Trade and State Formation in Ancient East African Coast and Southern Zambezia

Kusimba, Chapurukha M.; Kim, Nam C.; Kusimba, Sibel

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48402-0_4

Cited by 11 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Great Zimbabwe (Fig. 1) is a large, 720-ha multibuilding settlement that functioned as the capital of a 50,000-km 2 territorial state of the same name (Garlake 1973;Huffman 2007;Kusimba et al 2017;Pikirayi 2001). It is made up of drystonewalled buildings-the Hill Complex, the Great Enclosure, the Valley Enclosuresthat are flanked by smaller satellite areas such as Chenga and Nemanwa (also within the 720 ha).…”

Section: Great Zimbabwe: a Brief History Of The Site And Previous Trementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A combination of these factors makes it impossible to estimate the density of consumption from the frequency of objects recovered from various areas, based in turn on the ratio of artifacts to cubic meters of excavated deposit. Thirdly, comparatively little work has been conducted in the broader territory of the Great Zimbabwe state (Kusimba et al 2017). Within the constraints imposed by the available evidence, it is still possible to throw some light on consumption trends and the circulation of commodities at Great Zimbabwe and beyond.…”

Section: Circulation and Consumption Of Commoditiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By far, the application of the concept of political economy to African archaeology lags behind global trends and, in some cases, is still glommed to older theories whose utility has been questioned for other regions such as Mesoamerica. Forays into the topic of African political economy have been limited to individual aspects such as external long-distance trade and exchange that were assumed to have stimulated the evolution of sociopolitical complexity and early states (Caton-Thompson 1931;Garlake 1973;Huffman 1972;Kusimba et al 2017;McIver 1906;Pwiti 1991;Wood 2000; but see Hirth 1996;Stahl 2004 for critiques). In a landmark publication, McIntosh (1999, and contributors to the volume) argued for the necessity of profiling local concepts in studying African political economies and perspicaciously revealed that the main theories used to explain economic processes in precolonial Africa were derived from older approaches adopted from other world areas, such as Polynesia and Mesopotamia, without much calibration to the local context (e.g., Berry 2007;Chirikure et al 2017a;Guyer 2004;Guyer and Belinga 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe

Chirikure

2019

J Archaeol Res

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This review draws from old and new archaeological data and takes interpretive flavor from indigenous African concepts to demonstrate that, within a context of local and external interfaces, Great Zimbabwe's political economy was a mosaic rooted more in a mix of seasonally specific, household-based, compositional strategies of production and circulation and less in the redistribution of archaeologically lowfrequency exotics from the Indian Ocean. An ideology based on the hierarchical triad of land, ancestors, and belief in God underwrote custodial rights and extractive powers that at times enabled rulers to access a share of productive, allocative, and circulative activities in their territories. Simultaneously, households and communities freely participated in the economy, often inside and outside state control and influence, demonstrating the individual, collective, mixed, embedded, and capillary nature of the political economy.

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Section: Great Zimbabwe: a Brief History Of The Site And Previous Trementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Circulation and Consumption Of Commoditiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe

Chirikure

2019

J Archaeol Res

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“…Trade and economic relationships, for example, continue to be investigated with an ever‐widening range of methods and perspectives (Frei et al. ; Giannini, Freestone, and Shortland ; Greiff and Hilgner ; Killick ; Koleini, Pikirayi, and Colomban ; Kusimba, Kim, and Kusimba ; Moreno García ; Pikirayi ; Rubio‐Campillo et al. ).…”

Section: Individuals and Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Archaeology in 2017: What Is Archaeology and Why Are We Doing It? Why Should We Be Doing It?

Lewis

2018

American Anthropologist

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These annual review essays focus on what we as archaeologists are doing year by year. Many themes continue on from review to review, waxing and waning, not unlike the bell curves of a traditional pottery seriation.Each year, themes are highlighted and presented in varied ways according to the orientation and aims of the reviewer. All do a masterful job of curating the vast range of what archaeologists were, in each annual period, currently producing. My review follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, summarizing an array of new and exciting research, and describing how agendas presented in 2017 cluster around sets of related questions and aims. It will also look at the growing literature that asks, in one way or another, fundamental questions about what archaeology really is and why we pursue it. In this time when the value of academic pursuits and scientific perspectives are being highly scrutinized in politics and popular culture, archaeologists are faced with the uncomfortable question of "What is it, really, that we should be doing?" [archaeology, current issues, public archaeology, digital archaeology] RESUMEN Estos ensayos de revisión anual se enfocan en lo que como arqueólogos estamos haciendo año tras año. Muchos temas continúan de revisión en revisión, creciendo o menguando, no muy diferente de las curvas en forma de campana de la seriación de la cerámica tradicional. Cada año, temas son enfatizados y presentados de varias maneras de acuerdo a la orientación y metas del crítico. Todos hacen un trabajo magistral de organizar un rango vasto de lo que los arqueólogos estaban, en cada período anual, realmente produciendo. Mi revisión sigue los pasos de sus predecesores, resumiendo una colección de nueva y emocionante investigación, y describiendo cómo las agendas presentadas en el 2017 se agrupan alrededor de juegos de cuestiones y metas relacionadas.También examina la creciente literatura que pregunta, de una manera u otra, cuestiones fundamentales acerca de lo que la arqueología realmente es y por qué nos dedicamos a ella. En este tiempo cuando el valor de los empeños académicos y las perspectivas científicas están siendo altamente escrutados en política y cultura popular, los arqueólogos se enfrentan a la pregunta incomoda de "¿Qué es lo que realmente deberíamos estar haciendo?"[arqueología, cuestiones actuales, arqueología pública, arqueología digital] ARCHAEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTATION?While the theme of what such a diverse discipline should be subtly undergirds much of the literature, a number of 2017 articles, each in a very different way, directly address the very nature of what archaeology is and why we practice it. In the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Assaf Nativ (2017, 55) asks us to reconsider our notions of the

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“…Increasing Portuguese involvement in southern African trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries made the immediate Lower Zambezi Valley particularly important, reflected in the increased evidence of commercial wealth during this period (de Luna, 2017(de Luna, , p. 1090. Even in earlier centuries, the communities of this region played a critical role in facilitating the movement of copper from northern Zambia into southern trade networks and were also involved in the trade of gold, ivory, and iron artifacts (de Luna, 2012(de Luna, , 2017Kusimba et al, 2017;Nikis & Livingstone Smith, 2017;Swan, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Kalundu Mound, Zambia: Implications for the Timing of Social and Subsistence Transitions in Iron Age Southern Africa

et al. 2021

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Novel trajectories of food production, urbanism, and inter-regional trade fueled the emergence of numerous complex Iron Age polities in central and southern Africa. Renewed research and re-dating efforts in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and along the Swahili Coast are transforming models for how inter-regional interaction spheres contributed to these patterns. While societies in present-day Zambia played an important role in the trade of copper, ivory, gold, and other resources between central and southern Africa, little is known about lifeways during the rise of social complexity in this region. This paper reports the results of re-excavation at Kalundu Mound on the Batoka Plateau of southern Zambia, one of the iconic mound sites of the Iron Age “Kalomo Culture.” New radiocarbon dates were combined with the original dates in a series of Bayesian models, indicating that previous chronologies for the site are not reliable and that the mound site likely developed rapidly from AD 1190 to 1410. Archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and paleo-proteomic analyses of excavated materials suggests a broad subsistence base combining wild and domesticated species, including the first reported evidence for finger millet (Eleusine coracana) in the region. Considering these findings, it is necessary to re-evaluate the temporal context of the Kalomo site-group, and to also systematically reinvestigate the systems of exchange and subsistence that supported Later Iron Age complexity.

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Trade and State Formation in Ancient East African Coast and Southern Zambezia

Cited by 11 publications

References 49 publications

New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe

New Perspectives on the Political Economy of Great Zimbabwe

Finding Archaeology in 2017: What Is Archaeology and Why Are We Doing It? Why Should We Be Doing It?

Revisiting Kalundu Mound, Zambia: Implications for the Timing of Social and Subsistence Transitions in Iron Age Southern Africa

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