Use of Zanzibar copal (Hymenaea verrucosa Gaertn.) as incense at Unguja Ukuu, Tanzania in the 7–8th century CE: chemical insights into trade and Indian Ocean interactions

Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade, and the Colonization of Small Offshore Islands in Eastern African Prehistory

“…Archaeological research in other regions, such as the Pacific, has shown that such networks were crucial to ensuring the successful exploration and colonization of new island landscapes (e.g., Kirch 1988), and they may have played a similar role for migrating eastern African Iron Age groups. Until more systematic research is conducted at other EIA sites on the coast and islands to establish if shell beads were traded in this way, our proposal remains hypothetical, but we note that it is consistent with evidence of local interaction among mainland EIA communities who appear to have traded iron, copal (resin), and other goods (Chami 1992; see also discussion in Crowther et al 2015). It is also noteworthy that pierced cowrie shells have also been found at EIA sites in Rwanda, demonstrating evidence of coast-interior links at this time (Giblin et al 2010).…”

“…We focus on the results of our recent archaeological investigations at the Juani Primary School site in the Mafia Archipelago, which was one of the few island groups off the eastern African coast to be colonized during this initial Iron Age phase. In contrast, the first secure evidence of the settlement of the Lamu and Zanzibar Archipelagoes, as well the more distant Comoros, dates to no earlier than the seventh-eighth centuries AD (e.g., Crowther et al 2015;Fleisher and LaViolette 2013;Horton 1996b;Wright et al 1984Wright et al , 1992. Our excavations at the Juani Primary School site comprise the first attempt to systematically recover and analyze high-resolution zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical evidence from any coastal EIA site, allowing us to understand more fully how these early farming groups adapted socially and economically to their new littoral setting.…”

Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure

“…The specimen is directly dated to 1370–1303 calBP (1479 ± 23 BP, OxA-31427), thus placing it at the beginning of the MIA phase. While Kuumbi Cave is interpreted as a forager site, elsewhere on the island at this time, large settlements such as Unguja Ukuu emerge, occupied by farmers whose origins are likely on the mainland (Crowther et al, 2015; Juma, 2004). …”

Reinvestigation of Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar, reveals Later Stone Age coastal habitation, early Holocene abandonment and Iron Age reoccupation

“…These findings, particularly the identification of a coastal Neolithic and the early spread of chicken, have, however, been questioned (Sinclair 2007;Dueppen 2011;see also Sutton 2002), necessitating new data from Kuumbi Cave. A re-examination of Kuumbi Cave was accordingly undertaken by the Sealinks Project in 2012, as part of wider investigations of eastern Africa's coastal prehistory and early trade connections (Helm et al 2012;Boivin et al 2013Boivin et al , 2014Shipton et al 2013;Crowther et al 2014Crowther et al , 2015). …”