, D. 1968. The Iron Age site at Kapwirimbwe, Lusaka. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 3 (1), 87–105.
-
Phillipson, D. 1974. Iron Age history and archaeology in Zambia. Journal of African History, 1–25.
-
Phillipson, D. 1976. The prehistory of eastern Zambia. British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi.
-
Phillipson, D. 1979. Some Iron Age sites in the lower Tana valley. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 14 (1), 155–160.
-
Pikirayi, I. 2001. The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline in Southern Zambezian States. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek.
-
Pollard, E. & Kinyera, C. 2017. The Swahili Coast and the Indian Ocean trade patterns in the 7th–10th centuries CE. Journal of Southern African Studies 43 (5), 927–947.
-
Prinsloo, H. 1974. Early Iron Age site at Klein Afrika near Wylliespoort, Soutpansberg Mountains, South Africa. South African Journal of Science 70, 271–273.
-
Radimilahy, C. 1998. Mahilaka: An archaeological investigation of an early town in north-western Madagascar. Studies in African Archaeology 15.
-
Reid, A. & Segobye, A.K. 2000. An ivory cache from Botswana. Antiquity 74 (284), 326–331.
-
Richards, A. 2013. Chisungu: a girl’s initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia. Routledge, London.
-
Robertshaw, P., Wood, M., Melchiorre, E., Popelka-Filcoff, R. & Glascock, M. 2010. Southern African glass beads: chemistry, glass sources and patterns of trade. Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (8), 1898–1912.
-
Robinson, R. 1966. The Leopard’s Kopje Culture: its position in the Iron Age of Southern Rhodesia. South Africa Archaeological Bulletin 21 (81), 5–51.
-
Robinson, R. & Sandelowsky, B. 1968. The Iron Age in northern Malawi: recent work. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 3 (1), 107–146.
-
Roe, M. 1991. Development narratives, or making the best of blueprint development. World Development 19 (4), 287–300.
-
Sadr, K., Esterhuysen, A. & Sievers, C. (eds.) 2016. African Archaeology without Frontiers. Papers from the 2014 Pan African Archaeological Association Congress. Wits University Press, Johannesburg.
-
Schmidt, P. 1989. Early exploitation and settlement in the Usambara Mountains. Forest Conservation in the East Usambara Mountains Tanzania 15, 75–78.
-
Schmidt, P. & Ichumbaki, E. 2020. Is there hope for heritage in former British colonies in eastern Africa? A view from Tanzania. Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies 2 (1), 26–51.
-
Sheriff, A. 1987. Slaves, spices and ivory in Zanzibar: integration of an East African commercial empire into the world economy, 1770–1873. James Currey, London.
-
Soper, R. 1967. Iron Age sites in north-eastern Tanzania. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 2 (1), 19–36.
-
Soper, R. 1971. A general review of the Early Iron Age of the southern half of Africa. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 6, 3–27.
-
Steyn, M., Nienaber, W., Loots, M., Meiring, J. & Meyer, A. 1999. An infant grave from K2 (Greefswald). The South African Archaeological Bulletin 54, 102–106.
-
Steyn, M. & Nienaber, W. 2000. Iron Age human skeletal remains from the Limpopo Valley and Soutpansberg area. Goodwin Series, 112–116.
-
Summers, R. 1970. Forty years’ progress in Iron Age studies in Rhodesia: 1929–69. South African Archaeological Bulletin 25 (99 & 100), 95–103.
-
Sutton, J. 1990. A thousand years of East Africa. British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi.
-
Swantz, M. 1986. Ritual and symbol in transitional Zaramo society with special reference to women (Second edition). Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala.
-
Van Wyk, G. (ed.). 2013. Shangaa: Art of Tanzania. QCC Art Gallery Press, New York.
-
Walz, J. 2005. Mombo and the Mkomazi corridor: preliminary findings from lowland northeastern Tanzania. In: Mapunda, B. & Msemwa, P. (eds.), Salvaging Tanzania’s Cultural Heritage. University of Dar es Salaam Press, Dar es Salaam, pp. 198–213.
-
Walz, J. 2010. Route to a regional past: an archaeology of the Lower Pangani (Ruvu) Basin, Tanzania, 500–1900 C.E. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Florida.
-
Walz, J. 2018. Early inland entanglement in the Swahili world, c. 750–1550 CE. In: Wynne-Jones, S. & LaViolette, A. (eds.), The Swahili World. Routledge, London, pp. 388–402.
-
Wood, M. 2000. Making connections: relationships between international trade and glass beads from the Shashe-Limpopo area. Goodwin Series 8, 78–90.
-
Wood, M. 2002. The glass beads of Kaole ruins. Studies in the African Past 2, 50–65.
-
Wood, M. 2005. Glass beads and pre-European trade in the Shashe-Limpopo region. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of the Witwatersrand.
-
Wood, M. 2011. Interconnections: Glass beads and trade in southern and eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean – 7th to 16th centuries AD. Studies in Global Archaeology 17.
-
Wynne-Jones, S. & Croucher, S. 2007. The central caravan route of Tanzania: a preliminary archaeological reconnaissance. Nyame Akuma 67, 91–95.
-
Wynne-Jones, S. & Fleisher, J. 2015. Fifty years in the archaeology of the eastern African coast: a methodological history. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 50 (4), 519–541.
-
Wynne-Jones, S. 2010. Lines of desire: power and materiality along a Tanzanian caravan route. Journal of World Prehistory 23 (4), 219–237.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 480 | 89 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 31 | 9 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 78 | 21 | 8 |
Multi-Directional Connectivity in Eastern and Southern Africa during the First and Early Second Millennia AD: Archaeological Evidence from Lupilo, Southern Tanzania
In: Journal of African ArchaeologyAbstract
Archaeology of connectivity has attracted researchers since the beginning of the discipline when migration theories reigned in archaeological research. In East Africa, it started close to the mid-twentieth century with a strong emphasis on coastal archaeology, because that is where imported and datable materials such as glass beads and porcelain were plentiful. Apart from contributing to the chronology of the culture history of the west coast of the Indian Ocean, such materials also acted as strong proofs for the connectivity between East Africa and the northern coast of the Indian Ocean and the Far East. As archaeological research expanded into the interior, these materials came to be used as markers of connectivity between the coast and the hinterland, and through it with the eastern world. Gradually, false assumptions emerged: first, that connectivity is almost always coast-interior oriented, and second, that it is almost always evinced by imported materials. This paper attempts to refute these assumptions using an inland site from southern Tanzania, which has proven to have strong links with the coast and, more strongly, with other inland sites as far as in what is today Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa. The evidence for this connectivity varies from symbolism and technology to trade objects.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 480 | 89 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 31 | 9 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 78 | 21 | 8 |