Stephanie Wynne-Jones

• PhD, University of Cambridge
• Professor of African Archaeology at University of York

Houses are an important subject of archaeological research, normally explored through the households they contain. This has established a deliberately social agenda for the archaeology of houses, yet has had the unintended consequence of creating bounded worlds for study. Although household archaeologies explore the ways that households contributed...

Coinage occupies an unusual position in archaeological research. Thriving scholarship on numismatics and monetary history ensures that the objects themselves are well-studied, often seen as an indication of chronology and of stylistic and commercial links. Yet coins might also be analysed as artefacts, and explored as part of the symbolic world of...

This volume investigates how the structure and use of space developed and changed in cities, and examines the role of different societal groups in shaping urbanism. Culturally and chronologically diverse case studies provide a basis to examine recent theoretical and methodological shifts in the archaeology of ancient cities. The book's primary goal...

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...

Histories of Vumba, on the southern coast of Kenya, were recorded during the early British colonial period in this region, and inevitably reflect a series of contemporary concerns. Nevertheless, due to the wealth of detail provided as to the material practices of the Vumba elite, the traditions have become important in understandings of the deeper...

IOW-Arch 2024 Call for Papers! IOW-Arch returns for its third instalment, this time at the University of York, Thursday 12th-Friday 13th December, 2024. The Indian Ocean World Archaeology Conference focuses on the archaeology, material culture and heritage of the Indian Ocean World. Call for papers - deadline 1st June 2024. For submission detai...

This paper presents the most extensive archaeometallurgical study of iron-smithing debris excavated in East Africa. It presents an integrated methodology, including morphological, chemical, petrographic, and contextual analysis of iron slag excavated from secondary ironworking contexts. Iron slag from three Swahili sites was analysed—Unguja Ukuu lo...

The urban peoples of the Swahili coast traded across eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean and were among the first practitioners of Islam among sub-Saharan people1,2. The extent to which these early interactions between Africans and non-Africans were accompanied by genetic exchange remains unknown. Here we report ancient DNA data for 80 individuals...

A high-resolution multiproxy sedimentary record comprising pollen, charcoal, trace element, stratigraphy and particle size data is used to reveal environmental changes from the mangrove ecosystem at Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar, Tanzania, over the last 5000 years. Historical human–environment interactions over the last millennia are explored by a comparis...

Following on from the very successful inaugural IOW-Arch conference held on 10th-11th January 2020, the second IOW-Arch is planned for Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th December 2022. We are pleased to announce that the schedule for IOW-Arch 2022 is now available to view here. We have more than 50 papers and presentations over two days with over 80 c...

Spatial analysis is paramount for understanding, monitoring, and conserving ancient settlements and cultural landscapes. Advancing remote sensing and prospection techniques are expanding the methodological frame of archaeological settlement analysis by enabling remote, landscape‐scale approaches to mapping and investigation. Whilst particularly eff...

The fourteenth-to-sixteenth-century AD site of Songo Mnara, in the Kilwa archipelago in southern Tanzania, is a stone town with many standing coral buildings. Extensive excavations at the site have produced over 9,000 beads, 7,444 of which are glass. A subset of 140 of these was chemically analyzed using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-ma...

The peoples of the Swahili coast of eastern Africa established a literate urban culture by the second millennium CE. They traded across eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean and were among the first sub-Saharan practitioners of Islam. An open question has been the extent to which these early interactions between Africans and non-Africans were accompa...

Swahili cuisine is known across Africa and globally as a highly distinctive product of a cosmopolitan, coastal, urban society. Here we present a comprehensive study of precolonial Swahili diet and culinary practices at the coastal town of Songo Mnara, positioning archaeological and ethnographic understandings of cuisine in a long-term coastal tradi...

In this article, we present the results of a recent program of high-resolution radiocarbon dating on the urban sequence at Kilwa Kisiwani in southern Tanzania, including Bayesian modeling of 21 calibrated ¹⁴C dates. These data come from the 2016 excavation of a large trench directly adjacent to trench ZLL, one of the key 1960s excavations that serv...

The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population h...

This paper offers a mesoscale approach to the study of the urban landscape surrounding the fourteenth–sixteenth century Swahili site of Songo Mnara just off the southern Tanzanian coast. The study is based on a systematic, intensive survey of the town’s immediate island hinterland. Such an approach, we argue, exposes a set of activities that extend...

The Rising from the Depths (RftD) network aims to identify the ways in which Marine Cultural Heritage (MCH) can contribute to the sustainable development of coastal communities in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar. Although the coastal and marine heritage of eastern Africa is a valuable cultural and environmental resource, it remains large...

The distribution of the black rat ( Rattus rattus ) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population...

This paper presents a new high-resolution excavation sequence of a house at the 1st millennium A.D. site of Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar, with implications for a new and detailed understanding of the period between the 7th and 9th centuries A.D. on the East African coast. This is an important period associated with a broad and distinctive cultural traditi...

The cultural history of the sea during the Middle Ages is a young and dynamic field. Born only recently in the literary criticism of European sources, this innovative volume pushes out beyond this European heartland to explore the shape and potential of a cultural history of the sea constructed also from global literatures and oral traditions, and...

Introduction to special journal issue of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

This chapter offers an overview of historical and archaeological research on Islam and Islamic practice on the pre-colonial eastern African coast during the late first and early second millennium ce. Due to the visible remains of mosques, tombs, and other stylistic elements influenced by the Islamic heartlands, researchers have always regarded Isla...

This paper seeks to challenge the notion of the invisible slave in the archaeological record and investigates the way in which material culture may reflect the movements and practices of enslaved labourers on the East African Swahili coast. Archaeological approaches to enslavement have revealed the nuanced and complex experiences of a group of peop...

In this paper, we explore themes of creativity and innovation through a case study of iron production at Kilwa Kisiwani. Evidence of large-scale metal extraction was uncovered at the site and archaeometallurgical analyses were carried out to understand the associated technological traditions. We suggest that iron smelters at Kilwa Kisiwani employed...

This book, a translation of François-Xavier Fauvelle’s 2013 Le Rhinocéros d’or, is a lovely, engaging romp through the African Middle Ages in the company of a cast of characters including explorers, diplomats, traders and conquerors. It brings to life a period and a geography that is poorly known both among the public and the academic community, as...

Against the Grain is an approachable book that explores the world of the earliest states, found in Mesopotamia. It is framed by the rationale that a study of the state's deep history might give us insight into contemporary concerns via an understanding of the deep causal links between sedentism, agriculture and state control.

Unguja Ukuu is an early medieval settlement site along the seashore of the Menai Bay on Zanzibar Island. The site has long been known as an important trading centre linked to coastal settlement and urban dynamics along the Eastern African coast, while it also central for the understanding of Indian Ocean trade connections. Previous studies have def...

The Swahili coast of Eastern Africa has been home to an urban tradition for over a thousand years. Since the seventh century ce, sites along this coast have been trading across the Indian Ocean with partners in the Islamic world. These sites developed into stonetowns, characterized by a vernacular architectural tradition that used coral and lime an...

In a time before large banking systems, and with paper money just in its infancy, money during the Renaissance meant coinage (mainly gold and silver) and local credit systems. These monetary forms had a significant influence on the ways in which money was understood throughout the period, and shaped discussions on such topics as the meaning of mone...

The 15th century Swahili town of Songo Mnara (Tanzania) had six mosques-an unusual quantity for a town of only 7 hectares and a population of 500-1000 people. Large-scale archaeological investigations of two previously unstudied mosques, and detailed survey of the remaining four structures has suggested a complex pattern of Islamic practice in the...

New investigations at the coastal settlement of Unguja Ukuu in Zanzibar have demonstrated the effectiveness of magnetometry as a survey method. The early occupation of this Swahili port, from the sixth century AD, presents a unique opportunity to develop our understanding of the growth and development in settlement and trade along the East African...

Since the earliest class-based societies, social leveling mechanisms have limited, actively as well as unconsciously, social stratification. Understanding how such power structures have operated in the past and present requires the integration of social dimensions to the political economy in a way that does not assume that elites and/or urban cente...

Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub-Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first...

Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub-Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first...

Details of methods used in ancient DNA (aDNA) and Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting analyses. (DOCX)

Total reads used in the BLAST analysis and results of Burrows-Wheeler Alignments (BWA). (DOCX)

Results of experimental study of false positives. Incorrect genus identifications resulting from 500 test "libraries" obtained from whole mtDNA genomes of the genus Gallus. See text for explanation of experimental method. (DOCX)

Reference specimens for ZooMS collagen fingerprinting. (DOCX)

Decision tree illustrating research protocols. Tree illustrates the selection of faunal samples, the order in which specific analyses were applied to each subsample, and result. (TIF)

Landmarks used in dental analysis. R. exulans tooth in occlusal view with simplified diagram to the right. The fixed landmarks are illustrated by large blue circles, sliding semi-landmarks by small red circles. The boundaries of the cusps and the stylids (small flat or saddle like surfaces joining cusps) are difficult to precisely identify, but hav...

Reference specimens for analysis of tooth morphology. (DOCX)

mapDamage analysis of deanimation patterns in bird specimens. For each of the sequenced specimens (specimen numbers indicated by JK0000), mapDamage analysis illustrates C to T (red) and G to A (blue) frequencies of mis-incorporation at 3’ and 5’ ends. (PDF)

Spectra from modern Rattus taxa. MALDI peptide mass fingerprint spectra of collagen tryptic digests from the reference bone material of Rattus rattus (top), Rattus norvegicus (middle) and Rattus exulans (bottom). (TIF)

Sites excavated by the Sealinks Project. (DOCX)

Previously excavated sites included in the present analysis. (DOCX)

Detailed results for bird specimens. Results of multiple ancient DNA analyses, with radiocarbon dates where available. Sites ordered from north to south. (DOCX)

Detailed results for rodent specimens. Results of ancient DNA analysis, ZooMS collagen fingerprinting, and tooth morphology, with radiocarbon dates where available. Sites ordered from north to south. (DOCX)

Spectra from modern rodent genera other than Rattus. A: MALDI peptide mass fingerprint spectra of collagen tryptic digests from the reference bone material of Aethomys kaiseri (top), Mastomys coucha (middle) and Mus minutoides (bottom). B: MALDI peptide mass fingerprint spectra of collagen tryptic digests from the reference bone material of Gerbill...

Example of MALDI peptide mass fingerprint spectra in archaeological samples. Example of MALDI peptide mass fingerprint spectra of collagen tryptic digests from the archaeological samples studied, showing the three most commonly identified types: Rattus rattus (bottom); Group 1 (middle), which most closely resembles Mastomys; and Group 2 (top), whic...

Spectra from unknown taxa in archaeological samples. MALDI peptide mass fingerprint spectra of collagen tryptic digests from archaeological specimens that form groups of unknown taxa. (TIF)

Past urban settlements in tropical island environments offer particularly challenging sites for mainstream archaeology. Often associated with shallow stratigraphic sequences, archaeological sediments and soils in these sites are strongly influenced by local geology and seawater. This study discusses the advantages and challenges of developing an in...

Houses are linked to the urban landscape in multiple ways. They provide urban form, and shape movement and interaction. This article analyses these connections through the concept of territories, defined as areas linked to particular activities and/or groups, at the fourteenth–sixteenth-century Swahili town of Songo Mnara. Detailed excavation and s...

A Material Culture focuses on objects in Swahili society through the elaboration of an approach that sees both people and things as caught up in webs of mutual interaction. It therefore provides both a new theoretical intervention in some of the key themes in material culture studies, including the agency of objects and the ways they were linked to...

The identification of a cultural grouping termed ‘Swahili’ has long rested on the ability to discern a commonality of material and social environment across an enormous region, aspects of which have been discussed in previous chapters. Clearly, the coast and offshore islands of eastern Africa have been interconnected to a significant degree through...

The stone towns of the Swahili coast define and embody both contemporary Swahili society and the ways that the archaeology of that region is known. The series of large-scale projects that have explored their architecture and changing material culture provide the means through which the past is conceived, even though these stone towns were themselve...

Kilwa Kisiwani is an iconic Swahili stone town, its status and international renown exceeding any other. As discussed, it is also the town that has seen some of the largest-scale archaeological work, recovering a material record that bespeaks a thriving urban setting. Archaeological interest came on the heels of historical scholarship relating to t...

The precolonial Swahili coast was thus a region united through particular material practices. In this volume, consumption and display have been emphasized as aspects that are very clearly evident in the archaeological record. More ephemeral practices, such as ritual, dance, or public acts of memorialization, are only now being incorporated into our...

Africa’s eastern littoral borders the Indian Ocean, providing the setting for the settlements, people, and language known collectively as Swahili, which have been a key part of that ocean’s trading networks for at least two millennia. Graeco-Roman sailors visited the now-forgotten metropolis of Rhapta, and their voyages were recorded in the narrati...

Identity and society in Swahili towns have tended to be considered on the scale of a settlement or region; as discussed in the previous chapter, it is possible to understand urban Swahili identity relative to surrounding populations. At Kilwa Kisiwani, one way that this can be recognized is in the relationship between the town and its wider hinterl...

It is immediately clear that the towns of the Swahili coast could not have existed without a web of connections linking them to a deeper African hinterland. This is a complex network to recover: a lack of historical documents and an extremely patchy archaeological record have meant that interaction has been understood only in very general terms. Th...

The abiding importance of objects and spaces in the Swahili world makes this a fertile ground for archaeological exploration, as well as for material ethnography. This volume therefore picks up on a rich history of writing on objects and settings on the coast, and in the Indian Ocean world more generally. As such, the eastern African coast has pote...

The coins minted at Kilwa Kisiwani on the southern coast of Tanzania challenge our expectations in several ways, offering a case study in the diversity of ways that coinage might operate. From the eleventh to fifteenth centuries CE, Kilwa was an enthusiastic minter of coins, with thousands of copper issues having been recovered by collectors and mo...

Archaeological approaches to the study of Indian Ocean connections tend to focus on “foreign” objects that appear in different contexts. In East Africa, these objects are found at settlements on what would become the Swahili coast, and they show that these settlements were linked to Indian Ocean networks from as early as the 7th century AD. The lim...

Urban communities on the medieval East African coast have been previously discussed in terms of ethnicity and migration. Here assemblages from coastal towns and from surface survey in the interior are used to paint a different picture of urban (Swahili) origins. The author shows that coast and interior shared a common culture, but that coastal site...

The Swahili coast of East Africa has long been home to a culture defined and united by its location on the shores of the Indian Ocean. From Somalia to Mozambique the coast is dotted with sites of the last 1500 years that share common cultural, religious and artistic traditions; no doubt these were maintained by frequent and substantial coastal voya...

Resumen: En este artículo, evaluamos la hipótesis de que los pueblos Swahili de la costa oriental africana fueron una sociedad marítima a partir del primer milenio E.C. Basados en información histórica y arqueológica, proponemos que la asociación de la sociedad Swahili con el mar incrementó considerablemente con el tiempo y se manifestó de una for...

During archaeological fieldwork at Songo Mnara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the southern Tanzanian coast, a storm caused the collapse of a graveyard's retaining wall. The process initiated by the rebuilding of that wall serves as a case study in addressing the dialogue among researchers, community members, and national and international organiz...

Theory in Africa, Africa in Theory explores the place of Africa in archaeological theory, and the place of theory in African archaeology. The centrality of Africa to global archaeological thinking is highlighted, with a particular focus on materiality and agency in contemporary interpretation. As a means to explore the nature of theory itself, the...

Magnetometry and Slingram electromagnetic surveys were conducted at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania, as part of a multinational programme of investigation to examine the uses of space within and outside of this stonetown. The town was a major Islamic trading port during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The surveys det...

A deposit of coins was recovered during excavations at Songo Mnara, Tanzania, containing over 300 copper Kilwa-type coins. This is the first deposit or hoard of these coins found in a well defined archaeological context and it therefore offers a unique glimpse into both the typology of these coins and their contemporary uses. The ramifications of t...

The Ceramics and Society dataset (Wynne-Jones and Fleisher 2013) includes a database that documents the analysis of over 2,000 potsherds of the Early Tana Tradition (ETT), a 7th-10th century ceramic tradition found along the eastern African coastline and hinterland. The dataset contains 40 variables for each sherd, including those related to vessel...

Geophysical survey at Kilwa Kisiwani, southern Tanzania, has recovered evidence for several aspects of town layout and the use of space within the town that enhance our understandings of this important Swahili site. Although excavations in the 1960s recovered substantial monuments at this stonetown and traced a chronology for the development of the...

The towns of the Swahili coast of East Africa are widely acknowledged as the remains of a maritime society whose relationship with the ocean was fundamental to their economy and identity. Yet research that links the terrestrial environments of the towns to their adjacent maritime landscapes is rare, and urgently required in the light of marine eros...

The development of the Swahili world involved new ways of organizing and conceiving of space. Archaeology and historical linguistics are both crucial in charting the trajectory of changing spatial practice during the late first and early second millennium ad, yet their respective datasets have been correlated only in specific and restricted ways. I...

The application of geophysical survey in sub-Saharan Africa has been limited compared to other parts of the world. Geophysical techniques offer the possibility of conducting broad-scale survey relatively quickly, and of providing information on the layout of structures within a previously defined site. In a context in which ephemeral architecture i...