Collaborative Research--Decoding the Swahili: An Integrated Archaeological and Genetic Study of the Swahili of East Africa

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With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Chapurukha Kusimba, Ryan Raaum, and Sloan Williams will conduct two field seasons of archaeological, ethnohistoric, and archaeogenetics research on the Kenyan coast. The archaeological excavations will be centered at the site of Mtwapa, a prominent Swahili port town dating from ca. 1732 BCE to 1750 AD. Ethnographic research will be carried out amongst Swahili ethnohistorians, elders and other indigenous interlocutors about their origins to identify possible source populations. Archaeogenetic data from human remains excavated from Mtwapa will be compared with African, Middle Eastern and Asian genetic databases. Finally, physical and chemical analysis of ceramic, iron, and trade artifacts, and faunal and botanical remains will be conducted to reconstruct subsistence and technology and to identify relationships both with other regions of East Africa and throughout the Indian Ocean. These new technologies when combined with careful excavations and detailed ethnographic information will allow Drs. Kusimba, Raaum, and Williams to address the following hypotheses: 1) that early Swahili populations, while primarily of African origin, were much more diverse composition than commonly supposed; 2) that some non-African migration to the coast did occur prior to the 19th century 3) that Swahili stone towns were ethnically diverse. Dr. Kusimba's long-term research agenda has focused on understanding the origin and biological composition of the towns and city-states that developed on the East African coast in the late first millennium CE. Archaeological investigations in Kenya and Tanzania have demonstrated that the artifactual traditions in the early city-states show a clear evolutionary development from earlier villages. Thus preindustrial urbanism in East Africa and elsewhere owes its rise, sustenance, and demise to wider regional and interregional interaction spheres. In the case of East Africa, this development was furthered by relationships with the African hinterland and connections to the wider Indian Ocean trading system. This collaborative research is addressing key questions, which have important implications for understanding human population relationships both within and beyond Africa. The researchers hope this project will demonstrate the long suspected but still as yet proven shared biological genealogy of East African peoples and their Indian Ocean neighbors. In East Africa, this study may have positive implications for national unity, often fractured by ethnicity and 'tribalism'. The rich historic, anthropological, linguistic evidence coupled with ancient and contemporary genetic data to be collected in this project will contribute new knowledge and open new avenues in interdisciplinary research between archaeologists and geneticists. Additionally the project will train two graduate students, one American Colin LeJeune, and the other Kenyan, Ibrahim Busolo, for their PhD in Swahili archaeology and genetics. It will also enable the recruitment and training undergraduate students in field and laboratory research from Lehman College and the University of Illinois-Chicago.