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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | A Review of Swahili Archaeology |
| Author: | Chami, Felix A. |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Periodical: | African Archaeological Review |
| Volume: | 15 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 199-218 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | East Africa |
| Subjects: | Swahili archaeology prehistory history Anthropology and Archaeology |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021612012892 |
| Abstract: | The Swahili people have been viewed as of Persian/Arabic or Cushitic-speaking origin. Scholars have used historical and archaeological data to support this hypothesis. Recent archaeological surveys and the excavation of several sites on the central coast of Tanzania, however, have provided data for an alternative archaeological theory regarding the issues of Swahili origin. This archaeological effort began in 1990 and continues to date. It is from this archaeological work that a new perspective on the configuration and cultural sequence of the Swahili coast is advanced in this paper. It argues that it was the Bantu-speaking early farming people who settled on the East African coast in the last centuries BC who first adopted iron technology and sailing techniques and founded settlements. The culture of the iron-using people spread to the rest of the coast of East Africa, its centre changing from one place to another. Involvement in transoceanic trade from the early centuries AD contributed to the prosperity of the coastal communities as evidenced by coastal monuments. More than 1500 years of cultural continuity was offset by the arrival of European and Arab colonizers in the 17th and 19th centuries AD. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French. |
