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When did the Swahili become Maritime?

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Taken from: Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade, and the Colonization of Small Offshore Islands in Eastern African Prehistory by Alison Crowther, Patrick Faulkner, et al. 2016

 

While the emergence of a complex and urbanized maritime-oriented culture, featuring strong engagement with the wider Indian Ocean world, is undoubtedly unique to the Swahili era, we would argue from new evidence that the Swahili were not the first maritime focused culture on the eastern African coast. We propose that the Swahili culture needs to be situated within a long-term record of maritime adaptation across the region, one that is neither straightforwardly cumulative nor developmentally continuous.

 

In coastal eastern Africa, three major chronological and cultural sub-divisions of the Iron Age are broadly recognized: the EIA or pre-Swahili period (c. first–sixth centuries AD), traced archaeologically by the presence of bevel-rimmed Kwale ware ceramics; the MIA or proto-Swahili period (c. seventh–tenth centuries AD) associated with triangular-incised Early Tana Tradition ceramics and the florescence of Indian Ocean trade; and the Late Iron Age or Swahili period (c. eleventh–fifteenth centuries CE), which saw the transformation of many coastal villages into urban centers ruled by a cosmopolitan merchant elite (e.g., Chami 1994; Fleisher and Wynne-Jones 2011; Helm 2000a; Helm et al. 2012; Horton 1996b; LaViolette 2008).

 

The first phase belonged to the EIA and contained a rich assemblage of Kwale ceramics (including some near-complete vessels) in association with a dense midden deposit and very small quantities of slag from iron working. All diagnostic sherds found in this horizon were Kwale. No sherds belonging to any other contemporaneous ceramic tradition—eastern African or imported—were identified. ………….. The large quantity of high-quality decorated Kwale sherds (>40 kg in total), found in combination with evidence of iron-working as well as daub structures, are strongly suggestive of an Iron Age cultural affiliation.

 

Evidence of daub from all layers points to the former presence in our excavation area of small earth-and-thatch structures typical of Iron Age village settlements and, while not conclusive, are suggestive of permanent, year-round habitation rather than seasonal occupation.

 

Our radiocarbon dates suggest the Kwale occupation may have been quite short, possibly just one or two generations, with all three dates clustering between cal AD 385–540.

 

What stands out from our data is the overwhelming dominance of marine resources, such as molluscs and fish, at the Juani Primary School site, particularly during the EIA. In comparison, terrestrial food sources were quantitatively minor, with plant and animal domesticates being entirely or nearly absent from the EIA layers.

 

Alongside the foraging of shellfish, the Juani Primary School site produced evidence for fishing, with fish dominating the EIA vertebrate assemblage from all four trenches.

 

Approximately half of the cartilaginous fish vertebrae in each phase (18 and 3 NISP, respectively) are considered to be likely shark vertebrae based on the presence of well-defined pairs of dorsal and ventral foramina (Kozuch and Fitzgerald 1989). Although more specific identifications have not been possible at this stage, the possibility that there may be shark remains during an EIA occupation is particularly important because other evidence of shark exploitation occurs in late first millennium CE sites (e.g., Badenhorst et al. 2011; Quintana Morales and Prendergast in press; but see Shipton et al. in press) with a marked increase in shark exploitation and offshore fishing in the Swahili region in the second millennium.

Taken from: When Did the Swahili Become Maritime? By Jeffrey Fleisher, Paul Lane, Adria LaViolette, Mark Horton et all. American Anthropologist 2015.

 

Although the ancestors of the contemporary Swahili (a maritime society, to be sure [Prins 1965]) began living on the coast in the mid–first millennium C.E., we suggest that in practice they should be considered “maritime” only after circa C.E. 1000. We prove this by discussing:

- Abandonment or big changes in some coastal settlements in the tenth and 11th centuries C.E.

- Dissolution of a ceramic tradition that bridged coast and hinterland to more regional ceramics.

- Expansion of Swahili travel/fishing further into the Indian Ocean in the 11th and 12th centuries.

- Building shore-line protection.

- Accommodation of traders/goods.

- Mosques build at the shore’s edge.

 

Abandonment or big changes in some coastal settlements

Kilwa flourished from the 11th century onward as the endpoint of trade routes reaching from the interior, especially controlling gold from the Zimbabwe plateau en route to Indian Ocean destinations. In Manda, prosperous, with numerous buildings and extensive evidence of Indian Ocean trade; by C.E. 1100, ten percent of the domestic ceramics were imports, the highest on the coast, and the settlement covered 20–25 hectares (Horton 1986:207). At both sites in the tenth to 11th centuries: building in porites coral (cut from reefs) with mangrove-pole roof beams—both marine resources—and quarried limestone. At Manda, this was likely the result of Fatimid trading interests with the Swahili (Horton 1986:210) and Red Sea influence.

The five examples that follow suggest that if the 11^th century was one of increasing wealth, prosperity, and integration of new architectural technologies for some settlements, others experienced declining fortunes. Three important settlements were abandoned or depopulated by C.E. 1000: Unguja Ukuu, Chibuene, and Tumbe. Unguja Ukuu (Juma 2004; see also Dembeni in the Comoros, Wright 1984)

On Zanzibar Island dated to C.E. 500–900 and is the earliest documented coastal settlement with Early Tana Tradition (ETT)–Triangular Incised Ware (TIW) pottery. This pottery is found at similarly dated sites on the coast and in the hinterland, and it exhibits a high degree of homogeneity in forms, decoration, and assemblage composition (Fleisher and Wynne-Jones 2011). By C.E. 750, Unguja Ukuu grew to 17 hectares of earth-and-thatch houses. The settlement was abandoned in the tenth century (Juma 2004:154), perhaps due to fluctuating sea levels (see Punwong et al. 2013), with sporadic reoccupation from the late 11th century.

Chibuene (Sinclair et al. 2012), on the southern Mozambican coast, has a similar history: from C.E. 700–1000 it was a busy coastal village, the entry point for glass beads from India, the Middle East, and possibly South Asia with destinations to the interior (Sinclair et al. 2012:728–729). Chibuene’s prominence as a trade village diminished after C.E. 1000, and it was abandoned by 1300.

Tumbe on the north coast of Pemba Island, Tanzania, covered 20 to 30 hectares, with earth-and-thatch houses, evidence of diversified subsistence, and a rich material culture of local and imported goods from the seventh to tenth centuries C.E. (Fleisher and LaViolette 2013). Tumbe was then abruptly abandoned during the tenth century. Then, after a century of absence, an adjacent area was newly occupied. This settlement, Chwaka, grew into a prominent town during the dynamic 12th to 15th centuries on the coast ……

In two final examples, Shanga and Kaole, we see important changes in the 11th century. Mark Horton (1996) documents Shanga’s transformation from a mid-eighth century village into a 14th-century trading town, dense with stone-houses, mosques, and tombs until its 15th-century abandonment. Between C.E. 920–1050, many earlier earth and thatch buildings were rebuilt in porites coral, including the central mosque. These are all transformations we would expect from a thriving Swahili town, akin to Manda and Kilwa. But then a striking change signals internal reorganization: in the decades following the renovation, many porites buildings were robbed of stone, whereas new stone-houses were built (Horton 1996:402). This mid-11th-century disruption was soon followed by a re-emergence of building and prosperity through 1250 (Horton 1996:405). At Kaole, on the northern Tanzanian coast, we see similar architectural distinction at this time. Kaole comprises three sites. The first was a village (Kaole) abandoned before 1000; the second (Kaole Hill) was occupied from 800 to 1800; and the third (Kaole Ruins) was settled at 1100 (Chami 2002:31), with 56 stone tombs, two stone houses, and two mosques dating to 1200 and after. The onset of construction at Kaole Ruins after 1100 marks a similar temporal break to the abandonment of Tumbe, Unguja Ukuu, and Chibuene and the reorganization occurring at Shanga.

 

Note: What the authors want to prove here is that the growing wealth as well as the crises are mostly caused by what is happening in the Indian Ocean instead of the surrounding land and the forced adaptations to this in the settlements. Another example is Malindi which lasted from 850 to 1000AD to reappear only around 1250AD. Kilwa not only depending on the Ocean but also on the gold from the interior would experience a crisis from the end of the 15^th century when the gold trade shifted to the Zambezi River and so escaped the control of Kilwa.

 

Dissolution of a ceramic tradition

Patterns of local ceramic traditions and their distribution echo these changes, with the homogeneity of ETT–TIW pottery breaking down at circa C.E. 1000–1100 and the emergence of more regional variations of ceramic styles and forms found at coastal and hinterland settlements. By the 13th to 14th centuries, pottery traditions were exclusively regional (Fleisher andWynne-Jones 2011).

 

Expansion of Swahili fishing

Coastal dwellers have long exploited the rich resources where mangrove forests grow in estuarine environments, as is attested by numerous fish remains.

The occurrence of offshore-fish remains in the archaeological record after C.E. 1000 suggests that particular strategies and tools, such as boats, gillnets, and large handlines, were used to catch large offshore fish. Evidence from Shanga suggests that sharks were substantially exploited only after C.E. 1100 (Horton 1996:380; Horton and Mudida 1993:679). The pattern of shark exploitation is similar at Chibuene, where shark remains are found primarily in the late occupation levels after C.E. 1300 (Badenhorst et al. 2011). All evidence of offshore species from Chwaka, Mduuni, Mtambwe Mkuu, Ras Mkumbuu, Tumbatu, and SongoMnara are found in second-millennium deposits, while those sites dated to the first millennium, for example, Fukuchani and Unguja Ukuu, contain no offshore species.

 

Expansion of Swahili travel

Al-Masudi (916AD) mentions the use by Zanj people of crafts for towing or hunting sperm whales to collect ambergris.

At Sharma on the Hadrami coast, occupied circa 980–1150, excavations have revealed a high proportion of eastern African ceramics (12.5%) with strong parallels to those at Shanga. Used by emigrant Africans living in the settlement were the numerous burnt, globular cooking pots (76% of the African pottery; see Regert et al. 2008; Rougeulle 2004). Some Eastern African ceramics, mainly post-C.E. 1000 globular pots, also occur on the eastern Hadrami coast, in al-Shihr and smaller port towns (Hardy-Guilbert 2002; Rougeulle 2008), in al-Hamr al-Sharqiya on the southern Omani coast, and Suhar in Oman (Rougeulle 2007).

Ibn al-Mujawir, who travelled to Aden around 1230 suggested that people from “al-Qumr” (Madagascar), using outrigger canoes, travelled between Madagascar, Kilwa, Mogadishu, and Aden.

Yemeni sources confirm that, during the 13^th century, ships from Mogadishu made annual trips to Aden, al-Shihr, and other Hadramawt ports. Qadi Masud, living in Aden in the late 14th century, states that ships from “each small city of the Sawahil” brought goods to Brava, which were then shipped to Aden and the Hadramawt. And in 1336 a ship “from Kilwa,” loaded with rice, reached Aden (Vallet 2010:557–561).

 

Building shore-line protection

At Kilwa Kisiwani several stone sea and reclamation walls built in the 14th to 15th centuries (Chittick 1974:232) retain the midden cliff where the Malindi mosque, wells, warehouses, and probable merchant houses were once situated. Steps down from these cliffs and walkways to the intertidal area, where vessels could be anchored, have been recorded at Kilwa Kisiwani, Husuni Kubwa, and Songo Mnara (Pollard 2008a:100, 110; Pollard et al. 2012:52).

 

Note: the best known large sea-walls however are found in Manda build from 9^th to 13^th century.

 

Accommodation of traders/goods.

In stone houses guestrooms and courts are identified at excavated sites (Allen 1979:2; Garlake 1966; Horton 1996:60; Kirkman 1964; Wynne-Jones 2013).

At Shanga, the area of town most associated with commerce is the southerly portion, closest to the beach, a place where six out of the seven guest rooms identified are located (Horton 1996:62). Storerooms are also found in the center of Shanga stone houses (Horton 1996:60), a feature found also at Manda (Chittick 1984:41), Gede, and Songo Mnara (Allen 1979:23).