Crop and Animal Importation into East Africa.
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Taken from: The Establishment of Traditional Plantain Cultivation in the African Rain Forest: A Working Hypothesis by Edmond De Langhe 2007.
Because of the ecological restrictions of the plant its distribution into Africa after arriving on the East African coast (out of Indonesia around 1500BC to 500 BC) has to got to the eastern limits of the main rain forest (ie north to the Lake Victoria). The obvious obstacles are the steppe conditions in the Eastern Rift Valley and on the plateau of eastern Kenya and Tanzania. The latter could have been avoided in one or both of the following ways: either along the forest gallery of the Tana River, thus reaching the mountainous forest belt around Mount Kenya, or directly through the mountainous forest formations of the Usambara and Pare Hills, thus reaching the forests around Kilimanjaro. For the crop to get across the more than 100-kilometer-wide Rift Valley presupposes the existence of people interested in plantain as a food crop on both sides of the valley.
The semi-agriculturists living on the humid side of the mountain range stretching from the Usambara Hills to Kilimanjaro, as well as around mounts Kenya and Elgon. In such environments many Ensete ventricosum (=wild banana) plants were (and still are) thriving on the humid slopes. These people may then have been familiar with Ensete corm manipulation for food and would rapidly have grasped the significance of banana and taro suckers (De Langhe et al 1994–95). Since they would have been settled on the humid mountain slopes all over the region, they could have facilitated the transfer across the steppes of not only plantain but other Southeast Asian crops as well, such as taro (Colocasia esculenta) and the water yam (Dioscorea alata).
The above considerations suggest that plantains were carried across East Africa along or within the mountain forest patches, rather than along rivers such as the Tana.
Taken from: East Africa and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean world by Nicole Boivin et all. 2013
The Arrival of Agriculture on the East African Coast
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It is postulated that sorghum and pearl millet were obtained by Bantu speakers from Central Sudanian (Nilo-Saharan) speaking groups, somewhere around the northern area of Great Lakes Africa (southern Sudan, western Kenya, Uganda) (e.g. Phillippson 1993; Schoenbrun 1993). Such Sudanian groups are postulated to have been migrating southwards from a zone of early farming in the savannas of northern/central Sudan. Finger millet, is a later addition on account of its diverse linguistic forms. Most finds of crops come from the first millennium AD and onward, suggesting that a Bantu association for the spread of cereal farming down eastern Africa remains plausible.
Livestock were both introduced from southwest Asia (sheep [Ovis aries], goat [Capra hircus], and taurine cattle [Bos taurus]), and also probably domesticated in Africa (Bos africanus; Wendorf and Schild 1994; Marshall and Hildebrand 2002; cf. Grigson 2000). Livestock had reached the region around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya by 4000–3000 BC, but only arrived on the Ethiopian Plateau after 3000 BC. It is not clear when these species reached the East African coast.
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The earliest evidence for these animals is at Unguja Ukuu on Zanzibar, where cattle (Bos Taurus/indicus), sheep and goat have all been identified in contexts dating from the sixth to mid eighth centuries AD (Juma 2004). They appear at mainland sites from around the seventh to eighth centuries AD onwards, and in the first urban settlements found on the Comoros Islands and Madagascar, dating to the late ninth—early tenth centuries. At Shanga cattle, sheep and goat appeared about a century after the chicken, which were present from first occupation of the site in the late eighth century (Horton and Mudida 1996). The sequence from nearby Pate records the infrequent presence of both cattle and chicken from earliest occupation levels (mid eighth to ninth century AD), although neither becomes established until the late tenth—early eleventh century (Wilson and Omar 1997).
The process of cattle hybridization with introduced Indian zebu cattle (Bos indicus), which produced the Sanga breeds, appears to have taken place in the Great Lakes region of East Africa, beginning before the end of the first millennium BC (Marshall 1989). A major input of zebu may have taken place via maritime routes (Gifford-Gonzalez and Hanotte 2011), starting in the Swahili period.
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The only Bos indicus remains from the coastal region that pre-date the mid second millennium AD are from sites on the Comoros Islands (Allibert et al. 1989) and northwest Madagascar (Radimilahy 1998), where zebu cattle appear to have been introduced by the early urban settlement phase in the ninth and tenth centuries AD.
Pig:The only confirmed evidence for the presence of domestic pig (domesticated in Eurasia and North Africa) in the study region is at Mahilaka on Madagascar, where the earliest remains were recovered from the second occupation phase (Ib), dating to around the eleventh–thirteenth centuries AD (Radimilahy 1998). Tentative finds have been reported at Unguja Ukuu on Zanzibar (sixth to mid eighth century) (Juma 2004) and M’Bachile on Grande Comores (ninth–tenth centuries) (Redding and Goodman 1984).
Camel is being reported in Shanga, Manda and Pate, where it first occurs in the ninth century AD but is most common by around the eleventh century AD (Chittick 1984; Horton 1996a; Wilson and Omar 1997). It was also noted by al-Mas’udi that camels were absent from the coastal settlements that he visited in the early tenth century.
The three major African cereals introduced to East Africa have distinct geographical origins. The origin of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is usually placed in the northeastern savannas of Africa, such as Chad, Sudan or Ethiopia (Fuller 2003; Stemler et al. 1975), present by perhaps 2000 BC.
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Meanwhile pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) comes from the Sahel zone of West Africa (Brunken et al. 1977; Fuller 2003; Kahlheber and Neumann 2007), with confirmed archaeobotanical evidence from the second half of the third millennium BC in northeast Mali (Manning et al. 2011). Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) was probably brought into cultivation somewhere between the uplands of Ethiopia and the Great Lakes region of East Africa. Recent sampling at cave sites in Rwanda indicates that finger millet was a widespread crop from at least the eighth century AD (Giblin and Fuller 2011). Elsewhere in East Africa, a single grain of domesticated finger millet was reported from Deloraine (near Nakuru) in Kenya from cal AD 800 deposits (Ambrose et al. 1984), and finds by this date are also known from eastern South Africa. Although direct dating evidence is still lacking, ceramic typologies date the finds to at least the seventh century AD (Helm et al. 2012). Tentative finds of sorghum and finger millet have also been reported at the Chibuene site on the southern coast of Mozambique, also from around the seventh century AD (Ekblom 2004). On Pemba Island the site of Tumbe included the three pan-African cereals from the earliest levels, also dating back to the seventh century AD (Walshaw 2005, 2010). Similar patterns occur in seventh–ninth century levels at Unguja Ukuu on Unguja Island, and first to early second millennium sites in the Mikindani area of southern Tanzania, although finger millet is thus far absent from the Zanzibar assemblages (Crowther et al. unpublished data; Pawlowicz 2011).
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On Pemba, the importance of these African cereals declined with the rise of Asian crops (rice, mung bean, cotton) from around the eleventh century (Walshaw 2010). In contrast to the pattern seen on the coast and offshore islands, in Madagascar and the Comoros, preliminary evidence suggests that African crops are absent from initial settlement onwards, with Asian crops dominating instead.
Rice
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Archaeobotanical evidence for rice in East Africa is still relatively limited. While recent archaeobotanical evidence from Pemba and Zanzibar suggests that rice is present from early in the Swahili period, it is a rare find at the earlier Swahili sites of Tumbe and Unguja Ukuu (both dating between the seventh and tenth centuries AD), and only becomes a staple after AD 1000, as demonstrated at the later site of Chwaka on Pemba (Crowther et al. unpublished data; Walshaw 2010).
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Sites on the East African mainland have yet to offer direct evidence for rice cultivation, although this pattern probably reflects a sampling bias, given that most archaeobotany has been undertaken on the offshore islands, the Comoros and Madagascar. Recent work in the Kenyan coastal hinterland, at mainly cave/rock-shelter and Early Iron Age sites, however, has so far produced no evidence for rice (Helm et al. 2012). While archaeobotanical evidence from mainland sites is rare, both ethnohistorical and ethnographic evidence support the impression that as Swahili stone towns increased in number and influence, rice became the staple grain of choice (LaViolette 2008). The shift to rice-based food-ways after the eleventh century on Pemba appears to correlate with increasing urbanization and new forms of pottery, and the evidence as a whole has been taken to suggest the emergence of new forms of ritual feasting that served to advance political and trade activities (Fleisher 2003; Walshaw 2010) and further differentiate the Swahili from inland communities (LaViolette 2008). The consumption of rice on the Swahili coast is possibly also linked to increasing conversions to Islam and other processes of ‘Arabisation’ that would have facilitated and promoted Indian Ocean trade (LaViolette 2008; Walshaw 2010).
Coconut
Linguistic studies indicate the arrival of coconut to Madagascar with early Austronesian settlers (Allibert 2008; Beaujard 2011), while archaeobotanical analyses support its presence on Pemba, the Comoros and mainland Tanzania by the sixth to eighth centuries. A variety of genetic studies have suggested the presence of two genetically distinct coconut groups, corresponding to the Pacific Ocean basin on the one hand and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans on the other (Gunn et al. 2011; Lebrun et al. 1998; Perera et al. 2003; Teulat et al. 2000). Admixture appears to be the result of direct East African–Austronesian contact, with admixed coconuts predominating along the trade route connecting East Africa and Madagascar to Southeast Asia. A second route of introgression corresponds with the regular voyages between the Arabian Peninsula/Persia and the East African Swahili world, and is also supported by linguistic (Allibert 2008) and genetic (Perera et al. 2011a) evidence.
Cotton
Cotton (Gossypium)(=tree cotton) have also been found at sites on Pemba and Zanzibar (Crowther et al. unpublished data; Walshaw 2005). Cotton is found in particularly large quantities from around the eleventh century AD (Walshaw 2005). These plant data support the evidence from archaeology suggesting that right from their origins in the second half of the first millennium AD, the Swahili cultures of the East African coast were involved in Indian Ocean trade networks. Cotton was produced locally as well as imported from India.