2022-05-04 BB: Uneven Ground: The Archaeology of Settlement Reorganization in Zanzibar, Tanzania
Channel: Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley
Date: 2022-05-17

Uneven Ground: The Archaeology of Settlement Reorganization in Zanzibar, Tanzania
Lecture: ARF Brownbag | May 4 | 12:10-1 p.m. | 101 2251 College (Archaeological Research Facility)
Speaker:  Wolfgang Alders
Sponsor:  Archaeological Research Facility
This presentation addresses the landscapes and environments of long-term social transformation in Zanzibar, Tanzania. I have used systematic survey, ceramic analyses, and historical sources to reconstruct the landscapes of inland Zanzibar from the first millennium CE to the late 19th century. Spatial analyses of late colonial settlement systems shed light on economic, political, and demographic transformations, and the dynamics of anti-colonial resistance. The densest settlement clusters of the plantation system in the late colonial period developed in specific environmental zones across the central and western areas of the island, nearly on top of precolonial inland village communities. While agriculturally fertile regions supported large-scale settlement, occupation histories are chronologically fragmented and reflect dramatic periods of social reorganization. In contrast, the rocky and agriculturally marginal eastern regions of the island supported consistent small-scale occupation from the earliest period to the present. Specific agricultural adaptations in the east allowed rural communities to persist through social reorganization and political marginalization. Across my survey area, ceramic trends show a shift from localized to regional production over the last millennium, reflecting the reorganization of craft networks on the island alongside the development of the late colonial plantation system. This trend is paralleled by shifts in imported ceramics, reflecting how certain parts of Zanzibar’s settlement system became increasingly integrated within specific 19th-century global commodity flows.