Excavation of the Later Stone Age Site of Madola - Kiwangwa, Bagamoyo, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Reports on the Later Stone Age (LSA) assemblages along the coast of mainland Tanzania and the surrounding islands date back to the 1960s. However, most of these involved sketchy descriptions of lithic materials from varied contexts, including excavations and surface collections. Most were also by-products of accidental discoveries during other research endeavours, since no one had focused their research on the Tanzanian coastal Stone Age. Excavation of the Madola LSA site in Kiwangwa Village was aimed at addressing this problem, as well as building up a database for the Tanzanian coastal LSA industry. Unlike most areas of the Tanzanian coast where lithic artefacts occur in light scatters, the Madola site consists of a richer artefact assemblage that is comparable to those of inland sites, despite variation in artefact types and quantities. The Madola LSA assemblage predates 14,404 ± 86 BP, with quartz as the predominant raw material and bipolar flaking the main method used to produce artefacts. The site was later occupied by Plain Ware makers, after which it was abandoned until modern times.

RÉSUMÉ

Les témoignages de l'existence d'assemblages datant de l'âge de la pierre récent (Later Stone Age, LSA) le long de la côte de la Tanzanie et sur les îles environnantes remontent aux années 1960. Cependant, la plupart consistaient en des descriptions sommaires de matériaux lithiques provenant de contextes variés, y compris les fouilles et les collections de surface. La plupart étaient également des découvertes accidentelles faites au cours d’autres projets de recherche, car aucun chercheur n’avait centré ses recherches sur la question de l’âge de pierre du littoral tanzanien. Les fouilles du site LSA de Madola dans le village de Kiwangwa ont visé à résoudre ce problème et à constituer une base de données sur les industries LSA de la côte tanzanienne. Contrairement à la plupart des autres parties de la côte tanzanienne, où des artefacts lithiques sont dispersés, le site de Madola forme un assemblage d'artefacts plus riche, comparable à celui des sites de l'intérieur malgré des différences de types et de quantités d'artefacts. L’assemblage LSA de Madola est antérieur à 14 404 ± 86 BP; le quartz est la matière première prédominante et la taille bipolaire la principale méthode utilisée pour produire des artefacts. Le site a plus tard été occupé par des communautés utilisant la Plain Ware, après quoi il fut abandonné jusqu'à l'époque moderne.

KEYWORDS:

• Madola
• Later Stone Age
• Tanzania
• stone artefacts

Acknowledgments

The production of this work would not have been possible without the contributions of many people. I should like to thank Prof. Felix Chami, Prof. Peter Robertshaw, Dr Amandus Kwekason and the anonymous referees for their critical review of my paper. I am also indebted to Mr Said Kilindo and Mr Gido Lasway for producing most of the figures. Special thanks go to the African Archaeological Network for funding the production of this work. I am so grateful to the Department of Antiquities, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Tanzania for granting my research permit, as well as the people of Kiwangwa, Bagamoyo, for being so generous during the whole period of my research.

Notes on contributor

Emanuel T. Kessy is a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Dar es Salaam. He received an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and his PhD from Simon Fraser University. His research interests include settlement archaeology, the African Later Stone Age and Iron Age and the transition to food production in Africa.