Becoming American: The Socio-Economic and Cultural Landscape of Kenyan Immigrants in Chicago, IL

This study reports the emerging patterns of migration and settlement of Kenyans into the Chicago metropolitan area. Like most African immigrant communities in North America, economic downturn, political instability, and socio-economic polarization in African countries necessitated an appreciable quantum of emigration of Kenyans following the attainment of Africa\u27s political independence in the 1960s. Most of the findings on housing characteristics, education, employment, patterns of family life, socio-cultural interaction, challenges encountered by new immigrants, and related phenomena evince parallels with other studies on African immigrants in North America

Flood dynamics derived from video remote sensing

Flooding is by far the most pervasive natural hazard, with the human impacts of floods expected to worsen in the coming decades due to climate change. Hydraulic models are a key tool for understanding flood dynamics and play a pivotal role in unravelling the processes that occur during a flood event, including inundation flow patterns and velocities. In the realm of river basin dynamics, video remote sensing is emerging as a transformative tool that can offer insights into flow dynamics and thus, together with other remotely sensed data, has the potential to be deployed to estimate discharge. Moreover, the integration of video remote sensing data with hydraulic models offers a pivotal opportunity to enhance the predictive capacity of these models. Hydraulic models are traditionally built with accurate terrain, flow and bathymetric data and are often calibrated and validated using observed data to obtain meaningful and actionable model predictions. Data for accurately calibrating and validating hydraulic models are not always available, leaving the assessment of the predictive capabilities of some models deployed in flood risk management in question. Recent advances in remote sensing have heralded the availability of vast video datasets of high resolution. The parallel evolution of computing capabilities, coupled with advancements in artificial intelligence are enabling the processing of data at unprecedented scales and complexities, allowing us to glean meaningful insights into datasets that can be integrated with hydraulic models. The aims of the research presented in this thesis were twofold. The first aim was to evaluate and explore the potential applications of video from air- and space-borne platforms to comprehensively calibrate and validate two-dimensional hydraulic models. The second aim was to estimate river discharge using satellite video combined with high resolution topographic data. In the first of three empirical chapters, non-intrusive image velocimetry techniques were employed to estimate river surface velocities in a rural catchment. For the first time, a 2D hydraulicvmodel was fully calibrated and validated using velocities derived from Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle (UAV) image velocimetry approaches. This highlighted the value of these data in mitigating the limitations associated with traditional data sources used in parameterizing two-dimensional hydraulic models. This finding inspired the subsequent chapter where river surface velocities, derived using Large Scale Particle Image Velocimetry (LSPIV), and flood extents, derived using deep neural network-based segmentation, were extracted from satellite video and used to rigorously assess the skill of a two-dimensional hydraulic model. Harnessing the ability of deep neural networks to learn complex features and deliver accurate and contextually informed flood segmentation, the potential value of satellite video for validating two dimensional hydraulic model simulations is exhibited. In the final empirical chapter, the convergence of satellite video imagery and high-resolution topographical data bridges the gap between visual observations and quantitative measurements by enabling the direct extraction of velocities from video imagery, which is used to estimate river discharge. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the significant potential of emerging video-based remote sensing datasets and offers approaches for integrating these data into hydraulic modelling and discharge estimation practice. The incorporation of LSPIV techniques into flood modelling workflows signifies a methodological progression, especially in areas lacking robust data collection infrastructure. Satellite video remote sensing heralds a major step forward in our ability to observe river dynamics in real time, with potentially significant implications in the domain of flood modelling science

A conversation with Peter Ridgway Schmidt, the Sango of African archaeology

http://link.springer.com/journal/104372021-07-06hj2020Anthropology and Archaeolog

Do nuclear DNA and dental nonmetric data produce similar reconstructions of regional population history? An example from modern coastal Kenya

This study investigates whether variants in dental morphology and nuclear DNA provide similar patterns of intergroup affinity among regional populations using biological distance (biodistance) estimates. Many biodistance studies of archaeological populations use skeletal variants in lieu of ancient DNA, based on the widely accepted assumption of a strong correlation between phenetic- and genetic-based affinities. Within studies of dental morphology, this assumption has been well supported by research on a global scale but remains unconfirmed at a more geographically restricted scale. Paired genetic (42 microsatellite loci) and dental (nine crown morphology traits) data were collected from 295 individuals among four contemporary Kenyan populations, two of which are known ethnically as “Swahili” and two as “Taita;” all have welldocumented population histories. The results indicate that biodistances based on genetic data are correlated with those obtained from dental morphology. Specifically, both distance matrices indicate that the closest affinities are between population samples within each ethnic group. Both also identify greater divergence among samples from the different ethnic groups. However, for this particular study the genetic data may provide finer resolution at detecting overall among-population relationships

Geophysical Survey in Sub-Saharan Africa: magnetic and Electromagnetic Investigation of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania

Magnetometry and Slingram electromagnetic surveys were conducted at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania, as part of a multi-national 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 14th and 15th centuries.The surveys detected significant evidence for the containment of activities within the town walls, and previously unknown anthropogenic activity was revealed between the existing coral rag buildings, as well as within the open areas inside the town. Over 40 areas of magnetic disturbance were identified that corresponded directly with areas of high magnetic susceptibility in the Slingram electromagnetic in-phase responses.On excavation many of these anomalies were found to correlate with wattle and daub structures, indicating a hitherto unidentified population, and the location of the anomalies also suggests a potentially deliberate delineation of space within the open areas of the stonetown. The combined results of the three geophysical data sets indicate that there are clear delineations in the use of space within Songo Mnara. This coupled with the presence of industrial activities and evidence of more ephemeral occupation, neither of which had previously been recorded at the site, indicates that the pre-existing town plan is in need of significant reappraisal. The current plan, based upon the remains of extant and collapsed coral buildings, can now be updated to incorporate the more ephemeral aspects of Swahili sites including activity areas, and notably, the homes of the ‘hidden majority’of the population.The results establish the benefit of a combined approach at these sites, and demonstrate that further invasive and non-invasive exploration is required in order to fully exploit the significance of the role of geophysical techniques in understanding Swahili towns

When Did the Swahili Become Maritime?

UNLABELLED: In this article, we examine an assumption about the historic Swahili of the eastern African coast: that they were a maritime society from their beginnings in the first millennium C.E. Based on historical and archaeological data, we suggest that, despite their proximity to and use of the sea, the level of maritimity of Swahili society increased greatly over time and was only fully realized in the early second millennium C.E. Drawing on recent theorizing from other areas of the world about maritimity as well as research on the Swahili, we discuss three arenas that distinguish first- and second-millennium coastal society in terms of their maritime orientation. These are variability and discontinuity in settlement location and permanence; evidence of increased engagement with the sea through fishing and sailing technology; and specialized architectural developments involving port facilities, mosques, and houses. The implications of this study are that we must move beyond coastal location in determining maritimity; consider how the sea and its products were part of social life; and assess whether the marine environment actively influences and is influenced by broader patterns of sociocultural organization, practice, and belief within Swahili and other societies. [maritime, fishing and sailing, long-distance trade, Swahili, eastern Africa]. 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 forma significativa particularmente desde principios del segundo milenio E.C. Utilizando teorías recientes sobre maritimidad en otras áreas del mundo, así como investigaciones sobre los Swahili, discutimos tres temas que marcan las diferencias del nivel de orientación marítima de esta sociedad costera entre el primer y segundo milenio. Éstas son la variabilidad y discontinuidad en la localización y permanencia de los asentamientos; evidencia de una conexión mayor con el mar a través de la tecnología de pesca y navegación; y desarrollos arquitectónicos especializados que incluyen instalaciones portuarias, mezquitas, y casas. Las implicaciones de este estudio indican que debemos considerar otros aspectos de una sociedad aparte de su localización costera para determinar su maritimidad. Hay que considerar cómo el mar y sus productos son parte de la vida social y evaluar si existe una influencia recíproca entre el ambiente marítimo y los patrones de organización sociocultural, las prácticas, y las creencias de los Swahili y otras sociedades. [marítimo, pesca y navegación, comercio a larga distancia, Swahili, África Oriental]

The public life of the Swahili stonehouse, 14th - 15th centuries AD

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 to broader social and economic realms, it is rare to think through the public role of houses for non-residents and the larger population of the settlement. This paper seeks to explore this more public aspect of houses using the data from archaeology at Songo Mnara, a 14th–15th century Swahili town on the southern Tanzanian coast. This was a time when stone-built domestic architecture was first emerging in this region. The archaeology of the houses provides data for a series of ways that the house was at the heart of the economic and political life of the town, as well as demonstrating a spatial continuity between indoor and outdoor spaces. It is therefore suggested that the domestic and residential functions of the house for a particular household should be balanced with an appreciation of the broader world of the house itself

Architecture and Gender : Lessons from Building Archaeology in Africa

Peer reviewe

The elusive archaeology of Kongo urbanism: the case of Kindoki, Mbanza Nsundi (Lower Congo, DRC)

We present here results, analyses and an in-depth historical contextualisation of the fieldwork undertaken in 2012 and 2013 at the Kindoki site in the Lower Congo (DRC). This site is linked with Mbanza Nsundi, one of the Kongo Kingdom's provincial capitals, which turns out to be archaeologically 'elusive'. Pinpointing its location proved to be particularly challenging. To this end, a historically-informed excavation methodology was developed that was never implemented in Central Africa before. We combined a strategy of systematic test pits with a large-scale 50 m grid approach. A cemetery was identified on Kindoki Hill with distinct but contemporaneous quarters of a 16th-17thcenturies settlement on both sides. The cemetery itself contains mainly 18th-century burials, in all likelihood of successive Nsundi rulers. The foreign, especially Portuguese, ceramics excavated on the hilltop and the hundreds of Venetian and likely Bavarian beads found in the graves are indicative of Mbanza Nsundi's connection to trade routes linking the Atlantic coast with the Pool region. The most striking discovery is that of a previously unknown type of comb-impressed pottery, from a pit with a calibrated radiocarbon date AD 1294-1393 (2 sigma). This suggests that a settlement had been developing at Kindoki since at least the 14th century, which allows us, for the very first time, to spatially bridge Kongo history and 'prehistory'. For the entire Lower Congo region only three 14C dates posterior to AD 1000 were available before the start of the KongoKing project, twelve have been added for just Kindoki