The Archaeology and Ethnography of Iron Metallurgy on the Kenya Coast
Abstract
This dissertation assembled and interpreted archaeological, ethnographic, and
archaeometallurgical data in an effort to reconstruct and understand the contributions of
iron working technology to the development of Swahili city-states between the tenth and
sixteenth centuries AD. Archaeological excavations were carried out at Mtwapa and Galu
on the Kenya coast. Additional data from Swahili sites of Ungwana, Mwana, and Shanga
was examined for comparative purposes. Ethnographic research was carried out among
traditional blacksmiths and ordinary Swahili people in the area. The primary objective of
this research was to understand the rQle ofiron technology in the evolution of Swahili
villages from fishing and farming societies in the early first millennium AD. into
autonomous polities of several towns by the early second millennium A.D.
Detailed technical, social, economic, ideological, and political processes of Swahili
iron production are reported in this dissertation. Metallographic analysis of a sample of
metal artifacts from the Swahili sites was undertaken in collaboration with Professor
David Killick. Prehistoric methods of ore and fuel procurement, the methods of forging,
and types of artifacts produced were indirectly investigated through ethnographic study of
traditional forging techniques still practiced on the Swahili coast.
A narrowly-focused single-discipline model of evolution of Swahili societies is
rejected in favor of a holistic anthropological one. Bearing in mind the strategic
commercial position of the Swahili coast in Indian Ocean maritime trade during the past
two millennia, all material cultural elements in the area and especially archaeological
artifacts recovered at Swahili sites are treated as products of a culture system whose
development may be traced to the east African interior, Arabia, India, China and
Indonesia. The Swahili coast had contact with these areas for at least 1500 years before
the ani val of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Broad inter-site comparisons were
needed because the strategic geographical location of the Swahili coast and its inhabitants'
possession of sailing technology facilitated interaction with peoples on the African
mainland and along the wider Indian Ocean circle.
Iron smelting was abandoned on the Swahili coast in the 1850s because of
availability of bloom from the interior and industrial scrap from Europe. Forging,
however, continued to the present. In response to increased demand for utilitarian items
including knives, machetes, hoes, nails, and dishes smithing on the Kenya coast was
recently revived thus presenting opportunities to make useful ethnographic studies. Data
gleaned from the ethnographic component of the project are critically examined in an effort
to complement archaeological and archaeometallurgical data.
Citation
Doctor of Philosophy degreePublisher
Bryn Mawr College Institute Of Anthropology, Gender And African Studies, University of Nairobi