Regional Coastal Dhow Trade Networks are not Limited by Monsoons, Rather Driven by Trade Needs: Implications for the early Swahili Marinescape

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Maritimity in the Indo-Pacific World" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The nature of how ancestral peoples of the Eastern African coast engaged with their maritime environment remains a source of debate and uncertainty in the archaeological literature. Therein, the alternating monsoon seasons that occur during the winter and summer across the Indian Ocean are often seen as a major roadblock to maritime trade on the coast. This position mirrors the propensity for academics to see environmental factors in Sub-Saharan Africa as a key hindrance to the development of large population centers and robust market economies. This paper challenges this view regarding East Africa by examining the effects of monsoon seasons on the trade activity of small-scale ‘dhow’ sailing ships by examining ship registries recorded at the port of Lamu in Northern Kenya between 1966 and 1976. Contrary to prevailing beliefs that monsoon winds significantly restrict and govern trade activity in specific directions during each monsoon, our findings indicate that local dhow traders engaged in commerce year-round with active trade occurring even during adverse conditions. These findings reveal that regional connections among merchants facilitated consistent and robust supply chains along the coast, thus undermining the view that environmental factors are bound to greatly hinder maritime trade in this region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Maritimity in the Indo-Pacific World

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52011