Lets Talk African History: The Swahili Coast

[Bawon Samedi]

[Chinese annals from the Sung Dynasty] of 1083 speak of a second visit to the imperial court [of China] of a foreign envoy with a name whose last three characters may be read as "the Zanj." This ambassador had come from so far away that the Emperor Shon-tsung, "besides giving him the same presents which he formally bestowed on him, added thereto 2,000 ounces of silver."

Basil Davidson, Old Africa Rediscovered, pp. 158-9

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Welp... Its official. The forebearers of the Swahili coast were Bantu speakers(who had MORE West African ancestry than todays Bantu speakers lol!!) and not Cushytes or any other non-Bantu populations like racists historians wanted to believe.

Among the ancient individuals analyzed here, only a ∼600 BP individual from the Zanzibar archipelago has a genetic profile similar to present-day Bantu speakers (Figure 1). Notably, this individual has even more western-African-related ancestry than the present-day Bantu speakers we analyzed from Kenya, who also derive some of their ancestry from lineages related to Dinka and Tanzania_Luxmanda_3100BP (Figure 1B). Using linkage disequilibrium, we estimate that this admixture between western- and eastern-African-related lineages occurred an average of 800–400 years ago (STAR Methods). This suggests a scenario of genetic isolation between early farmers and previously established foragers during the initial phase of the Bantu expansion into eastern Africa (Crowther et al., 2017, Ribot et al., 2010), a barrier that broke down over time as mixture occurred. This parallels the patterns previously observed in genomic analyses of the Neolithic expansion into Europe (Haak et al., 2015, Skoglund et al., 2012) and the East Asian farming expansion into Remote Oceania (Skoglund et al., 2016). However, this process of delayed admixture did not always apply in Africa, as is evident in the absence of admixture from previously established hunter-gatherers in present-day Malawians.

http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-86741731008-5

This study is also about to officially put that recent Egyptian study to rest. lol...

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@Isiolaikipia You're Kenyan. Thoughts?

 

[Premeditated]

I get excited every time this thread is bumped because I think I'm bout to get some more interesting findings

stop teasing me bruh, you know this my favorite civilization

 

[Bawon Samedi]

I get excited every time this thread is bumped because I think I'm bout to get some more interesting findings

stop teasing me bruh, you know this my favorite civilization

The last two posts before my recent one had info...

 

[The Singularity]

@Isiolaikipia You're Kenyan. Thoughts?

Quality thread, you are doing a good job spreading the history to folks who need to know this.

Welp... Its official. The forebearers of the Swahili coast were Bantu speakers(who had MORE West African ancestry than todays Bantu speakers lol!!) and not Cushytes or any other non-Bantu populations like racists historians wanted to believe.


http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-86741731008-5

This study is also about to officially put that recent Egyptian study to rest. lol...

No one took those 19th century pseudo-historians seriously.
The proto-Swahili cities were built by bantu merchants and farmers/fishers.The South East African coast has been home to centuries of continuous urban culture.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Quality thread, you are doing a good job spreading the history to folks who need to know this.

Glad to hear an actual East African say this. Thanks. My dream is to go to either Kenya or Tanzania to see this history for hand because I am a nut when it comes to Swahili history/

No one took those 19th century pseudo-historians seriously.
The proto-Swahili cities were built by bantu merchants and farmers/fishers.The South East African coast has been home to centuries of continuous urban culture.

And the bolded is what I LIKE... It defeats the myth that the "inferior" Bantu was always isolated from the world and had no "advanced civilization", but instead they had some of the most advanced civilizations and played an important role in the Indian Ocean trade since antiquity.

 

[Anhur]

Welp... Its official. The forebearers of the Swahili coast were Bantu speakers(who had MORE West African ancestry than todays Bantu speakers lol!!) and not Cushytes or any other non-Bantu populations like racists historians wanted to believe.


http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-86741731008-5

This study is also about to officially put that recent Egyptian study to rest. lol...

What do you mean?

@Poitier It seems like you're right. They're going to keep pushing back the Bantu Migration

 

[Bawon Samedi]

What do you mean?

@Poitier It seems like you're right. They're going to keep pushing back the Bantu Migration

What are you talking about. The bolded has nothing to do with Bantus or the Bantu migration. I was referring to the Tanzania pastoralist in that same study who was most likely a Nilotic and noty Bantu. I said it puts the rest that study because the Pastoralist may be connected to Pre-Dynastic Upper Egypt.

 

[Swahili P'Bitek]

I was shocked to learn that the Swahili coast conducted trade with interior parts of Africa such as Congo. The akamba a kenyan eastern bantu community was also important in maintaining the main economic activity of the kingdom, trade, by acting as middlemen between the coast and interior parts of the country.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

I was shocked to learn that the Swahili coast conducted trade with interior parts of Africa such as Congo. The akamba a kenyan eastern bantu community was also important in maintaining the main economic activity of the kingdom, trade, by acting as middlemen between the coast and interior parts of the country.

Source? Interested.

And are you an ethnic Swahili?

 

[Swahili P'Bitek]

Source? Interested.

And are you an ethnic Swahili?

No, im just kenyan. But regarding the trade between the swahili and central Africa, there is this famous trader from there nicknamed Tippu Tip, if you google his name i'm sure you''ll find various stories on him. He was a coastal bantu too I think, with little to no Arab admixture.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

No, im just kenyan. But regarding the trade between the swahili and central Africa, there is this famous trader from there nicknamed Tippu Tip, if you google his name i'm sure you''ll find various stories on him. He was a coastal bantu too I think, with little to no Arab admixture.

I know about him. What you're talking about is VERY LATE during the period of early colonization like the Congo free state. I'm talking about the Swahili civilization at its prime around the 9th to 14th century where there wasnt any European meddling.

 

[Swahili P'Bitek]

I know about him. What you're talking about is VERY LATE during the period of early colonization like the Congo free state. I'm talking about the Swahili civilization at its prime around the 9th to 14th century where there wasnt any European meddling.

I don't think the trade could have happened during that time then. Because most tribes inhabiting the region which could have placed them as potential middlemen were just moving into the region from their points of dispersal.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

I don't think the trade could have happened during that time then. Because most tribes inhabiting the region which could have placed them as potential middlemen were just moving into the region from their points of dispersal.

Can you tell me about the city of Malindi? And how much archaeological work is being done in Kenya regards to Swahili history? Tanzania seems to be doing a lot in that regard.