This paper describes the excavation of a cave used for funerary purposes in the Mtoroshanga district of Rhodesia. The cave was found to contain a large quantity of skeletal material and pottery, together with the personal ornaments of the persons interred there. The physical type represented is similar to that of the modern Bantu-speaking peoples of Southern Africa. Bodies had been placed in the cave surrounded by pottery—although pottery, unlike the skeletal material, which was ubiquitous, was mainly placed towards the entrance of the cave. Quantities of palm-leaf and bark-cloth matting used for wrapping round the bodies of the persons interred were found. Conus shell end-whorls and glass beads indicate trade links with the outside world.

There are two superimposed funerary layers in the cave, both belonging to the same culture, but at different stages of its development. The earlier layer has been dated by radicarbon dating methods to approximately the late 13th or early 14th century A.D. Prior to its use for funerary purposes, the cave had been briefly occupied for other purposes by people of the same culture.

The ceramics of the site indicate that it belongs to a culture newly recognized in Rhodesia with a fairly wide distribution in the north-east of the country. Cultural affinities lie with Zambia and Malawi, rather than with the contemporary Zimbabwe culture, whose expansion, indeed, probably put an end to the occupation of the Mtoroshanga area by the people of the ossuary.

In 1700 reports from Tripoli reached the congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome that Christians, ‘little or uninstructed in the Faith’, were living in Bornu. Further enquiries revealed that these rumours related not to the kingdom of Bornu, but to a neighbouring, rival kingdom, that of ‘Gourourfa’ or ‘Carnorfa’. Two sons of the ruler of Bornu, interviewed in Cairo, stated that in ‘Canorfa’ there were people ‘who venerate the Cross and erect it over the houses and churches’, while the French Consul at Tripoli reported how he had seen slaves from ‘Gouroufa’ who made the sign of the Cross. In June 1710 two Franciscans, attempting to establish contact with these ‘Christians’, set out from Tripoli, passed through Murzuk and Agades, and were later reported to have died in Katsina in August 1711.

Hausa and Bornu sources indicate that these reports almost certainly referred to the Kwararafa, who on several occasions in the seventeenth century attacked Kano and Bornu. It is then pointed out that a Maltese cross was one of the motifs still used in the twentieth century as a decoration by an Aku of Wukari, a ruler of the Jukun, who are among the principal survivors of the Kwararafa. At least a section of the inhabitants of Wukari also preserved a clearly remembered tradition of having taken part in a migratory journey from the Nilotic Sudan to the Benue. It is suggested therefore that the reports of the French consul and the Franciscans, although garbled and consisting in the main of second-hand evidence, strengthen the possibility that the Maltese crosses used among the Jukun, in Nupe and at Benin indicate an influence which emanated originally from Christian Nubia and is perhaps connected with the Kisra traditions.

The recurrence of revivalist movements in Islamic history can be partially explained by the inability of a Muslim Community in disarray to transform da¯r al-ḥarb into da¯r al-Isla¯;m—a doctrinal obligation fundamental to Muslim ideology since the death of the Prophet Muḥammad. Attitudes towards the problems of Islam in nineteenth-century West Africa were decidedly revivalist. While Middle Eastern reformists of the same period were attempting to meet the challenge of the West by restating the basic principles of Islam in the light of the contemporary situation, West African revivalists sought a return to the same basic principles—but not in order to accommodate or adjust, but rather to rediscover and revive; not so much to face the challenge of the West, but rather to confront the incursions of syncretism and polytheism. Recourse was made to the classic technique of the jiha¯d fī sabīl Alla¯h—a three-stage process of revival beginning with the spiritual jiha¯d and culminating with the temporal jiha¯d. The popular expectations that the final triumph of Islam over infidelity would be accomplished by a messianic figure in the thirteenth century of the Hijra helped to create a favourable climate for the emergence of several would-be revivalists. But the success of their movements was contingent upon their reputations for sanctity, their abilities as preachers and teachers, and their capabilities as political organizers. The jihads of ‘Uthma¯n b. Fūdī and al- Ḥa¯jj ‘Umar b. Sa'īd were both characterized by a conscious and deliberate effort to reproduce the career of the Prophet in a West African environment. If the Prophet had sought at first to bring about the implementation of the new Islamic dispensation by non-violent means, so also did Shaykh ‘Uthma¯n and Ḥa¯jj ‘Umar initially seek to reimplement that dispensation by aggressive but peaceful exhortations; and if the Prophet had received authorization from Allah to take the jiha¯d into a military phase, in imitation of the Prophetic model, Shaykh ‘Uthmān and Ḥājj ‘Umar awaited divine sanction for the more overt phase of their jiha¯ds.

In nineteenth-century Egypt Circassian females were mostly kept in the harems of wealthy Turks, the concubines of ‘middle class’ Egyptians generally were Abyssinians, while male and female Negro slaves were used for domestic service by almost all layers of Egyptian society. In addition to domestic service, black slaves were used as soldiers by Egypt's rulers and, contrary to the prevalent assumption, as agricultural workers on the farms of the Muḥammad Alī family and elsewhere in Upper Egypt and during periods of prosperity and shortage of labour also in Lower Egypt. Apparently there were at least 30,000 slaves in Egypt at different times of the nineteenth century, and probably many more.

White slaves were brought to Egypt from the eastern coast of the Black Sea and from the Circassian settlements of Anatolia via Istanbul. Brown and black slaves were brought (a) from Darfur to Asyūṭ, directly or through Kordofan; (b) from Sennar to Isnā; (c) from the area of the White Nile; (d) from Bornu and Wadāy via Libya and the Western Desert; (e) from Abyssinia and the East African coast through the Red Sea. The slave dealers in Egypt were mainly people from Upper Egypt and the Oases, beduin and villagers of the Buḥayra province. They were divided into dealers in black and in white slaves and organized in a guild with a shaykh. Cairo was the great depot of slaves and the centre of the trade, but a very important occasion for trading in slaves was the annual mawlid of Ṭanṭā.

Official measures taken against the slave-trade were among the important causes for the final disappearance of slavery in Egypt. These were, amongst others, the appointment of foreigners, mainly British, as governors of the Sudan and commanders of special missions to suppress the trade; two Anglo-Egyptian conventions, of 1877 and of 1895, for the suppression of slavery; and, from 1877 on, the establishment of offices and later a special service for the fight against the trade and for the manumission of slaves. However, were it not for the internal development of Egyptian society, these measures could never have succeeded; this is illustrated by the tremendous obstacles they encountered and their ineffectiveness for a long time. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century most of these impediments vanished. In addition to the Mahdist revolution and the reconquest of the Sudan, the most important change was the emergence of a free labour market as a result of accelerated urbanization and the collapse of the guild system. At the same time a small but important section of Egyptians had changed their attitudes towards slavery as a result of their cultural contact with Europe.

It is thought that the conquest of the Sudan by Muhammad Ali was motivated primarily by the legendary gold of the Sudan and by the need for manpower for the newly formed Nizam-I-Jadid (the new army). Because of Egypt's involvements in Syria and Arabia in the 1830s, the need for more funds and manpower for the army had increased considerably. The most promising areas for minerals, trade, and slave hunting bordered on the Ethiopian plateau. Those areas were inhabited by a mixed Hamitic and Negroid population, many of whom were Muslims and pagans. These people, although in many cases they did not realize it, were considered by some of the Ethiopian border lords to be their subjects, since the Ethiopian concept of a border was not that of a dividing line but of undefined areas stretching into their neighbours' lands.

The situation in Ethiopia in the first half of the nineteenth century was generally conducive to an Egyptian conquest. The internal wars which had been gaining momentum ever since the middle of the eighteenth century expedited the fragmentation of the country, weakened most of the important provincial rulers, and exhausted the population. The revival of Islam in the beginning of the nineteenth century had an immediate impact upon Ethiopia. Islam was spread in the interior by the trading caravans monopolized by Muslim merchants, and found many followers among the Galla tribes of Ethiopia. Moreover, the actual rulers of the country were the Galla chiefs who had been the guardians of the puppet emperors in Gondar since the end of the eighteenth century; and as they feared the growing pressure of Tigrean and Amhara Christian lords, they were ready, if necessary, to invite the Egyptians to enter Ethiopia. However, the reappearance of European powers in the Red Sea at the beginning of the nineteenth century not only facilitated the acquisition of quantities of firearms by Tigrean and Amhara lords, but above all curbed the expansionist tendencies of Egypt in the direction of Ethiopia. Thus, until the middle of the nineteenth century Egypt had only limited objectives in Ethiopia, namely to establish its authority over the mineral-rich areas on the slopes of the Ethiopian plateau and to control the caravan routes and the outlets of the seemingly rich Ethiopian trade. Nevertheless, the ground was prepared for the clash between Egypt and Ethiopia in the period of Khedive Ismail.

The Kwahu, an Akan people living on the eastern border of Ashanti in Ghana, are well known for their business activities. An enquiry into the reasons for their predominance among the largest shopkeepers by turnover in Accra traced the history of Kwahu business activities back to the British—Ashanti War of 1874, when the Kwahu broke away from the Ashanti Confederacy. The Kwahu trade with the north in slaves was replaced by the rubber trade, which continued until 1914. Rubber was carried to the coast for sale, and fish, salt, and imported commodities, notably cloth, were sold on the return journey north. Other Kwahu activities at this time included trading in local products and African beads.

The development of cocoa in south-eastern Ghana provided opportunities for enterprising Kwahu traders to sell there the imported goods obtained at the coast. Previously itinerant traders, the Kwahu began to settle for short periods in market towns. In the 1920s, the construction of the railway from Accra to Kumasi, growing road transportation, and the establishment inland of branches of the European firms reduced the price differences which had made trading inland so profitable.

In the 1930S the spread of the cocoa disease, swollen shoot, in the hitherto prosperous south-east, finally turned Kwahu traders' attention to Accra.

Trading remained the most prestigious of Kwahu activities, and young men sought by whatever means they could to save the necessary capital to establish a shop. But Kwahu traders very rarely developed beyond one-man businesses. Profits were siphoned off into buildings and farms which would provide security for times of sickness and old age. (In this respect the Kwahu are typical of Ghanaian entrepreneurs, with some exceptions.)

There is little evidence that this enterprising group of people can provide the new entrepreneurial organization or capital required by a developing country.

One of the crucial reasons for the failure of British policy in South Africa during the Reconstruction period was an acute shortage of African labour for the mines, which were therefore unable to support a large English-speaking immigrant community. According to the prevailing economic beliefs, there was a fairly rigid ratio between the numbers of unskilled coloured workers and of skilled white workers which the mines could employ, so that the scarcity of African labour did inhibit the mines from expanding their white labour force.

The reasons for this scarcity include the deplorable physical conditions in which labourers lived and worked, and the unusually large demands for African labour in other sectors of the economy. British policy also, inadvertently, put less pressure on Transvaal Africans to take industrial or agricultural employment. However, the scarcity of labour was noticeable not only within British South Africa, but more especially outside its borders, where Africans seem to have been more reluctant than usual to take employment in the mines. It is possible to argue that the shortage was caused partly by the disillusionment of the workers as a result of their experience of British administration, and partly by a fairly extensive determination to withhold labour until conditions were improved. Such an interpretation is compatible with the facts of the case, though impossible at this stage to prove.

Whatever the reasons for the scarcity, the result was the importation of Chinese labour to supplement the existing unskilled labour force. The well-documented complaints of the Chinese labour throw some light on the treatment of African labour. The Chinese also undercut the wages paid to Africans, who lost their commanding position as unconscious arbiters of the success of mining. Further, the Chinese were employed in terms of a very restrictive contract, whose terms were later extended to cover African labour as well, with the result that the industrial colour-bar was solidified at a time when white labour was in control of an unusually large area of employment.

This article examines the organization of the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905–7 in German East Africa, utilizing Professor T. O. Ranger's analyses of other rebellions in East and Central Africa. The rising began in the Rufiji Valley as a peasant protest against a scheme, imposed by the German authorities, for communal cotton growing. But like other African rebellions against early colonial rule, the movement acquired an ideological content from prophetic religious leaders. This ideology enabled the rising to spread far beyond the Rufiji Valley and gave a degree of unity to diverse peoples. Two religious systems were involved. In the Rufiji Valley, the first rebels received a water-medicine from the ministers of the spirit Kolelo. This maji became the symbol of unity and commitment. The expansion of the movement beyond the nuclear area probably followed a pattern of recurrent millenarian movements whose chief object was to eradicate sorcery. Such a movement implied a challenge to established tribal authorities, and was seen by them as such a threat. As the rising spread, it entered areas of stronger tribal organization and also lost something of its revolutionary character. In consequence, the later rebels utilized tribal organization. This development, it is argued, conflicted with the original purpose of overcoming past political and cultural divisions in order to achieve more effective resistance to European rule. Thus, it is suggested, the rebellion demonstrated a tension between ideology and political and cultural reality which is characteristic of mass movements, including later nationalist movements.

This list contains many scattered dates, most of them from sites either provisionally dated from other sources, or recently excavated. An important series of dates from the Sahara confirm earlier readings for food production in that area. The Daima sequence from Nigeria is dated from the middle of the first millennium A.D. to the closing centuries of the Iron Age.

In East and Southern Africa, two important early Iron Age dates from Kenya have been released. Four dates for Ivuna salt-pans place the site as slightly later than the closing stages of the Kalambo Falls sequence. Two more problematical dates for Engaruka have been announced, as well as a date of A.D. 410 for the Iron Age in Swaziland.

All dates given in this and subsequent lists are radiocarbon ages, rather than readings in calendar years.