THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF NUNGE SITE: AN ANCIENT SALT MAKING SETTLEMENT AND TRADING CENTRE IN BAGAMOYO, TANZANIA

Abstract

The Bagamoyo area is among the Tanzanian coastal locations where evidence of intercontinental trade dates back to the last few centuries of the first millennium AD. Previous investigations have indicated that the region’s earliest settlement is represented by Early Triangular Incised Ware [TIW] around 600 to 700 AD, at Bwembweni site located two kilometres south of Kaole. During the Later TIW, the population shifted to Kaole Hill during the period noted by the use of Plain Ware, and later moved to the adjacent Kaole Ruins by the thirteenth century. Traditionally, the majority of earlier investigations for such conclusions have been restricted to Bwembweni and Kaole sites, and to a limited extent to Bagamoyo Town itself and its vicinity. However, recent reconnaissance and excavation of Nunge, a single type pottery tradition site located to the north, suggests that although Bagamoyo’s involvement in intercontinental exchange dates back to the seventh century AD, the narrative is more complicated than previously assumed. It appears that between the subsequent ninth to eleventh centuries, the area lost such links, before resurfacing again in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. Within that time frame, Nunge developed into an extensive urban centre whose prosperity was based on salt production for exchange. This discovery suggests that the development to urbanism at Bagamoyo predates that of the Kaole town, when the area is known to have had a few links with the outside world. These findings contribute crucially to the debate regarding early urbanisation along the Swahili coast, by challenging the conventional view that Arab or Asian settlements were the earliest urban centres along the coast of East Africa.

Key words: Nunge site, Pre-Kaole urbanism, Plain Ware (PW), Salt making for exchange