Evidence for Subsistence Activities on the Ancient Coast of East Africa

For a long time since the colonial period, it was thought that the people of the East coast of Africa were hunter-gatherers before Islam defused in the area at the end of the first millennium CE. By the 1960s very few archaeological sites of the pre-Islamic period on the whole coast were known. Thus, it was easy to argue that all domestication activities must have had been brought there by foreigners who came to East Africa in the wake of Islamic trade activities after 900 CE. This kind of conjecture set an academic problem to be dealt with since the 1990s. Did the people of the coast of East Africa who had been in contact with people of other civilizations (who were domesticating before the advent of Islam) remain hunter-gatherers until the arrival of Islam? Researches on the coast of East Africa after the 1960s that reported finding evidence for domestication before the advent of Islam were put into question. Recent archaeological researches have continued to demonstrate that domestication occurred on the coast of East Africa after the Late Stone Age from about 400 BCE and probably before. Historical records from the Egyptian time provide similar evidence. The available evidence shows that domestication activities went hand in hand with hunting and fishing activities. Domesticated plants were both those of African and Asian origin. A similar case is with domesticated animals. Radiometric dating of the periods known as the Neolithic and the Early Iron Age is used to support archaeological evidence for subsistence in ancient times. Both archaeological and historical evidence suggests that the people of the East African coast were involved in different subsistence activities particularly domestication since ancient times. Doubts and denials of recent evidence of domestication and trade activities of Ancient times on the coast of East Africa are discussed.