Azania

The Sharpeville Six were the first black people in South Africa whose death sentences were not
carried out. In the Netherlands the Redt De Sharpeville Zes Komitee3
(Save the Sharpeville Six
Committee) campaigned for the release of the Six and later also for the Upington 14 sentenced to
death. In 1989 these 13 black men and one black woman from Upington were sentenced to death
based on the same arguments as the Sharpeville Six.
The Sharpeville Six and the Upington 14 eventually escaped the gallows. They suffered the
traumatizing effects of imprisonment, torture, being on death row and imminent executions for the
rest of their lives.

Studies of resistance often examine borderlands: liminal areas formed by the presence of often displaced indigenous or dissident social groups along the frontier of hierarchical and hegemonic polities. In this book González-Ruibal addresses one question: what are the strategies and circumstances that have allowed a group of egalitarian societies to survive in the western borderlands of Ethiopia, one of the earliest areas of state formation in Africa? To answer this question he examines and compares how three lowland groups (Gumuz, Bertha and Mao), historically egalitarian hunter-gatherers and slash-and-burn hoe-and-digging-stick farmers, resist the political and cultural hegemony of highland states and their ideologies of inequality by maintaining archaic material practices. What is new in this study is González-Ruibal’s proposed ‘archaeology of resistance’ that queries the structure of resistance of contemporary people as ontological: resistance as a way of being. The author argues that this is archaeological rather than ethnographic because his approach addresses how different groups use time and materiality to resist oppression and to reproduce their egalitarian values. His theoretical framework builds upon two critiques of anthropological theory:

Studies of resistance often examine borderlands: liminal areas formed by the presence of often displaced indigenous or dissident social groups along the frontier of hierarchical and hegemonic polities. In this book González-Ruibal addresses one question: what are the strategies and circumstances that have allowed a group of egalitarian societies to survive in the western borderlands of Ethiopia, one of the earliest areas of state formation in Africa? To answer this question he examines and compares how three lowland groups (Gumuz, Bertha and Mao), historically egalitarian hunter-gatherers and slash-and-burn hoe-and-digging-stick farmers, resist the political and cultural hegemony of highland states and their ideologies of inequality by maintaining archaic material practices. What is new in this study is González-Ruibal’s proposed ‘archaeology of resistance’ that queries the structure of resistance of contemporary people as ontological: resistance as a way of being. The author argues that this is archaeological rather than ethnographic because his approach addresses how different groups use time and materiality to resist oppression and to reproduce their egalitarian values. His theoretical framework builds upon two critiques of anthropological theory:

ABSTRACT The Ndalambiri rock shelter in the Ebo region of Angola is a key site for assessing human occupation there given its potential association between stratigraphic contexts and rock art panels. Focusing on the Iron Age and European contact periods, this study characterised the site’s rock paintings using Raman spectroscopy, while also obtaining AMS radiocarbon dates from paint residues and charcoal collected in stratigraphic context during a trial excavation below one of the painted panels. Raman spectroscopy results revealed the use of a carbon-based pigment (charcoal?), haematite and calcite to prepare black, red and white paints respectively. AMS dating of a black paint sample showed that it was produced between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries, corresponding to the last known phase of rock art production in the area, as further indicated by its stratigraphic position and the depiction of firearms at the site. Earlier occupation of the site associated with metallurgical activity was dated to the mid-first millennium AD and may suggest that the oldest rock art at Ndalambiri corresponds to the arrival of metal-using populations in the region.

This paper presents the first ethnoarchaeological study of stigmatised market pottery production in Tigray Region in northern highland Ethiopia. In Tigray the rural farm economy is based on ox-plough cereal farming, which frequently fails to produce a household's subsistence. ...

This paper presents the first ethnoarchaeological study of stigmatised market pottery production in Tigray Region in northern highland Ethiopia. In Tigray the rural farm economy is based on ox-plough cereal farming, which frequently fails to produce a household's subsistence. ...

ABSTRACT page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary

ABSTRACT Ships were essential for mobility during the colonial period, simultaneously serving as the mechanism of cultural exchange. The study of the artefacts recovered from shipwrecks provides valuable information on life at sea, relationships on-board, how captives endured their transformative voyages and how the trade in forced labour was enacted by colonial administrations. Despite this potential wealth of information, the complexities and expense associated with underwater archaeological research have formed a barrier to the exploration of wrecks used to transport enslaved peoples. However, a number of East African nations have now started initiatives not only to correct the paucity of research on slave trade shipwrecks, but also to protect their underwater cultural heritage. Among these countries, Mauritius has a particularly important prospect for maritime archaeological exploration. The presence of over 1200 wrecks demonstrates the considerable potential of the island’s maritime heritage. Especially notable has been the work undertaken on the Coureur shipwreck, a lugger built in 1818 in Grand Port and sunk in 1821 with a cargo of some 100 illegal slaves from Zanzibar. The sinking of the Coureur marked the true ending of the slave trade in Mauritius and the wreck’s discovery in 2004 has led to new research into Mauritius’ illegal slave trade.

... The seriations in this study have been produced using the Bonn Seriation and Archaeological ... been based upon presence/absence data only, and restricted to the pottery element in ... types occurring only once have necessarily been excluded from the seriations, whde some ...

Iron has played an important role within East African pastoralist societies for many hundreds of years, yet the means by which iron was produced or obtained by these communities has not been thoroughly documented. The bulk of our understanding is presently based on a limited number of ethnographic and artefact studies, which have tended to focus on the functional and symbolic nature of iron objects themselves. We argue that the research presented here provides the first opportunity to add to this narrow knowledge base by reconstructing the iron production technologies of pastoralist communities in Laikipia, Kenya, using an archaeometallurgical approach. Seven furnaces and one iron-production refuse area were excavated at two discrete workshop sites in Laikipia, central Kenya, that date to the second half of the second millennium AD. The recovered archaeometallurgical materials were analysed using optical microscopy, SEM-EDS and ED-XRF. These techniques revealed that the smelting tec...

As part of a larger project examining the introduction of herding into northern Tanzania, surveys and excavations were conducted at the southern edge of the Mbulu Plateau, documenting the presence of Narosura ceramics dating to the early third millennium BP, as well as a Later Stone Age occupation dated via ostrich eggshell to the tenth millennium BP. This marks the southernmost extent of the Pastoral Neolithic in eastern Africa. The paucity of sites attributable to early herding in this area may be due to a lack of survey in landscapes likely to have been preferred by livestock owners and to extensive contemporary cultivation in those same areas. Links can be drawn between the study area and previously documented sites with Narosura materials near Lake Eyasi, and between the study area and obsidian sources in the Lake Naivasha area of the Rift Valley, making the plateau and its surroundings a potentially promising area for further research.

ABSTRACT Through the twentieth century much of the Nubian Nile Valley has seen archaeological survey and excavation, largely in response to its destruction by successive dams built at Aswan. The Mahas Survey Project of the University of Khartoum has continued this work on the Third Cataract approximately 700 km upriver of the First Cataract, within a survey concession extending over some 80 km of the Nile and its immediate hinterlands, an area now under threat by the construction of a dam at Kajbaar. We present here an outline of the long-term development of the region’s settlement landscapes, broadly conceptualised, and their relation to those encountered in adjoining regions. It is possible to draw out some aspects of its cultural distinctiveness at a regional or larger scale, as well as the varying roˆ le of the Third Cataract as a cultural and political frontier in different periods. A contextual approach to its rock art suggests some fresh insights into the latter’s likely significance. A complex and varied settlement history is beginning to emerge which both challenges representations of a uniquely timeless and ancient occupation of the land by autochthonous ‘Nubians’, while raising many new questions concerning the history of this frontier land.

ABSTRACT The general conviction in the Iron Age archaeology of southern Zambezia is that drylands such as the Shashi region are marginal landscapes that did not host any significant food producing communities in the past. Resultantly, for those communities that occupied these landscapes, their settlement histories have been always portrayed as short-lived, since their existence is mostly understood as by chance and not choice. However, new data recovered from Mananzve and other drylands sites we surveyed and excavated in the Shashi region of south-western Zimbabwe demonstrates that Iron Age communities had a long-term settlement history on the landscape and that, through various strategies, they maintained food security in the face of environmental and climatic adversities. At a broader scale, these findings show that these areas perceived today as drylands are resource rich and that Iron Age communities which occupied these landscapes had the capacity to adapt and utilise these resources to their advantage. This challenges the designation of drylands of southern Zambezia such as the Shashi region as marginal, since that term undermines their resource potential and the adaptive capacity of the communities occupying them consistently through time.

There is a growing interest in transoceanic connections between prehistoric communities occupying the Indian Ocean rim. Corroborative and well-sequenced archaeological data from eastern Africa have, however, been notably lacking. Recent excavations by the Sealinks Project in the coastal region of Kenya has sought to redress this imbalance by collecting base-line data on the local communities occupying this region between c. 1000 BC and AD 1000. Although our analyses are still preliminary, the quality of faunal and botanical material recovered demonstrates considerable potential for exploring local interactions and transitions between early hunter-forager and food-producing communities. A key finding in this regard was the identification of a suite of African crops (Sorghum, Pennisetum and Eleusine) at first millennium AD farming and hunter-forager sites, providing the first significant evidence for early agriculture on the Kenyan coast and the role of crops in forager-farmer trade. Other material data, notably the transfer of marine shell and glass beads inland, and the use of ceramics, indicate a tentative correspondence between the increased intensity of such local interactions in the latter half of the first millennium AD and the emergence of wider Indian Ocean connections.Récemment, les liaisons transocéaniques entre les communautés préhistoriques vivant autour de l'Océan Indien ont de plus en plus attiré l'attention. Il subsiste néanmoins pour l'Afrique Orientale un manque de données archéologiques solides et chronologiquement bien calées. Les fouilles récentes du projet Sealinks sur la région côtière du Kenya ont pour but de combler cette lacune, en collectant des données sur les sociétés qui occupèrent cette région entre 1000 av. J.C. et 1000 ap. J.C. Bien que nos analyses soient encore préliminaires, la qualité des éléments fauniques et botaniques prélevés démontre un potentiel considérable pour l’étude des interactions locales et des transitions entre les sociétés de chasseurs-cueilleurs et d'agriculteurs. Une des découvertes les plus importantes à cet égard fut l'identification d'une série de cultures agricoles africaines (sorgho, pennisetum et éleusine) sur des sites du premier millénaire ap. J.C. occupés par des chasseurs-cueilleurs et des agriculteurs, fournissant les premières données conséquentes concernant l'agriculture sur la côte kenyane et le rôle des cultures dans les échanges entre cueilleurs et agriculteurs. D'autres éléments, notamment le transport de coquillages marins et de perles de verre à l'intérieur des terres, ainsi que l'utilisation de la céramique, suggèrent peut-être une correspondance entre l'intensification de telles interactions locales dans la seconde moitié du premier millénaire ap. J.C., et l’émergence de plus larges réseaux de l'Océan Indien.

Faktem jest, że Rzymianie i inni mieszkańcy Śródziemnomorza żeglowali po wodach południowo wschodniej Afryki—nie do końca jednakże wiadomo, jak wielkie były ich wpływy w tym regionie. Periplus Morza Erytrejskiego (15-18), a także Pliniusz Starszy (6.34) i Klaudiusz Ptolemeusz (1.17) sugerują, że w pierwszej połowie I tysiąclecia n.e. Rzymianie handlowali z krainą o nazwie Azania/Zingion, prawdopodobnie położoną na wybrzeżu dzisiejszej Tanzanii. Według Periplusu, najbardziej odległym emporium handlowym Azanii była Rhapta, której mieszkańcy oferowali kość słoniową, skorupy i szylkret w zamian za żelazne narzędzia.
Do niedawna wyżej wymienione teksty stanowiły jedyne źródło informacji na temat starożytnej Azanii, co przekładało się na mocno europocentryczną (czytaj: sceptyczną) perspektywę badaczy. Wykopaliska przeprowadzone na tym terenie w ostatnich dekadach ubiegłego wieku przez Felixa A. Chami pozwoliły nam na uzupełnienie danych pochodzących ze śródziemnomorskich tekstów. Wybrzeża dzisiejszej Tanzanii zostały zasiedlone przez osadników najprawdopodobniej pochodzących z terenów Wielkich Jezior Afrykańskich, gdzie już ok. 500 r. p.n.e. kultura Urewe opanowała sztukę wytopu żelaza z miejscowych rud. W okresie między 200 r. p.n.e. a 50 r. n.e. Azańczycy zdominowali wybrzeże Tanzanii i przejęli korytarz handlowy prowadzący doliną Białego Nilu w stronę Meroe. Umiejętność obróbki żelaza przyśpieszyła rozwój szkutnictwa, a wybrzeże pomiędzy Zanzibarem, Komorami i Madagaskarem zyskało na znaczeniu dla handlu dalekomorskiego.
Po otwarciu się na Ocean Indyjski Rzymianie zwrócili uwagę na potencjał handlowy Azanii, jednakże drogę do niej blokowały państewka Półwyspu Arabskiego, żywo zainteresowane utrzymaniem monopolu handlowego na tym obszarze. Rzymskie naciski doprowadziły do istotnych przetasowań w Azanii, których konsekwencje odczuto być może i w Afryce Południowej. Czy handel morski z Rzymem doprowadził do przerwania szlaku lądowego przez Meroe? Czy Rzymianie pośrednio wsparli rozwój tanzańskiej kultury Tana? Dlaczego Azańczycy kupowali od Rzymian żelazne przedmioty, skoro sami mogli wytworzyć podobne? Skąd pochodzą ołowiane artefakty znajdowane w Azanii? To tylko niektóre z pytań, na które spróbuję odpowiedzieć w moim wystąpieniu.

Durbi Takusheyi is a burial site composed of at least eight mounds located between the modern towns of Katsina and Daura in northern Nigeria. Parts of the mounds were first excavated in 1907 by Herbert Richmond Palmer in cooperation with the Emir of Katsina and later again in 1992 in the course of a German research project under the lead