Island colonization and ecological transformation in prehistoric eastern Africa

Summary

Until recently, the small islands lying off the coasts of Tanzania and Kenya have seen little systematic archaeological investigation. Their biogeographic diversity, reflecting various processes and chronologies of formation, nonetheless offers an ideal opportunity to examine processes of prehistoric colonization and anthropogenic impact.We explore the earliest evidence for human activity on three different islands, Pemba, Zanzibar and Mafia, and provide the first evidence for early human alterations of these island ecosystems. While the datasets remain preliminary, we are able to show that the types of anthropogenic impacts also seen on other regional island systems, including extinction, extirpation and habitat alteration, were also a feature of early settlement in island east Africa.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• The Island Anthropocene

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16929