Archaeological Approaches To East Africa's Changing Seascapes

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Archaeological approaches to East Africa’s changing

seascapes
Colin Breen & Paul Lane
Published online: 04 Jun 2010.
To cite this article: Colin Breen & Paul Lane (2004) Archaeological approaches to East Africa’s changing seascapes, World
Archaeology, 35:3, 469-489, DOI: 10.1080/0043824042000185838
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Archaeological approaches to East

Africa’s changing seascapes
Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

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Abstract
The East African coast has a relatively uniform topography and environment but has been witness
to a complex mosaic of human and cultural influences. This paper examines these influences from a
chronological and theoretical perspective over the last 2500 years and argues that increased atten-
tion should be paid to the sea and its influence on and role in past cultural activity. Such an approach
would build on and complement the existing ‘Swahili’ or coastal archaeology research traditions
which are vibrant along this littoral. A selected case study on the historic port town of Mombasa
examines the relationship of its varied temporal settlements with the sea and looks at the integrated
approaches to maritime research which have recently been undertaken there.
Keywords
East Africa; maritime; coastal; Swahili; Mombasa.
Introduction
Maritime archaeological research has been traditionally dominated by architectural/

structural approaches to the study of boats and shipwrecks with a passing regard for
supporting port and harbour features and associated settlement (e.g. Muckelroy 1978;
Gould 2000; Ruppé and Barstad 2002). In addition, emphasis has been placed on estab-
lishing an evolutionary chronology for the development of boats and detailed structural
analysis has taken place on the minutiae of nautical construction (e.g. McGrail 1987). The
study of traditional boats has also been a significant part of this latter element, but again
the emphasis has been on physical structure rather than any attempt to see the boats as
artefacts of broader society. Moreover, maritime archaeology in general has been guided
by technological developments, which have facilitated underwater exploration, rather
than by a theoretically informed landscape approach aimed at establishing a more inte-
grated understanding of past coastal landscapes or seascapes. Increasingly, however, a
number of practitioners of the subject are redefining this ship-centric view and are
World Archaeology Vol. 35(3): 469–489 Seascapes

© 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online
DOI: 10.1080/0043824042000185838
470 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane
beginning to re-evaluate their approaches to coastal landscapes (e.g. Westerdahl 1992;

Parker 2001; McErlean et al. 2002).
Traditional nautical archaeological approaches can only have a limiting effect on the
future development of the subject area. An area as culturally complex and dynamic as the
East African coast requires far more flexible and rounded research strategies than ones
exclusively concerned with the long-term investigation of single shipwreck sites,
especially given the well-established tradition of ‘coastal’ or ‘Swahili’ archaeology
throughout the region. This is not to diminish the potential contributions in knowledge
that the discovery of a well-preserved wreck and cargo off the East African littoral could
furnish. Neither is it to suggest that efforts should not be made to locate such sites off the
East African coast. Precisely because of the nature of the events that create shipwrecks,
analysis of their assemblages can provide finer chronological resolution about artefact
styles, typologies and the particularities of long-distance trade than can be obtained on
even single-phase settlement sites. They can also provide vivid insights into the way of life
and material culture of fishing and seafaring communities. Nevertheless, archaeological
investigation of shipwrecks, even in relatively prosperous countries, can be an expensive
exercise, especially given the added cost of post-excavation conservation of artefacts and
structural remains. Given the current economic climate in East Africa, no national or local
institutional body is likely to have the independent resources to finance such investiga-
tions. Consequently, if ‘maritime archaeology’ is presented purely in these terms then
there is a high probability that the underwater archaeological resources in the region will
be either ignored or left to commercial salvage companies to exploit, as is happening off
sections of the southern part of this littoral – neither of which is a satisfactory outcome. A
major challenge facing archaeologists, therefore, is to develop an intellectual framework
in which targeted investigation of the sub-tidal and inter-tidal zones is married with the
existing strategies of East African coastal archaeology so as to provide longer-term, and
more holistic, understanding of the development of maritime traditions in the region. This
paper then does not aspire to be a definitive study of East Africa’s maritime cultural past.
Instead, it offers itself as a preliminary model of changing seascapes in the region.
Although largely based on the results of previous work, supplemented by the results of
our own pilot investigations around Mombasa Island, Kenya, our core objective is to offer
a fresh paradigm for the way in which the study of maritime land- and seascapes can
contribute to cultural narratives about the past, so as to facilitate discursive dialogues
about contemporary and future society in the broader Indian Ocean littoral.
East African coastal archaeology
The East African littoral or ‘Swahili coast’ is a section of coastline over 3000km long
stretching from Mogadishu in Somalia to the north and Mozambique to the south (Fig. 1).
It includes a number of offshore islands, of which the Comoros, the Kerimbas, Mafia,
Zanzibar and Pemba in Tanzania and the Lamu archipelago in northern Kenya are the
most significant. The environment is diverse but is dominated in the interior by a low-level
coastal plateau. The coast itself is low-lying and ranges in type from sand-dune systems
through to coastal mangroves and estuarine areas. Much of the coast is fringed by coral
East Africa’s changing seascapes 471

Figure 1 Map of the East African, ‘Swahili’ coast, showing location of some of the sites mentioned
in the text.
reefs and has warm shallow waters. Consequently there is a wide diversity of fish species
available but access to the shore by boat is often difficult given the complex nature of
seabed and the fringing reef systems. In general, this environmental and ecological diver-
sity has led to the availability of a wide range of resources. In the coastal hinterland,
agricultural and hunting activity was common while the marine zone includes productive
fisheries and shellfish beds. Both mangroves and coral have been used extensively as
building materials. A further defining influence of the region is the monsoons. These winds
essentially create the conditions for a cyclical seasonal pattern of maritime trade, enabling
long-distance travel throughout the Indian Ocean. During the north-west monsoon
between November and April, winds blow south-east, allowing vessels to sail to the East
African coast from Arabia and India. Between April and September, during the
south-east monsoon, winds reverse direction, allowing vessels to sail in the opposite
direction (Datoo 1974).

Compared with many other parts of the African continent, there is a strong tradition of
archaeological research in this area. Often glossed as either ‘Swahili’ or ‘coastal’ archae-
ology, this tradition has its origins in a concern with investigation of the numerous coastal
sites with upstanding stone-built architecture found between Mogadishu in the north and
Sofala in the south. At the most recent count, over four hundred such sites are known to
exist, of which maybe as many as two-thirds have been investigated archaeologically.
These include the larger, better-known settlements, such as Kilwa (Chittick 1974), Gedi
(Kirkman 1954, 1963); Manda (Chittick 1984) and Shanga (Horton 1996), that have been
the focus of extensive excavation campaigns, as well as a diverse range of other sites that
have been either test-excavated and/or mapped. While the goals of individual researchers
have inevitably varied, over the half-century since systematic archaeological investiga-
tions were initiated ‘coastal’ archaeology has coalesced around a core set of interrelated
themes (Kusimba 1999; Spear 2000a, 2000b). In no particular order of importance, these
are the origins and causes of urbanism; the nature, extent and direction of trans-oceanic
trade; the inception and spread of Islam; and the origins and material expression of
‘Swahili’ identity (cf. Horton and Middleton 2000).
During the initial years of research between the 1950s and 1970s, the available docu-
mentary sources tended to drive most archaeological agendas to such an extent that it
encouraged one leading player to characterize his work as ‘historical archaeology’
(Kirkman 1957) – the first such use of the term with reference to African contexts. Since
1980, verification of the different historical sources has become less significant, although
it has by no means been abandoned entirely. In its place, greater emphasis has been placed
on utilizing archaeological strategies to provide independent evidence for the timing of
particular events and historical processes (Abungu 1989; Kusimba 1999), the nature of
local subsistence and economic practices (e.g. Horton and Mudida 1993; Kusimba 1993),
transformations in religious beliefs and social organization (e.g. Horton 1996) and impacts
on the local and regional physical and cultural environments. At the same time, a parallel
concern with the immediate precursors to the stone-walled coastal trading settlements has
also emerged (e.g. LaViolette et al. 1989, 1999; Kessy 1997; Chami 1998; Helm 2000). This
has encouraged a lively debate over the precise origin of a distinct Swahili identity and the
relative contributions of ‘Bantu’, ‘Cushitic’ and ‘Arab’ populations and cultural traditions
(for recent summaries of this, see Horton and Middleton 2000; Spear 2000a). In particular,
whereas initially overarching emphasis was given to the Arab contributions to the emer-
gence of Swahili identity, in recent years it has become widely accepted on both archaeo-
logical and linguistic grounds that Swahili, as both a language and a ‘people’, is ultimately
of African origin (e.g. Nurse and Hinnebusch 1993; Chami 1998).
Nevertheless, like most other maritime societies (cf. Braudel 1966; Chaudhuri 1985),
today’s inhabitants of the ‘Swahili Coast’ have a long tradition as cultural brokers and
middlemen, such that, over the centuries, their identities have been forged and re-forged
many times. This has resulted in the creation of a rich cultural, linguistic and material
maritime heritage. Curiously, however, most recent attempts to define the particular
characteristics of early East African coastal towns, or the ethnic, linguistic and cultural
progenitors of Swahili identity, have tended to overlook the changing significance of the
sea to local populations in favour of other variables. In an effort to redress this, we offer
here an alternative perspective on the culture history of this coastal zone and sketch out a
theoretical and methodological model for the reconstruction of the region’s past
‘seascapes’ and associated activities and technologies (Fig. 2). Although based primarily
on previously published material, this seeks to highlight some of the main changes in
human relationships with the sea and maritime resources over the last c. 2500 years. We
then develop these ideas with particular reference to the seascapes and landscapes of
Mombasa Island, Kenya, utilizing both published material and the results of recent pilot
maritime archaeological investigations (Breen et al. 2001).
Changing seascapes
In broad terms, the existing chrono-stratigraphic sequence for much of the East African
coast suggests that prior to c. 2300 BP, the entire littoral zone was occupied exclusively by
groups of hunter-gatherer-fishers, with a microlithic stone-tool technology made from a
wide variety of raw materials. Typologically, this material can be assigned to a coastal variant
of the classic ‘Wilton’ complex that characterizes the Later Stone Age (LSA) of the Rift and
other parts of the interior (Phillipson 1977: 36–45; Robbins 1997). Compared with these
latter areas, coastal LSA sites have received only minimal archaeological investigation,
although the results of recent systematic fieldwork around Mombasa (Helm 2000) and
south of Dar es Salaam (Kessy 1997) provide some indication of the relative density of sites
and preferred settlement locations. Additionally, the reported find of LSA horizons dated to
between c. 4120 and 1955 BP at Machaga Cave on Zanzibar c. 40 km from the mainland
(Chami 2001a), implies a seafaring ability possibly beyond the use of simple dug-out canoes.
To date, these are the earliest dated archaeological horizons from any of the major offshore
islands in the region. Even so, at present, the evidence available suggests only limited
exploitation of marine resources during this phase. This may have more to do with survey
and excavation strategies than any actual cultural preferences or abilities, not least because
the screening of deposits for the recovery of fish bones has been a matter of routine on
excavations only for little more than a decade. Also, although it is known from marine
terraces and fossil shorelines that the mid-Holocene sea level along the Indian Ocean
littoral was between 3–11m higher (Alexander 1969; Åse 1987; Kajita 1984; Ramsay 1995)
these terraces have yet to be systematically examined for traces of LSA activity.
Figure 2 Schematic activity zones and associated technologies of different seascapes on the East African coast.
The period between c. 2300 and 1500 BP witnessed the gradual emergence of the first
farming and iron-using communities along the littoral. One early cluster of such Early
Iron Age (EIA) sites seems to have been on the central Tanzania coast between Dar es
Salaam and the Rufiji Delta (Chami 2001b, and references therein). Others include the
low coastal plain north of Mombasa (Helm 2000) and the highland zone immediately
inland from the southern Kenya/northern Tanzania coast (Soper 1967a; Schmidt 1988).
Since the 1960s, the southward expansion of farming and iron-using communities has
been associated with the spread of the ancestral forms of the numerous Bantu languages
which today form the dominant linguistic grouping across virtually all of eastern, central
and southern Africa. However, whereas initial interpretations of the archaeological
evidence tended to be driven by this linguistic paradigm, more recent revisionist interpre-
tations of the linguistic model and its archaeological manifestations (e.g. Vansina 1995;
Schoenbrun 1999; Robertson and Bradley 2000) and refined understanding of the archae-
ological sequences have encouraged recognition of a degree of continuity between LSA
and EIA communities.
Furthermore, it is evident that, although fish, marine mammals, crustaceans and
molluscs frequently occur in the faunal assemblages of early farming sites, with a few
exceptions such as the shell middens with EIA pottery at Xai-Xai on the southern
Mozambique coast (Morais 1988), terrestrial resources (whether wild or domestic) seem
to have been more important than marine ones at least until the seventh century AD. On
the other hand, other marine resources begin to assume significance during this period.
The extraction of sea-salt, for instance, may well have begun during the EIA (e.g. Chittick
1975), albeit, given the absence of briquetage at the site (Horton and Middleton 2000: 44),
as did, perhaps, the utilization of marine shells for the production of beads and other body
ornaments. Significantly, as well as occurring on coastal sites, shell beads, bead grinders
and the use of marine shells for decorating pottery have been reported from sites inland,
including in the Usambara Hills (Soper 1967b) and the Pangani/Ruvu Valley (Jonathan
Waltz, pers. comm.). Despite such trends, however, prior to the late first millennium AD
the available evidence points to opportunistic harvesting of marine resources rather than
extensive exploitation.
From c. the eighth century AD, new forms of settlement with the first traces of stone
built architecture begin to appear at points along the coast. Evidence from sites such as
Shanga and Pate in the Lamu archipelago (Horton and Mudida 1993; Mudida 1996;
Wilson and Omar 1997), Kizimkazi Dimbani on Zanzibar (Kleppe 1996; Van Neer 2001)
and Dembeni on Maore, Comoro Islands (Wright 1984), suggest an increasing importance
of fish in local diets. At Kizimkazi, dated minimally to the twelfth to fourteenth century
AD, fish made up 76 per cent of the faunal assemblage and at least thirty-two separate taxa
could be identified. Large oceanic species, such as marlin or sailfish, were completely
lacking, and pelagic (open-water) species, such as mackerel and tuna, were extremely rare
(Van Neer 2001: 387). This would indicate that most fishing was conducted around the
reefs which lie about one kilometre from the shore, and in the intervening sandy lagoons.
Of the reef fish, lethrinids (emperor fish), serranids (rock cod, sea bass) and scarids
(parrotfish) were particularly common. These data further imply that hook and line
fishing, and perhaps the use of traps (as is common around Kizimkazi today), were the
main techniques employed, as net fishing, for obvious reasons, is rarely used around reefs.
The scarcity of pelagic species might also imply that only small craft, such as dug-out and
outrigger canoes were available. At Shanga, occupied c. 760–1425 AD, the exploitation of
fish was rare before c. AD 1000, although two other marine resources – sea turtle and
shellfish – were clearly important sources of protein in these early phases. In later levels,
fish made up a substantial proportion of the faunal evidence from the site peaking around
Phase 9 (c. 1100 AD), with fifty-seven species from twenty-nine families represented
(Horton and Mudida 1993; Mudida 1996). By and large, rather similar fishing techniques
are implied, at least up until the later phases. Compared with Kizimkazi, however, there
is firmer evidence for the use of nets and also fish-traps as indicated by the relatively high
representation of small, shoal-dwelling fish and the presence of shell-middens of Pota-
mides spp., which today are widely used for baiting fish-traps (Horton 1996: 34; Mudida
1996: 380). Deeper-water species such as barracuda and shark were also being exploited
on a more regular basis during the later phases, which might have entailed the use of lures
as is common today. More intriguingly, there is also good evidence to suggest over-fishing,
and the exploitation of several taxa show distinct patterns of decline over time, such that
at least one (Siganidae) remains locally scarce to this day.
In addition to this intensification of fishing, new kinds of relationships with the sea and
its resources began to emerge as a result of the expansion of the trans-oceanic trade in
commodities. Historical sources, such as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Huntingford
1980; Casson 1989), and finds of Egypto-Roman and other Mediterranean imports on
sites from the Horn (Chittick 1976; Smith and Wright 1988) southwards as far as Zanzibar,
Mafia and the Rufiji delta (Chami 1999, 2001b) indicate that East African coastal
communities had already been drawn into an international trade network by the last few
centuries BC if not earlier (see Mbida et al. 2000; Chami 2001a). However, the scale of this
trade seems to have been limited and there is a marked hiatus in trading activity at most
sites from the fourth to the eighth/ninth century AD. Thus, it is at this later date that the
commercialization of the Western Indian Ocean truly begins.
The most obvious signs of this commercialization are the wide range of imported
ceramics, beads, glassware and metal artefacts from, in particular, the Persian Gulf, the Red
Sea, India and China. The increased wealth of local communities, as evidenced by the
numerous elite buildings in stone, and the monetarization of the economy (albeit on a
limited scale) provide further indications of this trend. Detailed analyses of the imported
goods in conjunction with the stratigraphic phasing of deposits imply at least three phases.
During the first of these from c. 800 to 1100 AD, most of the trade was with the Persian Gulf.
This period saw the genesis of the Swahili as a distinct socio-cultural entity. This was
followed, from c. 1100–1300, by a shift in trade towards the Red Sea and the steady
Islamization of most areas along the coast. During the final period from c. 1300 to 1500, the
Indian Ocean trade and the associated florescence of the coastal Swahili towns reached
their climax (for overviews, see Horton 1996: 407–28; Horton and Middleton 2000: 87–114;
Kusimba 1999; La Violette 1996; La Violette in press; Spear 2000a; Sutton 1997).
Whereas the imported goods have received greatest scholarly attention, the commer-
cialization of the sea also had obvious impacts on the utilization of local marine resources.
This not only encouraged changes in the social relations of production, but also had
recursive consequences for how different marine resources were managed and harvested.
Thus, for instance, one of the main exports, as attested by the documentary sources, was
mangrove poles. These were used in house-roof construction in cities around the Gulf,
such as Siraf and Sohar, where one single-storey house required c. 300 poles. Conse-
quently, an entire city covering c. 110ha. and occupied for more than 200 years would have
required millions of poles (Whitehouse 2001: 416). Given this demand, it is possible that
some of the major Swahili settlements were centres for logging operations, and
mangroves were being actively managed so as to ensure sufficient supplies. This has yet to
be confirmed through palaeoenvironmental work on mainland East Africa, although
there is clearly potential for this, as highlighted by a recent pilot study in NW Madagascar
(Radimilahy 2001).
There is also far greater evidence from this period concerning the range of vessels in
use. Aside from the written sources, the numerous examples of ‘ship graffiti’ found
engraved on house and mosque walls at sites along the Swahili coast, and probably dated
to the thirteenth to sixteenth century, provide especially valuable insights into local
seafaring technology (Garlake and Garlake 1964). At least four different types of vessel
are depicted, ranging from small boats with a curved bow and stern and triangular sail to
larger flat-bottomed vessels with either a raked or straight stem and/or stern, some of
which resemble more recent types of inshore and cargo dhow. There are also several
examples with a curved, ‘swan-necked’ bow, decorated with oculi and tasselled amulets. In
terms of their form, these most closely resemble the mtepe, a type of sewn, plank-built
boat with square sails and a spreader yard, first described in the Periplus, that possibly
evolved on the Somali or Benadir coast, and variants of which continued to be built and
used up to the early twentieth century (Chittick 1980a; Poumailloux 1999). In the absence
of actual wrecks, the only other relevant physical traces of nautical technology from this
era are a few stone anchor-shanks. These consist of a long, flat-sided shaft, slightly thicker
at one end, in which two rectangular holes were set at right angles to each other, probably
to hold wooden flukes or grapnel tines with metal-sheathed tips (Chittick 1980b) More
recently, Kapitan (2001) has suggested that this type of artefact, which is also found
throughout the Arab-Indian region, may have been used as a mooring-post rather than as
an anchor. Whatever the precise function of these objects, all the vessel types depicted in
the graffiti would have been beached for unloading, or utilized purpose-built waterfront
structures evident in later centuries.
The commercialization of the sea also had major impacts on local tastes (cf. Stahl 2002),
and this too had recursive consequences for the harvesting of marine resources. For
instance, beads made from locally available marine shells are especially common on sites
up to c. 1000–1200 AD. Thereafter, however, with the increased influx of imported glass
beads, they become increasingly scarce, with only a few selected species, such as Conus
shells, being used only to make ‘special’ high-prestige beads (see, e.g., Chittick 1974: 473;
Horton 1996: 323–36). In contrast, whereas commercialization undermined local manu-
facture of shell beads, it encouraged for the first time the exploitation of coral as a building
material in the form of ashlar blocks, undressed rag and a base for mortar, with obvious
and highly visible archaeological consequences.
With the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, following Vasco de Gama’s
voyage in 1498–9, many Swahili settlements went into decline. By wresting control of
Indian Ocean trade away from the Arab, Indian and Swahili states, key commodities,
notably gold and spices, were redirected to Western European markets, with devastating
effects on local economies. Perhaps more critically, Portuguese incursion also stimulated
a level of maritime militarization that had not been witnessed before. This is partly
attested by numerous historical accounts of sea battles and sieges (Strandes 1961 [1899]).
However, the archaeological evidence also bears testament to this: most noticeably, the
various forts built by the Portuguese between Sofala in the south and Pate in the north
(Pradines 2001: 89–12) and the wrecks of at least two Portuguese warships (Blake and
Green 1985; Lynch 1991). By the end of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese had lost
control of the Western Indian Ocean, however, and power now shifted to Oman and
subsequently Zanzibar (Risso 1986; Sheriff 1987). The following two decades seem to
have been especially turbulent, as different factions both within the Omani elite and also
on the East African coast competed with one another for overall control of the coast. A
further central component of this period was the expansion of trade, particularly in slaves
and ivory, with groups in the interior. Both factors contributed to increased militarization,
with the consequence that new forts were built on the coast, including those at Siyu, Lamu
(Kenya), Chake Chake (Pemba) and in Zanzibar town (Pradines 2001: 113–48), and on
routes to the interior (e.g. Lane 1993). Elsewhere, as at Kilwa (Chittick 1974: 213–23) and
Fort Jesus, Mombasa (Kirkman 1974), former Portuguese forts were taken over and
modified, and caravanserai with slave markets were established, such as at Bagamoyo on
the Tanzania coast (Lane in press).
The First World War probably marks the culmination of this era of militarization, with
the result that several vessels were sunk during naval enagements, including the British
frigate HMS Pegasus off Zanzibar, and the German cruiser SMS Königsberg near the
entrance to the Rufiji Delta (Hatchell 1954). In the next few decades, as British, Italian
and Portuguese colonial authority was consolidated, the East African coast and its inhabi-
tants were drawn into a new, global economy, the early traces of which still survive in a
variety of forms that range from wrecked steamers and abandoned warehouses to former
administration buildings and harbour facilities that are still in use today. The process of
globalization continues, such that, where once the main visitors to the coast were drawn
from the Arab world and the Indian Ocean rim, now Western tourists brought on cruise
ships and international flights predominate. This has not meant that older seascapes have
been lost. Rather, all three coexist alongside this most recent form, each comprising a
semi-translucent lens through which aspects of the region’s complex and multiple pasts
can be viewed .
In summary, over the last 2500 years there have been at least four major shifts in the
nature of human interactions with the sea and coastal resources, beginning with a period
dominated by harvesting of resources, through phases of increased commercialization and
militarization and culminating in a still-ongoing era of globalization. Of course, other
relationships may have pertained in the past, just as they do now. Not all of these,
however, are as accessible archaeologically as those we have identified.
Selected case study: Mombasa, Kenya
Mombasa is a small coralline island on the south coast of Kenya. Its coastline is irregular
and dominated by low coral cliffs up to 20m in height and indented with a number of small
creeks and bays. One of its prime attractions from a maritime perspective is the presence of
two sheltered deep-water anchorages directly adjacent to the island which allow easy access
for vessels of all sizes. It also enjoys good access to hinterland communication networks. The
foreshore is largely composed of narrow coral platforms with some sandy beaches at the
heads of the creeks. The interior of the island is generally flat and physically featureless
while the adjoining hinterland is part of a narrow coastal plain beyond which the land rises.
In January 2001, researchers drawn from the University of Ulster, the British Institute in
Eastern Africa and the National Museums of Kenya, undertook collaborative archaeological
investigations of the maritime landscape of Mombasa Island (Breen et al. 2001). This was
designed as an integrated maritime landscape project utilizing a suite of marine geophysical
survey equipment to map the seabed comprehensively in a 3D manner. Any potential
cultural anomalies on the seabed located during this survey were then ‘ground-truthed’ by
diver survey. A comprehensive foreshore survey was conducted in tandem with the marine
survey using established inter-tidal survey techniques supported by dGPS. Terrestrial survey,
test excavation and desk-based historical research utilizing local resources represented the
final element of the overall survey. Mombasa Island has a long history of settlement and
coastal activity with well-recognized medieval ‘Swahili’ levels (Sassoon 1980, 1982; Kirkman
1982), dominant Portuguese fortified architecture (Kirkman 1974) and a range of colonial
and mainland settlement influences (Berg and Walter 1968; Willis 1993). The project was
therefore partly about assessing the nature and extent of surviving maritime cultural remains.
However, it also sought to assess the potential for developing maritime landscape
approaches in East Africa. Given its varied maritime past, where the sea as a facilitator of
trade, communications and resources has been an underlying constant in a period of
continual cultural flux, Mombasa was ideally suited to this objective.
From previous research, it was known that Ras Kiberamni overlooking Tudor Creek
was one of a number of settlement concentrations on the island prior to the arrival of the
Portuguese (Fig. 3). Specifically, excavation at the Coast General Hospital site in this the
north-eastern part of the island uncovered evidence of an extensive urban settlement
dating from c. AD 1000 to abandonment or destruction in the early sixteenth century
(Sassoon 1980). Further artefactual deposits associated with this site were located during
foreshore survey in 2001. Quantities of triangular incised ware (TIW), datable to between
the sixth and ninth centuries AD, were also recovered from the foreshore immediately
below the hospital site. These were found to be eroding out of the soft cliff face at this
location and provide the earliest date yet for occupation of Mombasa Island.
The construction of a more developed urban settlement on Ras Kiberamni appears to
have commenced in the eleventh to twelfth century and it is here that the Arab traveller
Ibn Battuta spent a night in 1331:
We came to the island of Mambasa, a large island two days’ journey by sea from the
Sawahil country. It has no mainland territory, and its trees are the banana, the lemon,
and citron. . . . The inhabitants of this island sow no grain, and it has to be transported
to them from the Sawahil. Their food consists mostly of bananas and fish. They are
Shafi’ites in rite, pious, honourable, and upright, and their mosques are of wood,
admirably constructed.
(G1962, ii, 379; Freeman-Grenville 1962)

Figure 3 Map of Mombasa Island, showing location of main archaeological ‘sites’.
In common with other classic Swahili settlements, the town become a centre of mercantile
activity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and served as an important entrepôt in the
coastal operations of the Swahili coast with trading contacts throughout the Indian Ocean.
The subsequent arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and their later displace-
ment by Omani forces in 1698 heralded a period of colonial domination and militarization
of the coast. The fluctuation of colonial control is marked by periodic instances of violence,
illustrated, for example, in the archaeological record by the presence of seven-
teenth-century European shipwreck sites in Mombasa harbour. One such site is the
forty-two gun Portuguese frigate Santo Antonio de Tanna, lost during the course of the Arab
siege of Fort Jesus in 1697–8, and excavated by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA)
in the 1970s (Piercy 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981). Six other previously unidentified shipwreck
sites were located during the 2001 survey using side-scan sonar and marine magnetometry
during the survey. These included five nineteenth- and twentieth-century mercantile vessels
and an eighteenth-century European vessel. These were among fifty-one anomalies located
on the seabed, of which twenty-six were investigated by divers (Fig. 4).
The continuity of coastal activity into the colonial period is a dominant landscape
theme, as evidenced by the centricity and physical focus of established and newly devel-
oped settlements on and towards the sea. Much of the architectural physicality of colonial
and waterfront building can be seen to be exerting a controlling and subjugating influence
on the coast and its peoples. The construction of Fort Jesus, an elaborate Portuguese
fortification (Kirkman 1974), at the entrance to Tudor Creek exemplifies this approach
and graphically illustrates the European reliance on military force to protect their
economic interest in the sea. The entrance to Kilindini harbour was similarly guarded by
three Portuguese batteries, Fort Saint Joseph, the Horseshoe Fort and the Round Fort, the
latter designated ‘the Fort of the Anchorage’. The construction of these forts and associ-
ated settlements created a differentiated group of spaces devoted to militaristic and social
activities. Later Omani occupation and control of Mombasa is also visibly expressed
through the occupation of Fort Jesus. Thus, their sense of ownership and presence is
marked by the distinctively Arabic architectural additions to the battlements of the fort,
which illustrates a continuity of the utilization of architecture as an outward expression of
control. This distinctive dominant military architecture is also an overt expression of
European and Arabic colonial identities. The delimitation or enclosure of space in water-
front areas is a further expression of separateness and the inherent hierarchical structure
of coastal socio-economic activity. Both Portuguese and Arab warehouses and a customs
house building are illustrated in eighteenth-century cartographic sources, while extensive
mercantile storage and administrative buildings were constructed in the nineteenth
century at the Old Port, many of which still stand. These exclusively economic spaces
contrast sharply with lower-level coastal subsistence strategies of the lower social strata of
society (Fig. 5), which in turn are multi-layered and complex.
Both archaeological and cartographic evidence suggests that colonial and indigenous
African settlement was separate and that their respective architectural expressions were
significantly different. This difference is also reflected in differing technological levels of
maritime exploitation. Compare, for example, large European mercantile vessels with the
small dug-out canoes used by local people for fishing and ferrying purposes (Fig. 6). This
is not to argue that there was a polar hierarchy in evidence. On the contrary, the emer-
gence of a culturally mixed mercantile elite and the continual presence of trading dhows
testifies to a complex and multi-cultural human presence, albeit on a widely varying social
and economic scale. The operation of a dhow visiting Mombasa harbour was just one
element in a broad human socio-economic mosaic with elaborate systems of vessel owner-
ship and operation. Similarly, foreshore fish traps, of which seven working traps were
recorded in 2001, could be seen as low-status, low-technology fishing engines, but these
too have complex systems of ownership and operation associated with them which are
reflective of broader social hierarchies and modes of production in the area.

Figure 4 Point distribution of anomalies interpreted from the side-scan sonar survey, Mombasa.
These data are plotted with reference to results from the bathymetric survey (Dr Rory Quinn,
Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Ulster).

Figure 5 Fish trap in Mombasa Bay, c. 1885 (source: A. Le Roy, Au Kilma-Ndjaro (Afrique
Orientale), Paris, n.d.).
Future priorities
The East African coast has a rich maritime heritage spanning many centuries. While most
research has focused on the ‘Swahili’ elements of this, traces attributable to other groups,
including Omani Arabs, the main European colonial powers and various pre-Swahili
peoples also survive. The evidence discussed above suggests that there is considerable
potential for further research on the maritime aspects of all these varied cultures. While
some of this will require the use of sophisticated marine geophysical equipment and under-
water surveys by divers and/or submersibles, and so will necessarily be expensive, a consid-
erable component of the surviving maritime heritage can be researched using standard,
inexpensive methods widely used in archaeology, history and anthropology. An important
first step will be the initiation of work on the compilation of a maritime archaeological
database including coastal, foreshore and submerged archaeological sites for the region (see
Breen and Forsythe 2001). The primary stage of this process should be the initiation of a
comprehensive desk-based assessment of the nature and extent of the region’s maritime
cultural resource. Dedicated programmes of field survey are then required.
This should not present itself as a daunting exercise but rather as a viable and
logistically feasible enterprise. It may be useful to select a number of initial target
survey areas where integrated foreshore and coastal survey could be employed in a
inexpensive manner. The addition of survey technology should not necessarily be seen

Figure 6 Entrance to Mombasa Harbour in the 1840s (source J. L. Krapf, Travels, Researches and
Missionary Labour, 2nd edn, London 1968).
as a prerequisite but rather as a potential contribution and useful addition. It is impor-

tant in this context to make provision also for the recording of the later archaeology (i.e.
post-1500 AD) of the coast, including that associated with various European colonial
powers, up to and including the remains associated with both world wars. Concerted
efforts should also be made to integrate disparate marine-related disciplines and
trained individuals into this research. The objective of such surveys should be to
reconstruct the maritime landscapes, changing environmental conditions and patterns
of human exploitation and utilization of the maritime zone over the millennia as well as
developing programmes and systems of cultural resource management.
As mentioned above, some of these measures will require significantly more funding
than that which is currently available, and will no doubt require technical and logistical
support from institutions and organizations based outside East Africa. Likewise, training
of professional staff and capacity building will be required as more attention is given to
the region’s maritime heritage and its protection. Both of these may take time, as well as
funds, to implement fully. Some measures, however, can be effected immediately simply
by introducing small changes to existing survey methodologies and research strategies.
Once implemented, the cumulative effects may well be sufficient to generate the level of
funding and international support for the larger, more ambitious projects. At the very
least, such small adjustments would go a long way to generating a much higher level of
academic and popular regard for the region’s maritime heritage than exists at present, but
which it justly deserves.
Acknowledgements
The research at Mombasa was conducted with permission from the Office of the Presi-
dent, Republic of Kenya, with financial and logistical support from the School of Environ-
mental Studies, University of Ulster, the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the
National Museums of Kenya. We should like to thank all the Kenyan, Irish and British
participants on the project for their contributions, and acknowledge here the efforts made
by Dr George Abungu and Athman Lali Omar for facilitating the project, and Dr Rory
Quinn, Tom McErlean, Rosemary McConkey and Wes Forsythe for their valuable input.
We should also like to thank the editor and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful
suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. Any remaining deficiencies are of our own
making.
Colin P. Breen
Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Ulster
Paul J. Lane
The British Institute in Eastern Africa
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Archaeological approaches to East

Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

East Africa; maritime; coastal; Swahili; Mombasa.

Maritime archaeological research has been traditionally dominated by architectural/

World Archaeology Vol. 35(3): 469–489 Seascapes

470 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

beginning to re-evaluate their approaches to coastal landscapes (e.g. Westerdahl 1992;

East African coastal archaeology

East Africa’s changing seascapes 471

472 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

direction (Datoo 1974).

East Africa’s changing seascapes 473

East Africa’s changing seascapes 475

476 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

East Africa’s changing seascapes 477

478 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

Selected case study: Mombasa, Kenya

East Africa’s changing seascapes 479

480 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

Figure 3 Map of Mombasa Island, showing location of main archaeological ‘sites’.

East Africa’s changing seascapes 481

482 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

East Africa’s changing seascapes 483

484 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

as a prerequisite but rather as a potential contribution and useful addition. It is impor-

East Africa’s changing seascapes 485

486 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

East Africa’s changing seascapes 487

488 Colin Breen and Paul J. Lane

Muckelroy, K. 1978. Maritime Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

East Africa’s changing seascapes 489

Soper, R. 1967b. Iron Age sites in north-eastern Tanzania. Azania, 2: 19–36.

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