Antecedentes de la investigación

The idea of transit points and gateway communities raises the broader issue of the role of Swahili settlements in various social and economic networks, maritime or otherwise. It was noted in Chapter One that the sites of the Swahili Coast are now generally accepted to have been a coastal aggregation of politically independent settlements bound by maritime social and economic networks, and a common material culture (Horton and Middleton 2001; Fleisher and Wynne-Jones 2011). On the basis of their extensive analysis of Early Tana Tradition (ETT) ceramics, synonymous with seventh – tenth century proto-Swahili sites, Fleisher and Wynne-Jones (2011) have suggested that the continuum of decorative motifs seen along the entire coast indicate “a vast interaction sphere in which communities were most in contact with those nearest to them, whilst cognizant of a larger sphere that included them all” (Fleisher and Wynne-Jones 2011: 274). Variations in form, meanwhile, may be linked to distinctions in diet and lifeways related to geographic situation and greater or lesser connections to Indian Ocean trade (Fleisher and Wynne-Jones 2011: 274). Horton and Middleton’s interpretation of trade on the Swahili Coast posits a network of barter and exchange between entrepots in the ‘Swahili Corridor’, with the Swahili as brokers and middle-men handling the exchange of goods between intermediaries from the coastal interior and Indian Ocean merchants (Horton 1987: 89; Middleton 1992: 17; Horton and Middleton 2001). Middleton points out that this is likely to have left individual ports, as well as the system as a whole, vulnerable to fluctuations and disruptions in the wider Indian Ocean network (Middleton 1992: 20). According to contemporary reports, by the second millennium the trading relations in this system were based on personal relationships, rather than being purely market-oriented (Middleton 1992: 22). Ibn Battuta,

49 for example, records ritualised welcoming ceremonies and the accommodation of Asian merchants and their cargoes at Mogadishu in specific Swahili houses according to previously established kinship ties between local and visiting merchants (Freeman-Grenville 1962; Middleton 1992: 22). It is possible that this system might have represented an attempt to ensure the continuing return of trade to specific ports and mitigating against the geographic flux of market centres.

Horton and Middleton argue that this system led to the formation of a series of urban nuclei, especially located around the archipelagos of Lamu, Zanzibar, Kilwa, and the Comoros, which were sustained by this trade (Horton and Middleton 2001) (Figure 1.1). Horton (1994) further argues that each archipelago within this system contained its own regional economies, networks, and cultural distinctions which may be visible in the expression of art, architecture, diet, and settlement plans.

This archipelago model, and especially the subsequent movement of Swahili between these clusters, may also explain the complicated carriage and spread of Shungwaya and Shirazi ‘homeland’ origin legends common in coastal traditions (Horton and Middleton 2001).

At this point it is necessary to discuss the overlapping of functional networks at different scales of analysis. Accepting the holistic totality of Westerdahl’s maritime cultural landscape, we must consider the ways in which specific types of network activity may overlap, interact, and impact upon each other and related social contexts. As discussed in Chapter One, the ports of the Swahili Coast are known to have been engaged in long-distance trade across the Indian Ocean from at least the seventh century CE, and with increasing intensity through to the tenth century CE (Horton 1987, 1996; Horton and Clark 1985; LaViolette and Fleisher 1995; Chami 1999; Fleisher 2003; Juma 2004;

Wynne-Jones 2005; Kleppe 2007; Wood 2011). As well as dealing ivory and gems in exchange for cloth, ceramics, and glass beads, these towns were known for their trade in high-quality iron, and for ballast goods such as mangroves (Freeman-Grenville 1962; Chittick 1965; Horton 1987; Middleton 1992; Kusimba 1996). Many of these goods, including iron ore, are hypothesised to have been brought to the coast as raw materials from the hinterland interior before being processed in coastal settlements (Chami 1994; Horton 1996; Kusimba 1999). At present however, we have no unequivocal archaeological evidence to determine precisely where this trade connected too in the African interior, how these links operated, or what was being exchanged with the inland communities in return (Wood 2011; Wynne Jones and Fleisher 2015). It is also unclear where iron-ore was smelted for this trade, since although evidence of small-scale iron-working has been found in household and beach contexts at coastal sites, no evidence of smelting has been found on the coast except in a disputed second millennium context at Nguruni, near Kilwa Kisiwani (Chittick 1974;

Horton 1996; Kusimba 1996; Chami 2006: 139; Fleisher and LaViolette 2013; Fleisher and Wynne-Jones 2011). Mangroves appear to have formed a ballast cargo for trade with the Persian Gulf, but it is not clear whether this was by demand, or simply for convenience as a break-bulk cargo. Similarly, although the spread of ETT ceramics provide clear evidence of an extensive maritime network along the East African coast, we have little firm evidence to determine whether the network was

50 composed only of short-range overlapping networks, or whether proto-Swahili sailors engaged in long distance voyaging along the coast and across the Indian Ocean (Pollard 2008; Christie 2011;

Vernet 2015; Fleisher et al 2015). Apart from the evidence of ETT and Indian Ocean trade goods found in Swahili coastal settlements then, our conception of Horton’s ‘Swahili Corridor’ has remained a somewhat nebulous and hypothetical zone of coastal interaction, with little evidence of how local and regional connections were maintained.

In attempting to explore the origins and developments of these networks, it is necessary to speculate, and to begin to draw a model of possible network links and functions. Cyprian Broodbank’s (2000) now classic analysis of the development of exchange networks in the Cyclades of the Mediterranean offers one method, founded on the principal of Proximal Point Analysis (PPA).

This technique of network analysis assumes the formation of links between nearby points, and transport between spatially distant points via a chain connecting the shortest distances between points. Those points with the highest numbers of connecting points are nodal points in the network, representing, in whatever terms may be relevant to the subject under discussion, the most central, and presumably successful points of the network (Irwin 1983). Broodbank’s model of a hypothetical Cycladic network was based on connecting each point of a map of sites to its nearest three neighbours, and determining potentially ‘central’ nodes based on the number of connections generated to and from each site.

Figure 2.3 PPA network of Cycladic islands based on assignment of three shortest proximal link from each site. Proportional circles represent numbers of incoming links to each point. From Knappett et

al (2008: 1019)

51 By comparing these results to archaeological data on trade and estimated settlement wealth, Broodbank noted that three of the ‘central’ nodes of his PPA aligned with archaeologically attested major Early Cycladic towns (Broodbank 2000). As Knappett, Evans and Rivers (2008: 1010) have noted however, this system is based on an assumed equal status between sites, and explicitly preferences short-distance ‘local’ connections regardless of potential social or economic considerations which might bias such connections. In spite of allowing for limited variability based on specific changes in the number of predicted corrections or maximum link distances, the model does not allow for the impact of organic growth from humanising elements of social agency over time. It is therefore unsuitable as a means of modelling the totality of interactions contained by the maritime cultural landscape (Tuddenham 2010: 9).

Tuddenham (2010: 9) has discussed the necessary recognition of interactions in Westerdahl’s maritime landscapes in terms of Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) posits that humans, artefacts, and even physical landscapes may be considered participants, or actants, in a web of biographical connections, so that any action or interaction will impact upon every connected participant through this web. Tuddenham notes the value of ANT in conceptualising the maritime cultural landscape, and as a means of exploring the phenomena of networks from origin, through maintenance, to collapse or deconstruction (ibid). In order to move from concept to practice however, we must understand and be able to quantify these biographies in some way, and distinguish between different scales and network functions.

Knappett et al (2008: 1011) offer an alternative model which incorporates a system of preferentially

‘weighting’ specific points based on ‘value’ attributes such as settlement size and population, resource availability, and the number of onward connections, in order to allow for actor agency based on the purpose of a given network. The incorporation of a cost/benefit calculation to each point also enables the algorithmic alteration of the network over time through the accruing or loss of social, political, and economic capital. The authors found that this ‘gravity model’ was particular suitable for modelling the development of homophily dynamics in which large sites preferentially connected with similarly large partners, effectively penalising small sites and exacerbating status inequality throughout the network (Knappett et al 2008: 1018). Whilst these methods of analysis are theoretically exciting, in terms of Swahili archaeology the gravity model is unlikely at present to yield reliable results because of the current lack in the vast majority of Swahili sites of quantifiable data which might be used as a commonly applicable proxy for site size or ‘value’. An unweighted Proximal Point Analysis might be possible, and could potentially shed light on the existence or interactions between coastal networks and interior or overseas connections. However, this method is also hindered by the questions noted in Chapter One relating to the unknown capabilities of watercraft in the first millennium, such as their average of maximum voyaging distances.

52 Thomas Tartaron’s (2013) recent work on the Mycenaean however, offers a particularly useful, practical model of nested network interactions, built upon the broad frame of Westerdahl’s maritime cultural landscape, which is suitably applicable to discussion of the Swahili Coast. Tartaron advocates for a reorientation of perspectives away from direct international-scale trade and towards a ‘bottom-up’ view of coastscapes and small-world interactions (Tartaron 2013: 11). His reasoning for this is based in part on the more frequent evidence of mixed cargoes found in wrecks such as the Gelidonya and Point Iria ships, compared to the rare and exotic cargo of the Uluburun shipwreck;

this, he suggests, indicates that multipurpose voyaging is likely to have been more common than direct voyages with a singular purpose, such as gift exchange (Tartaron 2013: 26). Recognition of this necessitates a means of describing the multiple purposes represented by a given ship, since different elements of the cargo, crew, and even parts of the vessel may be taken on, carried, and passed on through different functional networks, and the purpose of a ‘single’ voyage may be broken down or aggregated in various ways, depending on the subject perspective.

Figure 2.4 Weighted ‘gravity model’ of Cycladic Islands from Knappett et al (2008: 1016) showing growth of the network over time based on site/value attributions

Tartaron’s model, shown below in Figure 2.5 adapted for hypothetical reference to the Swahili Coast, proposes four overlapping scales of geographic analysis: the coastscape; the maritime small world; the regional/intracultural maritime sphere; and the interregional/intercultural maritime

53 sphere. The coastscape covers the shoreline, lowland, and coastal waters local to a given settlement, including inshore waters, passages inland, and the visual seascape as a continuation of territory from the perspective of the settlement. This therefore encompasses the zone of daily activities and taskscapes from the perspective of the inhabitants, including coastal and inshore fishing, and may also be evidenced therefore by the remains of Westerdahl’s ‘attendant subcultures’ (Tartaron 2013:

188). The maritime small world encompasses multiple, aggregated coastscapes within a sphere of interaction or close proximity, and can also therefore be considered a local world in as much as the coastscapes and inhabitants are familiar through habitual personal interaction. The small world shares not only cultural traditions, but is likely to feature kinship ties formed through local geographic movement of individuals, and regular face-to-face social or economic networks. The boundaries of this maritime small world may therefore be difficult to distinguish archaeologically, but may be estimated based on the local environment, settlement patterns, and potentially some interdependence between settlements. (Tartaron 2013: 190). The regional/intracultural maritime sphere encompasses the cultural sphere of interaction, which may extend beyond face-to-face familiarity, but which is bound by a shared material culture, with common customs and traditions.

Tartaron also emphasises the fluidity of the boundaries of this ‘cultural area’ at any given moment, and particularly over time (Tartaron 2013: 199). Finally, the interregional/intercultural maritime sphere describes network interactions which cross the boundaries of regional/intracultural spheres (Tartaron 2013: 202).

54 Figure 2.5 Diagram of the Zanzibar Archipelago and (inset) Swahili Coast in terms of Tartaron's

(2013) overlapping spheres of maritime interaction and cultural worlds

With reference to the Swahili Coast therefore, and particularly in terms of this thesis, it could be argued that the shoreline and lowlands around Unguja Ukuu, as well as the visual seascape of Menai Bay comprise the settlement’s coastscape; whilst the island of Zanzibar, or perhaps the entire Archipelago comprise the maritime small world. The Swahili Coast as a cultural sphere is then represented by the regional/intracultural maritime sphere, and the Indian Ocean networks by the interregional/intercultural sphere of interaction. This model is especially apt, since using Tartaron’s own descriptions it might arguably be adapted to recognise terrestrial interactions. Thus the regional/intracultural sphere could be said to extend a short way inland, at least as far as the common recognition of ETT and Tana Tradition ceramics, which on average is around 20km, and trade with the interior therefore lies in the realm of the interregional/intercultural sphere (Figure 2.5).

The issues discussed here represent only a small part of the field of maritime archaeological theory, but they serve as an indication of how and why maritime archaeological approaches might contribute to a greater understanding of the use and perception of space by the proto-Swahili

55 societies of the East African Coast. The study of maritime technologies, as well as maritime spaces, is crucial to the understanding of the maritime cultural landscape, as is an openness to the varying nature of maritime settlements.

The origins of both networks and settlement clusters on the East African coast remain uncertain. The low numbers of early proto-Swahili sites excavated, together with uncertain occupation sequences at many smaller sites, and the vast areas still to be surveyed, means that at present we lack sufficient quantifiable settlement data to accurately model the network interactions of the Swahili Coast, and especially not to account for inland or overseas connections beyond the maritime Swahili Corridor. Whilst this may become possible through the efforts of ongoing digitisation projects in the near future, Tartaron’s model of nested maritime spheres does at least provide a means of discussing those hypothetical and evidenced networks interactions we already know of. The review has also presented an opportunity to clarify the use of maritime landscape terminology in this thesis.

Whilst the specifics of some of the terms described here may be debated, within the scope of this thesis their meanings have been clearly defined, and will not be used interchangeably.