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

Crowther, Alison, Faulkner, Patrick, Prendergast, Mary, Quintana Morales, Erendira, Horton, Mark and Wilmsen, Edwin (2016) Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade, and the Colonization of Small Offshore Islands in Eastern African Prehistory. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 11 (2). pp. 211-237. ISSN 1556-4894 1556-1828

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Abstract

Recent archaeological research has firmly established eastern Africa's offshore islands as important localities for understanding the region's pre-Swahili maritime adaptations and early Indian Ocean trade connections. While the importance of the sea and small offshore islands to the development of urbanized and mercantile Swahili societies has long been recognized, the formative stages of island colonization and in particular the processes by which migrating Iron Age groups essentially became maritime are still relatively poorly understood. Here we present the results of recent archaeological fieldwork in the Mafia Archipelago, which aims to understand these early adaptations and situate them within a longer-term trajectory of island settlement and pre-Swahili cultural developments. We focus on the results of zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, and material culture studies relating to early subsistence and trade on this island to explore the changing significance of marine resources to the local economy. We also discuss the implications of these maritime adaptations for the development of local and long-distance Indian Ocean trade networks.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	fishing, Iron Age, Late Holocene, Mafia Archipelago, maritime adaptation, Pre-Swahili
Divisions:	Cultural Heritage Institute
Depositing User:	Professor Mark Horton
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2024 18:16
Last Modified:	29 Nov 2024 16:53
URI:	https://rau.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/16283

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