Peter Robertshaw

• Archaeology
• Professor Emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino

The first East African pastoralists arrived at the shores of Lake Turkana soon after the end of the African Humid Period, about 5,000 years ago. In the preceding millennia of the Holocene, fishing economies characterized East Africa. The domestic animals of the early pastoralists were not indigenous to East Africa, nor did they spread through the r...

Excavations at several archaeological sites in and around Gao have resulted in the recovery of thousands of glass beads presumed to have been acquired from glass bead-producing centers through trade. The bead assemblages cover the period from the eighth to the fourteenth century CE . Here we report on the results of compositional analysis by LA-ICP...

Africa hosts the greatest human genetic diversity globally, but legacies of ancient population interactions and dispersals across the continent remain understudied. Here, we report genome-wide data from 20 ancient sub-Saharan African individuals, including the first reported ancient DNA from the DRC, Uganda, and Botswana. These data demonstrate the...

Significance Lipid residue analysis of archaeological ceramics provides the earliest direct chemical evidence for milk, meat, and plant consumption by pastoralist societies in eastern Africa. Data for milk in specialized pastoral systems (c. 5000 to 1200 BP) reveal changing selective pressures for lactase persistence and provide support for models...

Numerous state-level societies existed in precolonial sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter explores three case studies – Great Zimbabwe, Swahili city-states, and Bunyoro in central Africa – to illuminate the processes of state formation and the enduring fragility of these societies. Archaeological data, as well as ethnographic and historical sources, b...

How food production first entered eastern Africa ~5000 years ago and the extent to which people moved with livestock is unclear. We present genome-wide data from 41 individuals associated with Later Stone Age, Pastoral Neolithic (PN), and Iron Age contexts in what are now Kenya and Tanzania to examine the genetic impacts of the spreads of herding a...

This tribute to Jan Vansina explores the role of archaeology in the investigation of early African history, arguing for more work on the relationship between politics and the practice of ritual. The well-trodden topic of migrations of Bantu-speakers is revisited to examine the potential of genetics and archaeology to contribute to their investigati...

Recent archaeological excavations at the seventh- to tenth-century CE sites of Unguja Ukuu and Fukuchani on Zanzibar Island have produced large numbers of glass beads that shed new light on the island’s early interactions with the wider Indian Ocean world. A selected sample of the beads recovered was analyzed by laser ablation-inductively coupled p...

Analysis of glass beads from the Ingombe Ilede burials provides additional information that supports McIntosh and Fagan's new dating of burials 3 and 8, and that also clarifies the chronology of some of the other burials. Following an unsuccessful attempt to locate the Ingombe Ilede beads in the Livingstone Museum, we analysed beads from a card wit...

Connah Graham . African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective. 3rd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xiv + 412 pp. Figures. Index. $42.99. Paper. ISBN: 978-1-107-62127-5. - Volume 59 Issue 2 - Peter Robertshaw

The fourteenth-century AD furnace at the earthworks site of Munsa is one of the earliest dated examples of iron smelting remains from western Uganda. The furnace is situated on a large, flat area at the centre of the earthworks, screened from the rest of the site by granite boulders. This paper presents and discusses the archaeological context of t...

INVIGORATING LANDSCAPES - Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives. Edited by J. CameronMonroe and AkinwumiOgundiran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xx-390. $99, hardback (isbn978-1-107-00939-4). - Volume 54 Issue 2 - PETER ROBERTSHAW

This chapter discusses human migrations south of the Sahara during the Holocene, focused mainly on pastoral populations in eastern Africa and the migrations of Bantu speakers during the past 3000 years. The dating provided by archaeology currently places these migrations more recently than that derived from linguistics. Keywords: archaeology; Hol...

Chibuene, southern Mozambique, is the site of the earliest-known trading port in southern Africa. Radiocarbon dates place its occupation between the 6th and 17th centuries. Recovered exotic trade goods, especially glass beads, indicate it was the main port of entry for that trade into southern Africa from roughly the 8th to the mid-lOth century. LA...

Chibuene, southern Mozambique, is the site of the earliest-known trading port in southern Africa. Radiocarbon dates place its occupation between the 6th and 17th centuries. Recovered exotic trade goods, especially glass beads, indicate it was the main port of entry for that trade into southern Africa from roughly the 8th to the mid-10th century. LA...

The concept of the segmentary state was proposed by Southall, based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Alur people of Uganda, and subsequently applied elsewhere, notably to the putative ancient kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara. Archaeological research, summarized here, has demonstrated that ancient Bunyoro-Kitara was not a segmentary state; indeed, neith...

Three-hundred-and-sixty glass beads from 19 archaeological sites in southern Africa dating between about the 8th and 16th centuries AD were analyzed using LA-ICP-MS, determining 47 chemical elements. The eight different bead series, previously defined on morphological characteristics, possess different glass chemistries. Some bead series were made...

This paper reports the results of elemental analysis, using laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS), of 30 glass beads from an assemblage of beads excavated at medieval al-Basra, Morocco. Six chemical glass types are represented and their characteristics and geographical origins are discussed, with reference also...

A comparison between the compositions determined by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) from two different laboratories on 52 ancient beads recovered in Africa was undertaken. Single point and raster samplings by the laser ablation systems were used. Although similar results were obtained using the two approaches...

Chemical analysis, using LA-ICP-MS, of 37 glass beads from the cemetery of Kissi 13 in Burkina Faso revealed the presence of three main types of glass. Soda-lime-silica glass, manufactured using plant ash as the flux, was the glass type from which almost all the beads were made. Western Asia, specifically the region east of the Euphrates River, was...

Population growth and concomitant agricultural intensification are often considered to be instrumental in the development of hierarchical societies. However, an examination of two 19th century states in wet tropical Africa, Bunyoro and Buganda, reveals that a shortage, rather than an abundance, of people encouraged elite control of resources. The d...

In this paper we provide an example of the alternative approach, based on the Banyoro people in the humid, Interlacustrine region of Western Uganda known historically as Kitara, the region roughly centred on Mubende and encompassing much of what was regarded as Bunyoro, Toro, Nkore, and perhaps western parts of Buganda in the late nineteenth centur...

Chemical analysis of 31 glass beads from the sites of Mahilaka and Sandrakatsy in Madagascar, which date to approximately the 9th to 15th centuries CE, reveals the presence of two main types of glass: mineral-soda glasses and plant-ash glasses. Most of these glasses were probably made in South Asia.

The recent discovery of banana phytoliths dating to the first millennium BC in Cameroon has ignited debate about the timing of the introduction of this important food crop to Africa. This paper presents new phytolith evidence obtained from one of three sediment cores from a swamp at Munsa, Uganda, that appears to indicate the presence of bananas (M...

Palaeoenvironmental data, in the form of 113 counts of pollen, fungal spores and charcoal abundances, 121 counts of phytoliths and 15 AMS 14C dates (11 macrofossil and 4 bulk sediment samples), have provided a means of reconstructing the late-Holocene environmental history of Munsa archaeological site, Uganda. The data were extracted from sediment...

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Assembled in this volume, African Historical Archaeologies , are an exciting set of papers that encompas s a remarkably wide range of topics , methods, periods and regions of the African past. From the symbolism of decorated monoliths in Nigeria (Ray, Chapter 7) to indigenous recollections of war with a colonial government in South Africa (van Scha...

We report the preliminary results of chemical analysis by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry of 156 glass beads from sites in southern Africa. Almost all of these beads can be grouped in two chemical types based on oxide compositions and glass recipes. Glasses of these types were manufactured in south and/or southeast Asia....

This chapter uses a set of models that emphasize power and social agency to understand state formation in the Bunyoro-Kitara region of western Uganda and, by way of contrast, on the Swahili coast of East Africa. Building on Blanton et al.'s (1996) distinction between exclusionary (network) and corporate power strategies-the former founded upon weal...

Relatively few sediment-based studies in equatorial Africa have as their focus improved understanding of the history of human-environment interrelationships. Instead their emphasis has tended to be reconstructions of past climate or vegetation, or in some cases both. A review of this previously published work for western Uganda reveals evidence for...

This paper reassesses available evidence for environmental and cultural changes in western Uganda since 1000 bc. The period of study includes the introduction of iron working in the region, as well as the transition to nucleated settlement patterns and the apparent decline of these settlements, prior to the colonial period. Several oscillations in...

Climate changes, particularly droughts, have long been thought to have been profoundly influential in the pre-colonial history of the Great Lakes region. However, previous attempts at synthesis of archaeological, historical and palaeoenvironmental evidence were undermined by the paucity of the data, as well as by dating and other interpretative con...

Communication between the practitioners of the two disciplines [history and archeology] is still often difficult. Five years ago Jan Vansina asked historians whether archeologists were their siblings. The question seems to have been rhetorical, since Vansina himself offered the opinion that, at least “when archaeologists offer specific reconstructi...

Recent critiques of neoevolutionary formulations that focus primarily on the development of powerful hierarchies have called for broadening the empirical base for complex society studies. Redressing the neglect of sub-Saharan examples in comparative discussions on complex society, this book considers how case material from the region can enhance ou...

1 Sedimentary data from a 6-m long core from Kabata Swamp, an in-filled crater in the Ndale volcanic field of western Uganda, provided evidence for a number of cycles of disturbance and recovery of medium altitude forest. 2 The date of formation of the crater was earlier than an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon date of 11 460 ± 90 bp...

Apres une introduction sur les travaux entrepris depuis les annees 1950 a Bigo, Kibengo et Munsa, l'auteur presente le rapport preliminaire des fouilles de 1988, 1994 et 1995 sur le site ougandais de Munsa. Le site consiste en un systeme de tranchees au centre duquel se trouve une colline rocheuse. Cette colline est reputee pour ses petits abris so...

Research in Eastern Africa is hampered by a variety of logistical constraints common in underdeveloped and politically fragmented regions. The later Middle and early Upper Pleistocene are attracting attention in the debate over the origins of anatomically modern humans. There has also been considerable field research and discussion of the developme...

Early archaeological research on the Iron Age of Uganda focused upon earthworks, such as Bigo, with the purpose of validating historians’ interpretations of oral traditions. Recent research has continued the emphasis upon large sites but with archaeological interpretation given precedence over historical reconstructions. This paper discusses archae...

Africa's Pastoralist Past - Pastoralism in Africa: Origins and Development Ecology. By SmithAndrew B.. London: Hurst and Company; Athens: Ohio University Press; Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1992. Pp. xv + 288. £25 (£12.50 paperback). - Volume 34 Issue 2 - Peter Robertshaw

The invention of 14C dating was of enormous consequence for archaeology. In due course it provided an absolute chronological framework for later African prehistory that was to upset several notions about the relationship between African and European prehistory and history, which had served as ideological foundations for colonialism. I begin by revi...

The paper reports on recent research on the Elmenteitan, a Stone‐Age food‐producing culture first identified by Louis Leakey in the central Rift Valley of Kenya. The Elmenteitan exhibits considerable technological and typological variation between stone artefact assemblages which may be correlated with the cost of obtaining the preferred raw materi...

The results of recent archaeological research in the Upper Nile basin are summarized and placed within the context of the anthropological-historical debate concerning the origins of the Nuer, Dinka and Atuot as distinct ethnic groupings. The archaeological evidence demonstrates a considerable antiquity for cattle-keeping in the region, the existenc...

Ghaap and Gariep: Later Stone Age Studies in the Northern Cape. By HumphreysA. J. B. and ThackerayAnne I.. Cape Town: South African Archaeological Society Monograph Series No. 2, 1983. Pp. xx + 328. R30. - Volume 26 Issue 2-3 - Peter Robertshaw

The results of excavations at several sites east of Rumbek situated on or near the ecotone between seasonally flooded grassland and savanna woodland are reported. The earliest pottery is characterised by comb-impressed decoration often with a zigzag motif. Deposits at Jokpel with undecorated open and hemispherical bowls, but no evidence of iron-wor...

The research of Dr. Robertshaw, the Institute's Assistant Director, on pre-Iron-Age sites and their pottery in the Loita-Mara region has already figured in Azania. In 1983 the fortunate presence in Nairobi of Jean Langdon (who has been working with the National Museums of Canada in Ottawa) led to the collaborative analytical work described here on...

A report on excavations at a shelter in the Winterberg Mts, eastern Cape, South Africa. The site was occupied intermittently by hunter-gatherers during the last 3500 years, perhaps only during summer months. The mammalian fauna indicates an environmental mosaic incorporating forest and grassland. A few marine shells indicate coastal contact. No eco...

Obsidian hydration dating has been successfully applied to East African archaeological sites. Chemical sourcing of obsidian artefacts has documented long-distance movement of obsidian from the Central Rift valley. A date in the ninth or eighth century b.c. has been obtained for iron objects in the Er Renk District of the Southern Sudan. Tentative c...

For the Pastoral Neolithic of East Africa radiocarbon dates suggest two apparent anomalies in the archaeological record: pastoralism in the Central Rift at perhaps 7000 bp, and the very long duration of particular pottery traditions. This paper examines the dating evidence closely, in particular the assertion that apatite gives more reliable dates...

This review provides a new interpretative framework for the ‘Neolithic’ in East Africa. A seriation of pottery assemblages is used to delineate several archaeological traditions, the implications of which include rejection of the use of the terms ‘Neolithic’ and ‘Pastoral Neolithic’, and the demise of previous attempts at archaeological—linguistic...

Previous research in eastern Africa has identified ‘pastoral’ groups in the prehistoric record. The definition ‘pastoral’ has been based on faunal remains. Evidence is presented to show that farming was probably practised as well, and the emphasis on the use of subsistence to define pastoral communities is questioned. An examination of the ethnogra...

Excavation of a shell midden within Smitswinkelbaai Cave has revealed a series of occupations during the first millennium A.D. by people exploiting the abundant food resources of the adjacent sea-shore. Analysis of the artefacts from the site has revealed a rarity of formal stone tools contrasted with an abundance of non-lithic artefacts, including...

Dr Robertshaw has been Assistant Director of the British institute since 1979, and was in charge of the archaeological side of the Institute's expedition to the Sudan in the following year. Mr. Mawson is a research student at Cambridge.

A set of observations on stone tool assemblage variability from the western Cape is presented and interpreted as a reflection of activity differences from place to place. From this it is argued that much of the observed temporal patterning in assemblage composition might reflect changing activities through time. This in turn raises the possibility...

The pottery first identified at Kansyore (Kantsyore) island in the Kagera river is believed to have been made by hunter-gatherers, but its chronology and associations are uncertain. The authors here maintain that two different entities have previously been included as ‘Kansyore’.Mr Collett is a Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge and Dr Ro...