The Hidden History of Zanzibar s Stone Town atlasobscura.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from atlasobscura.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Unguja Ukuu, located on the Zanzibar Archipelago, eastern Africa, was an active Indian Ocean trading settlement from the mid-first millennium until the early second millennium AD. As part of recent archaeological excavations aimed at understanding the site’s transregional trade networks, geoarchaeological analyses were undertaken to document the geomorphic context of the ancient settlement. Here, we outline the results of these field and laboratory studies to discuss patterns of anthropogenic sediment deposition. Unguja Ukuu’s deep coastal stratigraphy appears to record progradation of an inhabited back-reef shore from the mid-seventh to the nineth centuries AD, perhaps in the wake of an earlier middle to late Holocene marine transgression. Excavations on the back-beach show that deposits associated with the ancient settlement include interlayered middens, paleofloors, and backshore sands and, in later phases, a peri-urban dump with dark-earth-type anthrosols developed on these dep
Ancient humans impact African island environment miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Humanity’s impact on the environment is often framed in the context of the post-industrial era but new archaeological research reveals how intensive land use by a medieval East African population altered their natural habitat forever.