Early Seafarers of the Comoro Islands: the Dembeni Phase of the IXth-Xth Centuries AD

Abstract

Although previous volumes of Azania have carried articles and notes on Madagascar and Mozambique as well as allusions to the Comoro Islands (as in Derek Nurse's study of Swahili linguistic history in XVIII), this is the first article specifically on the Archipelago. Being concerned with the earliest recognised human settlements on the Comores, which show similarities to the earliest levels at Kilwa, Manda and Shanga on the African coast with their maritime connections with the Persian Gulf, the article is especially appropriate in Azania, even more so this year to coincide with the publication of the late Neville Chittick's Manda (BIEA Memoir 9). Those scholars who have recently been questioning received wisdom that Qanbalu was on Pemba and suggesting instead its location on the Comores may search for support in this article, but the author advises caution at this stage.

Especially valuable is the food-crop evidence recovered. The indication of Setaria (‘foxtail millet’) is perhaps unexpected. Although its use is recorded recently in both East and West Africa, it appears never to have been a major crop on the continent. The evidence of Asian rice and coconut, though not unexpected, may be the earliest yet obtained for the south-western part of the Indian Ocean (that is if we follow modern critics' rejection of the interpolation of coconut-oil in texts of the Periplus). Equally interesting is Professor Wright's recognition of house-building materials and shapes.

The author, whose archaeological field experience includes Iran as well as Madagascar and the Comores, is at the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.