Archeology
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Archeology has started yielding only since 1995 remains of Roman and Greek trade to East Africa. In 2002 also ancient Indian pottery was found.
So far in three areas, remains have been excavated. They are; The hills north of the Rufiji delta, The island Zanzibar and the Island Mafia.
Rufiji Delta
Dr. Felix.Chami in 1995 surveyed the narrow littoral strip of about 50 km length between the Kisiju ward and the Rufiji delta. A number of sides were found, including a LSA (late stone age) site at Kchale, however the most important one is an EIW (early iron working) site at Kivinja village. Subsequent excavation of the sides yielded both local and imported cultural material remains carbon dated to 600BC.
Dr. Chami found the remains of settlements with ancient trading goods and evidence of agriculture. They include Greco-Roman pottery, Syrian glass vessels, Sassanian pottery from Persia and glass beads. The glass fragments which were found (of various types, bleu and green) which would appear to confirm the Periplus report of import of cosmetic glass bottles to East Africa. The glass beads are Roman and made at Rhoses (100BC-300AD) The most imported of those beats collected is a segmented gold/silver glass bead made on Rhodes.
Zanzibar
Juma Abdurahman in 1996 found at the Unjuja Ukuu site situated at the southern tip of Zanzibar some late Roman pottery shards.
Local ceramics were found in stratigraphy with fragments of Egypto-Roman pottery with the whole assemblage radiocarbon dated to 400-550 AD
Dr Chami found both Roman and Indian material deposited in a limestone cave in Zanzibar. The artifacts include Roman Red Ware pottery similar to those reported from Ras Hafun. In association were green and blue glazed and non-glazed Persian wares and Indian beads (including a carnelian bead). A C14 sample from associated charcoal gives
a date in the last century BC. Also chicken bones were found in that same cave, dating to that same period.
Mafia
Trade goods have been recovered from the island of Mafia off the Rufiji delta in another limestone shelter found in the small island of Mafia called Juani. The cultural layer, a Late Stone Age/Neolithic with the materials, is now dated by C14 to the last part of the 1st millennium BC. Imported goods include both Graeco-Roman and Indian ceramics. Four potsherds are of marl clay from the Lower Nile region. Such pottery was known to have been traded by Egyptians to the Nubian Kingdom of Napata in about the 7th BC.
Another important find is that of red painted ware identified to be of Indian origin and dating from the early centuries AD. However, since the C14 dates for this ware are earlier
(falling in the last centuries BC) and since this pottery is associated with Neolithic material rather than the Early Iron Age material found in the upper sequence of the cave occupation, the red painted ware must have reached the coast of East Africa before at least the BC/AD changeover.
Vessels of red painted ware are also known to have been used in the Red Sea area in the late centuries BC and early centuries AD.
Another class of pottery found in the island of Mafia dating to the same early period is black ware also identified to have belonged to the Early Iron Age of India. More than 25 potsherds recovered from the island of Mafia have been identified as of Indian origin.
Another category of find linking the Red Sea and East Africa is that of beads now identified as Graeco-Roman. These include one Aeye@ bead and one mosaic bead described as Hellenistic and Roman period dating from between 300 BC to AD 400.
Tentative Conclusions
The archeological evidence of the Rufiji Delta is the first to point to possible links between the Azanian East African and the ancient world described by the graeco-roman scholars. These ancient graeco-roman documents indicate that the mayor city of the coast at that time was called Rhapta and as such, the presence of imports in the EIW sites could indicate contact with this city.
Furthermore it was found that late stone age people had already settled in the areas where sites of early iron using people are found. These people had used microlitic tools including the backed geometric ones. This suggest that it is these people of the late stone age who were first involved in transoceanic trade and then adopted iron technology. The same late stone age people had already sailed through the deep Indian Ocean channel to settle on the islands of Mafia and Zanzibar.
The research from 1995-2000 has established the existence of a large population concentration around the Rufiji Delta in the first centuries AD. Many archeological rich sides spreading for several kilometers on the northern hills of the Rufiji Delta suggest that the areas had a large center administering the population. This could be Raphta mentioned in the Periplus. Indications are now emerging that this civilization could have adopted irrigation agriculture.
From the finds on the islands one can conclude:
Early Iron working and farming Bantu people, crossed from the mainland and settled the islands. This culture existed 200-400 AD. And was followed by a later native culture recognized as triangular iron ware, which was extant with the settlement and domination from Arabia.
East Africa had a thriving population with trade centers from the last centuries BC or even earlier. The people of the Late Stone Age who also domesticated animals like chicken, dogs and cats, first entered into contacts with other cultures of the west, north and east. It is likely that those Late Stone Age people of the coast of East Africa occupied caves as living houses or just for sanctuary. They used pottery and used small quartz pebbles to make their microlithic tools and blades. Apart from domesticates, they also hunted wild animals and fished.
It would seem that these are the people identified by Pliny as cave dwellers known to have passed spices from south-east Asia to the Red Sea. Chittick (1980) showed that the people of Ras Hafun, whose site was found to have trade goods of the last centuries BC had also used stone tools like those of East Africa.
Archaeological finds would suggest that south-east Asian domesticates such as chicken and banana had already reached the coast of East Africa from the last millennium BC, which indicate that coconut could also have been domesticated in East Africa at the same time.
The find on the Tanzanian coast, on one hand, of remains of trade goods and domesticates of South Asia/Indian and, on the other hand, of the Red Sea/Mediterranean regions, dating back to the last millennium BC, would suggest that East Africa rather than Somalia or both would have played a major role in transferring the spices. In fact most of these trade items are found in caves. This fact corroborates Plinys correction of Strabo
that it was the cave dwellers of East Africa who brought spices from far in the ocean and passed them to the Red Sea.
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Earliest Trade Mesopotamia-East Africa
An article entitled "From Zanzibar to Zagros: A copal pendant from Eshnunna " co-authored with Joan Markley Todd, an amber specialist, and Curt Beck of the Vassar College Amber Research Laboratory appeared in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. The article deals with a unique pendant of copal, a resin that looks like amber, found in a grave at Eshnunna (Tell Asmar; 50 miles N-E of Baghdad). Identification by infrared spectroscopy indicates that the copal came from the Zanzibar/Mozambique region. The best available date, approximately Akkadian or Ur III (2112-2004 BC), makes it the earliest documented evidence of contact (probably indirect) between East-Africa and Mesopotamia.