Settlement Adaptation to a Changing Coastline: Archaeological Evidence from Tanzania, during the First and Second Millennia AD

A Late Quaternary sea-level curve for South Africa is presented on the basis of new and published data from a range of sea level indicators and a variety of locations. Available evidence suggests that sea level in South Africa broadly follows that described from the Caribbean but that deviations occur during sea-level highstands. During the last interglaciation (oxygen isotope stage 5) and the late Holocene, coastal emergence produced higher sea levels in South Africa than those identified in the Caribbean during the same time intervals. This is tentatively ascribed to predicted lithospheric deformation in continental margin settings.

Urban communities on the medieval East African coast have been previously discussed in terms of ethnicity and migration. Here assemblages from coastal towns and from surface survey in the interior are used to paint a different picture of urban (Swahili) origins. The author shows that coast and interior shared a common culture, but that coastal sites grew into ‘stonetowns’ thanks to the social impact of imports: the material culture structured the society.