Recent archaeological research has firmly established eastern Africa’s
offshore islands as important localities for understanding the region’s
pre-Swahili maritime adaptations and early Indian Ocean trade connections.
While the importance of the sea and small offshore islands
to the development of urbanized and mercantile Swahili societies has
long been recognized, the formative stages of island colonization—and
in particular the processes by which migrating Iron Age groups essentially
became “maritime”—are still relatively poorly understood. Here
we present the results of recent archaeological fieldwork in the Mafia
Archipelago, which aims to understand these early adaptations and
situate them within a longer-term trajectory of island settlement and
pre-Swahili cultural developments. We focus on the results of zooarchaeological,
archaeobotanical, and material culture studies relating
to early subsistence and trade on this island to explore the changing
significance of marine resources to the local economy. We also discuss
the implications of these maritime adaptations for the development of
local and long-distance Indian Ocean trade networks.The Sealinks Project is funded through a
grant toNicole Boivin from the European Research
Council (StarterGrant 206148) under
the “Ideas” specific Programme of the 7th
Framework Programme (FP7). Additional
funding includes: postdoctoral fellowships
from the British Academy (2010–2013) and
the University of Queensland (2015–2017)
to Alison Crowther; a Fondation Fyssen Postdoctoral
Grant toEr´endira Quintana Morales;
and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Government
of the Balearic Islands (Conselleria
d’Educaci´o) and the European Social Fund
to Llorenc¸ Picornell-Gelabert. Fieldwork was
carried out under COSTECH Research Permit
no. 2012-303-ER-2011-85 and the Division
of Antiquities (Ministry of Natural Resources
and Tourism, Tanzania) excavation
license no. EA.402/605/01 issued to Alison
Crowther, and with the support and permission
of theRegionalAdministrative Secretary
(Dar es Salaam andCoast/Pwani), the District
Administrative Secretary (Mafia), and the Village
Executive Officer (Mtendaji wa Kijiji,
Juani).http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uica20hb2016Anthropology and Archaeolog
