Fifty years in the archaeology of the eastern African coast: a methodological history

Abstract

Research on the archaeology of the coast of eastern Africa is closely associated with the earliest days of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and in many ways quickly became synonymous with the Institute's journal — Azania. This is not surprising given that Neville Chittick, the first Director of the Institute and initial editor of Azania, was most actively engaged with research on the eastern African Swahili coast. Since those early years, many researchers have described the changing paradigms of coastal archaeology, often through the lens of wider political and theoretical changes and framed with reference to periods of colonialism, independence and post-colonialism. In this paper, we seek instead to document and describe the methodological and analytical changes that have occurred in the archaeology of eastern Africa over the decades that Azania has been published. We focus on three broad methodological areas and chart their emergence, use and transformation over time: urban archaeology, ceramics and typology and survey and reconnaissance. We then offer a discussion of the diversity of current methodologies and the introduction of scientific techniques and how they have served to shape the type of questions that can be asked and answered. Finally, we call for a continued commitment to local dissemination for coastal researchers: a job for which Azania retains its important role.

La recherche sur l'archéologie de la côte de l'Afrique orientale est étroitement associée avec les premiers jours du British Institute in Eastern Africa, et devint rapidement synonyme à bien des égards de la revue de cet institut, Azania. Cet état de choses ne surprend pas, étant donné que Neville Chittick, premier directeur de l'Institut et éditeur initial d’Azania, était activement engagé dans des recherches sur la côte swahili de l'Afrique de l'Est. Depuis ces premières années, de nombreux chercheurs ont décrit l'évolution des paradigmes de l'archéologie de cette côte, et ce souvent à travers le prisme des changements politiques et théoriques plus larges et dans un cadre axé sur les périodes de la colonisation, de l'Indépendance et du post-colonialisme. Dans cet article, nous cherchons par contre à documenter et décrire les changements méthodologiques et analytiques qui ont pris place au sein de l'archéologie de l'Afrique orientale au cours des décennies pendant lesquelles a été publié Azania. Nous nous concentrons sur trois grands domaines méthodologiques — l'archéologie urbaine, la céramique et ses typologies, et la prospection et la reconnaissance — et traçons leur émergence, leur utilisation et leur transformation au fil du temps. Nous proposons ensuite une discussion de la diversité des méthodologies actuelles et de l'introduction de techniques scientifiques, et nous examinons comment celles-ci ont influencé le type de questions qui peuvent être posées et auxquelles ont peut espérer une réponse. Enfin, nous appelons à une continuation de l'engagement à la diffusion locale pour les chercheurs côtiers: ici, Azania garde un rôle important.

Keywords:

• Swahili Coast
• archaeological survey
• ceramic analysis
• archaeological science
• urban archaeology

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Wynne-Jones is currently a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and affiliated with the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University. She has been a Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of York since 2011. Her current research at Songo Mnara in southern Tanzania focuses on the uses of domestic space.

Jeffrey Fleisher is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rice University, Houston, Texas. His research on the ancient Swahili has focused on the role of rural and non-élite people in the context of urban development and the use of material culture in the construction and maintenance of power and authority. His current research at Songo Mnara in southern Tanzania focuses on the uses of open and public space.

Notes

1 It is now common to know the site by the Kenyan name ‘Gede’, although the national park over which Kirkman had responsibility used the British spelling of ‘Gedi’.

2 The practice of recording by single context remains common practice in British urban archaeology (MoLAS 1994). Essentially, it means that features, layers and cuts are assigned context numbers on a common system. This differs from practice in North American urban archaeology where different systems of numbering might be maintained for structures, features and layers. Both are characterised by a common form of excavation by stratigraphic layer. Thus, the ‘contexts’ identified refer to events in the past, recovered by archaeology; in this, both systems differs from excavation by arbitrary level, in which depths do not necessarily reflect cultural layers in the archaeology.