Cabaceira Pequena Archaeological Site: Initial Data and Interpretations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Swahili Coast Civilization was a collection of independent polities that stretched across a large portion of the East African Coast from about 800 CE to the early modern period. There are several important sites that have contributed to our understanding of the wider Swahili world in northern Mozambique. On the Cabo Delgado and Nampula coast, some sites included Swahili settlements such as Angoche, Mozambique Island, the Quirimba Islands, and Somana. There are still important questions yet to be answer regarding the identity and relationships these coastal groups on the Mozambican coast had with the rest of the Swahili world. It is becoming increasingly clear that communities along the Nampula and Cabo Delgado coast had a different historical trajectory compared to their northern contemporaries. A 2018 excavation at Cabaceira Pequena Archaeological Site offers new possibilities for understanding the Swahili cultural horizon. This paper seeks to argue that although the Swahili coast was a cohesive amalgamation of independent polities, at the same time Swahili society was a diverse set of communities that represented a number of different influences from across the Indian Ocean world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32182