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Archaeology in Eastern Africa: An Overview of Current Chronological Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Paul J. J. Sinclair
Paul J. J. Sinclair
Affiliation:
Swedish Central Board of National Antiquities and Institute of Archaeology, Uppsala University
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Extract

Even at this still early stage in the development of the chronostratigraphic framework in eastern Africa a number of important advances have been reported. As more attention is paid to the different responses of food producers to the variety of resources provided by the range of available environments then, and only then, will we be in a position to understand the diachronic processes which result in settlement aggregation and urban development.

In the Lake Nyanza region at the hub of the Sudanic and Guinea–Congolian regional vegetation centres, early dates for iron working are not yet convincing enough to demonstrate independent invention of iron working, but the region is almost certainly the most important diffusion source of the technique to the eastern and southern sectors of the sub-continent.

Currently available data from the Maasai–Somali region show clearly the early adoption of food production techniques and a capacity to absorb iron technology without necessarily abandoning pastoral production. This did not, however, mean a lack of development based on agriculture as the towns of the Somali coast with their advanced craft production clearly show. However, it is interesting that the urban development seems closely linked to the juxtaposition of the valuable agricultural resources provided by the Shabelle river running close to the coast and the marine resources of the littoral.

The Zanzibar–Inhambane floral mosaic provides a context for the spread southwards of the early farming communities and for the development of the coastal towns. Particularly important here appears to have been the combination of surface and arboreal forms of agriculture with the exploitation of marine resources. Links eastwards with the specialized floral communities of the Comoro archipelago and Madagascar were also fully established. The highlands of Madagascar experienced the expansion from the eleventh century a.d. onwards of a settlement system increasingly focused upon hydraulic agriculture which culminated in the powerful Merina kingdom and ultimately the present day capital of Antananarivo.

On the continent relatively little penetration into the Zambezian miombo woodland communities was achieved by the coastal urban dwellers. In the woodlands of the vast highlands of the interior different developmental trajectories of settlement systems occurred. Here food production cannot be shown to have become established earlier than the late first millennium b.c. But by the mid first millennium a.d. significant settlement hierarchies based on mixed cropping and cattle keeping were established on the Zimbabwe plateau and the margins of the Kalahari. These together with the incorporation of the opportunities presented by inter-regional exchange and the exotic trade goods penetrating from the coast ultimately gave rise to the powerful state formations of the Mapungubwe and Zimbabwe traditions.

Together these developments show a remarkable degree of regional articulation and it remains true that an adequate understanding of the processes giving rise to urbanism in any part of eastern Africa cannot be understood in isolation.

Type
Archaeological Survey
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , July 1991 , pp. 179 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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49 St 11006.

50 St 9200 and St 9198.

51 St 9021.

52 St 9770, 9704 and 9705.

53 St 8194.

54 St 11005.

55 St 9194 and 9196.

56 St 11004.

57 St 9199.

58 St 9020.

59 St 8692.

60 St 9705.

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82 St 8873, 8874 and 8892.

83 St 8546 and 8547.

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130 Gif 4571, 4572, 4570 and TL 75.4AS.

131 Gif 4496.

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142 B 2243, 2241, 2242, 2239, 2240 and 10494; SMU 1433, 1434 and RL 1260.

143 B 10493.

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162 GX 11045, 5641A, 10620 and 11042.

163 GX 10619 and 10617.

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170 Har 8407.

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173 The author wishes to acknowledge the extensive assistance rendered by S. Davison and comments by Y. M. Juwayeyi in the writing of the following section.

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190 Davison-Hirschmann, ‘Fluctuations’.

191 Pta 3750, 3752 and 3754; Davison, pers. comm.

192 Har 4704; Crossley, R. S. and Davison-Hirschmann, S., ‘Hydrology and archaeology of Lake Malawi and its outlet during the Iron Age’, Paleoecology in Africa, XIII (1981), 123–6Google Scholar; idem, ‘High levels of Lake Malawi during the late Quarternary’, Paleoecology in Africa, XV (1982), 109–15; Crossley et al., ‘Lake levels’; Davison-Hirschmann, ‘Fluctuations’.

193 Pta 2803; R 4096; I 11852.

194 Pta 2804.

195 Har 4703; Pta 2805; Juwayeyi, Y., ‘The distribution of Longwe pottery sites in southern Malawi’, Nyame Akuma, XXVII (1986), 23–5.Google Scholar

196 Pta 3756 and 3757; Davison-Hirschmann, ‘Fluctuations’.

197 Har 4703 and 4702; Pta 3550 and 3534; Crossley and Davison-Hirschmann, ‘Hydrology’; idem, ‘High levels’; Davison-Hirschmann, ‘Fluctuations’; Davison-Hirschmann, S., ‘Deepening of trench GT II, Crocodile Gully, Namaso Bay’, unpublished internal research and site report, Department of Antiquities, Lilongwe (1980)Google Scholar; Crossley et al., ‘Lake level’.

198 Pta 3546; Davison-Hirschmann, ‘Deepening of trench’; idem, ‘Archaeological investigations into fluctuations of Lakes Malawi and Chilwa: second annual report on field season ending 31 March 1983’, unpublished internal research and site report, Department of Antiquities, Lilongwe (1983).

199 Har 4701; Pta 3316; Shaw, P., Crossley, R. and Davison-Hirschmann, S., ‘A major fluctuation in the level of Lake Chilwa, Malawi, during the Iron Age’, Paleoecology in Africa, XVI (1984), 391–5.Google Scholar

200 Davison, pers. comm.

201 Bisson, M., ‘The radiocarbon chronology of Luano’, Nyame Akuma, XXVIII (1987), 49–51Google Scholar; I 12606, 12603, 12643, 12605, 12641, 12604, 12601, 12642, 12602, 12645, 12644, 12646.

202 I 12645, 12644 and 12646.

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204 Vogel, J. O., ‘Micro-environments, swidden and the early Iron Age settlements of south-western Zambia’, Azania, XXI (1986), 85–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Iron Age farmers in southwestern Zambia: some aspects of spatial organisation’, Cambridge Review of African Archaeology, v (1987), 159–70.

205 Hall, M., The Changing Past: Farmers, Kings and Traders in Southern Africa, 200–1860 (Cape Town, 1987)Google Scholar; Huffman, T. N., ‘Iron age settlement patterns and the origins of class distinction in southern Africa’, Advances in World Archaeology, v (1986), 291–338.Google Scholar

206 Sinclair, P. J. J. and Lundmark, H., ‘A spatial analysis of archaeological sites from Zimbabwe’, in Hall, M., Avery, G., Avery, D. M., Wilson, M. L. and Humphreys, A. J. B. (eds.), Frontiers: Southern African Archaeology Today, BAR International Series 207 (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; Sinclair, ‘Space, time and social formation’.

207 Members of the research unit kindly provided the author with data in advance of publication.

208 Pwiti, G., ‘The Great Zimbabwe tradition in northern Zimbabwe: the Mutapa state’, in Sinclair, and Rakotoarisoa, (eds.), Madagascar Workshop.Google Scholar

209 Lu 3044, 3045 and 3046.

210 St 10949 and10948.

211 St 10944, 10946, 11521, 11522, 11523 and 11524.

212 Pikirayi, I., ‘The Portuguese phase of the later Iron Age in Zimbabwe’, in Sinclair, and Rakotoarisoa, (eds.), Madagascar Workshop.Google Scholar

213 Tagart, C., ‘A Zimbabwe period burial site’, Nyame Akuma, xxviii (1987), 54–6Google Scholar; R. Soper, pers. comm; UA 1302, 1303, 1304, 1305, 1306 and 1307.

214 Lu 3163 and 3164.

215 Sinclair, P. J. J., ‘Some aspects of the economic level of the Zimbabwe state’, Zimbabwea, 1 (1984), 48–53Google Scholar; Sinclair, ‘Space, time and social formation’.

216 Collett, pers. comm.; Murambiwa, I., ‘Stratigraphy and settlement pattern at Great Zimbabwe and Khami’, in Sinclair, and Rakotoarisoa, (eds.), Madagascar Workshop.Google Scholar

217 Collett, pers. comm.

218 Pta 1983, 2693, 2694, 2704, 2705, 2706 and 2711; W 774; M 913 and 915.

219 Apart from Pta 1983 and M913, which fall within the fourth and seventh centuries a.d.

220 Collett, pers. comm.

221 Pta 4169.

222 Finally, the present author, together, I am sure, with many others would like to pay tribute to two great pioneers in African archaeology, the late K. R. Robinson and J. Kirkman, whose contributions to building up the primary chronostratigraphic framework of south central and eastern Africa over the past 40 years remain in many ways unsurpassed.