New Perspectives on Precolonial Trade in Eastern Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community " session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Discrepancies are emerging between historical and archaeological perspectives on the nature, scale, and chronology of precolonial and caravan exchange networks in the eastern African interior. For example, the caravan trade is thought to have emerged as coastal interests expanded inland around 1800, yet multiple archaeological sites contain evidence of exchange predating the nineteenth century. This paper presents elemental analyses of obsidian and glass beads recovered from the contemporary Sandawe homeland of north-central Tanzania. The Sandawe have been characterized as descendants of a forager population that remained isolated until recent centuries. Obsidian originating in central Kenya may have entered the study area as early as 750 BC. This represents a 30% increase in the distance over which obsidian is observed to have been transported in eastern Africa, and it is the second farthest known transport of obsidian on the continent, following ancient Egypt. Glass beads from diverse sources in Asia and Europe may have arrived by the late 1600s, continuing into the present. When considered alongside other forms of material culture, these studies demonstrate that the region’s inhabitants have had time-deep connections to numerous exchange networks, ranging from the Rift Valley to the Indian Ocean World and beyond.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40150.0