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Uganda: Ntusi, Munsa, Kibiro.
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Although neither place is mentioned in any Medieval written source they are important as they show the extended reach of Swahili trade most probably from the Kenyan coast into the very center of Africa.
Munsa
Taken from: Late-Holocene environmental variability at Munsa archaeological site, Uganda: A multicore, multiproxy approach by B.J. Lejju, D. Taylor, P. Robertshaw.
The archaeological site at Munsa occupies about 1 km2 of land including Bikegete, a granite outcrop. The site consists of settlement debris, burials, rock-shelters and evidence of iron working, grain storage and the consumption of cattle centered upon Bikegete and surrounded by three concentric rings of earthworks in the form of trenches. A substantial human population occupied the site at Munsa towards the end of the first millennium AD. Early inhabitants participated in long-distance exchange networks: glass beads and a copper bangle adorn skeletons in burials of AD 900 - 1200 (Robertshaw, 1997). The glass beads must have reached Munsa via the Indian Ocean, since chemical analysis points to a South Asian origin for the glass (Robertshaw, Glascock and Wood, unpublished data, 2004), while a possible source of the copper bangle is the Katanga region, some 2000 km to the south. Iron working, including at least one furnace on Bikegete, is particularly evident between about AD 1200 and 1400 (Robertshaw, 1997). Excavations at Munsa have yielded animal bones dominated by those of cattle, in addition to the remains of other animals (D.A.M. Reid, personal communication, 2004), together with numerous pits, almost certainly used initially for grain storage, as well as grindstones and pottery, all of which indicate cereal agriculture. The earthworks at Munsa appear to have been constructed sometime between about AD 1400 and 1650 Robertshaw, 1997, 2001) and, as at other sites in Uganda (e.g., Bigo and Kibengo), their construction may relate to the emergence in the region of complex chiefdoms (Robertshaw, 1999a,b; Robertshaw and Taylor, 2000), founded upon agriculture but with some cattle. Permanent settlement at Munsa ceased around the end of the seventeenth century AD.
A number of factors contradict the interpretation that the earthworks (trenches) were constructed to protect from human invaders, foremost among them is the fact that the overall great length of the outer ditch system is such that it would be logistically impossible to guard. Rather than protect from human invaders, it has been suggested that the outer earthworks were constructed to keep elephants from damaging agricultural crops, while the central earthworks were constructed to protect the site's rulers from attack, while serving as places where trade goods were redistributed, as well as being demonstrations of organizational skills and having a symbolic function related to the power associated with those who lived within the earthworks.
Ntusi
Taken from: Wikipedia; Ntusi; Unesco; World Heritage Convention: Ntusi (man-made mounds and Basin).
There are three archaeological features within the Ntusi village which deserve recognition and preservation. These are the two man-made mounds which are locally known as Ntusi male and Ntusi female and the basin also known as Bwogero that dates from the tenth century to the fifteenth century AD. Ntusi village of a 1 km square, is a unique example of an island of heavy archaeological depositions of Later Iron Age.
Archaeological excavations which have been carried out at both the Ntusi mounds have shown 4-metre depositions from their bases to the apexes of bone and pottery mixed with stones broken grindstones carbonized sorghum seeds, and other household refuse and ash. Throughout the village there are pottery scatters and bone. Large pots were excavated which suggested that underground storage of food stuffs was practised. Ntusi male mound excavations in 1988 showed that the buildup of the mound was more complicated than the previous excavations had indicated. The excavated material remains were similar to those in the female mound, but in addition to the household debris, curved iron knives and ornamental goods were recovered as well. The upper layers of the mound revealed carved ivory, ostrich eggshell beads, glass beads, and copper trade goods. There was also evidence for iron working coming from beads made from ostrich eggshell, fragments of ivory, traces of circular houses, glass beads, and cowrie-shell beads indicating contact with the Indian Ocean.
Kibiro
Taken from: Wikipedia: Kibiro.
Residents of Kibiro support themselves primarily through the production and trade of salt and this for the last 700 years.
At the site of Kibiro there were pottery sherds found. There have been: sherds of pottery, stone grinders, grindstones, occasionally there have been beads, smoking-pipe fragments, cowry shells, pieces of freshwater shell and scraps of bone, both mammal and fish.
Some of the other items that were found were iron, pieces of smoking pipes, as well as beads. And then later in the deposits there were ivory beads and a glass bead as well.
Taken from: Kibiro: The Salt of Bunyoro, Past and Present by Graham Connah 1996
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Apart from the rare cowry shells that must have come from the east coast of Africa, only the presence of smoking pipes and rare glass beads presumably indicates some tenuous contact with the outside world. The single item of copper (or its alloy) could have had an origin within or near the Western Rift. The cowry shells at Kibiro were nearly all in late contexts, and the stratigraphy of smoking - pipe fragments, with one possible exception, did not suggest that they predated the last three or four hundred years. Only the glass beads appeared in earlier contexts, notably with the burial in Cutting III, which has been attributed to around the fourteenth century A.D.