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Many Zanjian settlements (8th to 13th centuries AD) on Tanzania’s coast are considered to have collapsed and not regarded as belonging to the formation of the Swahili culture (13th to 16th centuries AD). With this regard, Swahili traditions found on Tanzania’s coast are seldom linked to local Zanjian precursors but to external influence especially from Lamu archipelago on the Kenya coast. Nevertheless, new archaeological evidences from Pangani Bay on the northern coast of Tanzania suggest that the external influences to cultural continuity and change from Zanjian to Swahili periods are overemphasized. This conclusion is grounded on archaeological field works conducted in the surrounding of Pangani Bay in 2010 and 2012, where major Swahili sites directly overlie Zanjian sites without recognizable changes of the cultural materials. The study compares and contrasts cultural materials (in particular pottery) and remains of economy and trade (fauna and glass beads) traditions from both Zanjian and Swahili phases. The aim of this comparative analysis is to trace change and continuity of archaeological traditions for better understanding the origin of Swahili culture in Pangani Bay.
In this endeavour, the analysis of ceramic, faunal remains and glass beads from Pangani Bay proposes negligible differences of materials and economical traditions from the late 1st to 2nd millennia AD. That is, local ceramic styles by Swahilis show only minor differences to those used by their ancestors, while fauna data suggest a similarity in subsistence economy between Zanjian and Swahili periods. Correspondingly, glass bead data indicate that although maritime trade became highly sophisticated during Swahili time, early involvement into oceanic far distance trade contact began in the Zanjian period. Thus, this thesis conveys all issues together. It presents research objectives, field work methods as well as analysis and interpretation of the results, with a main focus on ceramic, fauna and bead data. With the support of archaeological evidences, the current work concludes that there is more continuity than change in most of the Zanjian traditions that facilitated the origin of Swahili culture in Pangani Bay.
Thema der Magisterarbeit ist die Aufarbeitung und Auswertung der Grabungen an der Fundstelle Pangwari in Zentralnigeria. Im Fokus stehen die Nok-zeitlichen Befunde und Funde, um die Struktur des Fundplatzes aufzudecken.
Die Nok-Kultur ist bekannt für die im sub-saharischen Raum ältesten Terrakottafiguren sowohl menschlicher als auch tierischer Darstellungen. Seit 2009 untersuchen die Wissenschaftler der Archäologie und Archäobotanik Afrikas an der Goethe-Universität die Hinterlassenschaften der Nok-Kultur. Zahlreiche 14C-Datierungen aus Fundkontexten belegen eine Dauer der Kultur von etwa 1500 v. Chr. bis zur Zeitenwende. Pangwari ist mit über 2600 m² verteilt auf 10 Grabungsschnitte mit knapp 13.000 Messpunkten die größte Grabung einer Nok-Fundstelle. Die Analyse der 20 identifizierten Befunde erlaubte, unter Berücksichtigung der Funde und Datierungen, Rückschlüsse auf die Chronologie und Funktion des Platzes, die in dieser Arbeit vorgestellt werden.