This paper describes the excavation of a cave used for funerary purposes in the Mtoroshanga district of Rhodesia. The cave was found to contain a large quantity of skeletal material and pottery, together with the personal ornaments of the persons interred there. The physical type represented is similar to that of the modern Bantu-speaking peoples of Southern Africa. Bodies had been placed in the cave surrounded by pottery—although pottery, unlike the skeletal material, which was ubiquitous, was mainly placed towards the entrance of the cave. Quantities of palm-leaf and bark-cloth matting used for wrapping round the bodies of the persons interred were found. Conus shell end-whorls and glass beads indicate trade links with the outside world.

There are two superimposed funerary layers in the cave, both belonging to the same culture, but at different stages of its development. The earlier layer has been dated by radicarbon dating methods to approximately the late 13th or early 14th century A.D. Prior to its use for funerary purposes, the cave had been briefly occupied for other purposes by people of the same culture.

The ceramics of the site indicate that it belongs to a culture newly recognized in Rhodesia with a fairly wide distribution in the north-east of the country. Cultural affinities lie with Zambia and Malawi, rather than with the contemporary Zimbabwe culture, whose expansion, indeed, probably put an end to the occupation of the Mtoroshanga area by the people of the ossuary.

The sources for pre-Arab trans-Saharan contacts are poor, but at least for the central Sahara a picture can be made out. The alignment of rock paintings and engravings of chariots along two trans-Saharari routes has been supposed to prove regular traffic across the desert. The inference is unjustified, but literary and archaeological sources indicate that the conclusion is correct. Herodotus attests the use of a route running west from Egypt to the Fezzan, then apparently south-west via Tassili and Hoggar to the Niger. This corresponds with the central Saharan ‘chariot-route’.

There was also a route to the Garamantes of the Fezzan from the Punic settlements on the coast of Tripolitania. Carthage imported from the Garamantes the precious stones known as ‘carbuncles’, which were apparently brought to the Fezzan from the south-west. Other possible imports are slaves and gold. Carthage imported gold from West Africa by sea, and it seems likely that her explorations down the coast were inspired by an overland trade in gold. But there is no direct evidence for such a trade.

In the second century B.C. Rome replaced Carthage in control of the coast of Tripolitania. Between 20 B.C. and A.D. 86 she fought a series of wars with the Garamantes. Later friendly relations were established, but further trouble led to the organization of the ‘limes Tripolitanus’ after A.D. 201. Trade is attested by imported Roman material in tombs of the Fezzan dating from the late first to the fourth centuries. There is evidence that the Romans imported ivory from the Garamantes, and slaves are now attested directly.

The commodities exported north by the Garamantes came not from the Fezzan, but from farther south. Literary sources refer to hunting expeditions and raids to the south, and finds of Roman material have been made along the ‘chariot-route’ south-west of the Fezzan as far as Ti-m-Missao.

Trade ended with the collapse of Roman rule in North Africa. It was revived with the Byzantine reconquest after A.D. 533, and Christianity penetrated to the Fezzan. In 666 the Arabs overran the Fezzan.

Cattle have been known in northern East Africa for a long time. A single people initiated the spread of cattle farther south through southern East Africa, and partly into southern Africa, at a time prior to the expansion of Bantu-speakers into these regions. This spread was not accompanied by knowledge of milking. The milking of cattle, although very likely practised by some northern East African peoples since a very early period, diffused to Bantu peoples after their advance into eastern and southern Africa was well under way. The practice was probably borrowed from Southern Cushites first by Bantu in northern Tanganyika and through them transmitted to the rest of the eastern and southern Bantu.

This paper describes a large area of stone-built ruins in northern Tanzania which has so far only been briefly excavated, but which is likely to prove to be a key site in the study of the Iron Age in East Africa. In addition to numerous massive stone circles, terraces and cairns, there are extensive systems of fields and enclosures defined with lines of stones. Excavations carried out in 1964 and 1966 have shown that the small terrace-platforms on the hillsides and the stone circles on the flatter land in the valley were occupied at different periods and by different peoples whose pottery is readily distinguishable. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the terrace sites on the hillsides were occupied during the first millennium A.D., and that the stone circles on the lower slopes in the valley were occupied during the fifteenth century A.D. The purpose of the numerous large and well-built cairns is not yet known, but it appears that they were not burial monuments. No evidence has been found that any of the stone structures were built or occupied by immigrants from outside Africa.

It has not yet been possible to link the systems of fields and enclosures to the hillside terrace-platforms or to the stone circles. A close examination of the main area of fields and of low-level aerial photographs has not produced any evidence that the fields were irrigated, a fact which raises important agricultural and climatic problems in an area which has an average rainfall of less than 380 mm. (15 inches).

The general picture of Engaruka which emerges is of an area which was occupied by different peoples at different times over a period of at least a thousand years. The stone structures which these different peoples built have accumulated to give the impression that there was once a very large population living in the area; in fact it is possible that this population was always less than 4,000 people at any one time.

In 1700 reports from Tripoli reached the congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome that Christians, ‘little or uninstructed in the Faith’, were living in Bornu. Further enquiries revealed that these rumours related not to the kingdom of Bornu, but to a neighbouring, rival kingdom, that of ‘Gourourfa’ or ‘Carnorfa’. Two sons of the ruler of Bornu, interviewed in Cairo, stated that in ‘Canorfa’ there were people ‘who venerate the Cross and erect it over the houses and churches’, while the French Consul at Tripoli reported how he had seen slaves from ‘Gouroufa’ who made the sign of the Cross. In June 1710 two Franciscans, attempting to establish contact with these ‘Christians’, set out from Tripoli, passed through Murzuk and Agades, and were later reported to have died in Katsina in August 1711.

Hausa and Bornu sources indicate that these reports almost certainly referred to the Kwararafa, who on several occasions in the seventeenth century attacked Kano and Bornu. It is then pointed out that a Maltese cross was one of the motifs still used in the twentieth century as a decoration by an Aku of Wukari, a ruler of the Jukun, who are among the principal survivors of the Kwararafa. At least a section of the inhabitants of Wukari also preserved a clearly remembered tradition of having taken part in a migratory journey from the Nilotic Sudan to the Benue. It is suggested therefore that the reports of the French consul and the Franciscans, although garbled and consisting in the main of second-hand evidence, strengthen the possibility that the Maltese crosses used among the Jukun, in Nupe and at Benin indicate an influence which emanated originally from Christian Nubia and is perhaps connected with the Kisra traditions.

The recurrence of revivalist movements in Islamic history can be partially explained by the inability of a Muslim Community in disarray to transform da¯r al-ḥarb into da¯r al-Isla¯;m—a doctrinal obligation fundamental to Muslim ideology since the death of the Prophet Muḥammad. Attitudes towards the problems of Islam in nineteenth-century West Africa were decidedly revivalist. While Middle Eastern reformists of the same period were attempting to meet the challenge of the West by restating the basic principles of Islam in the light of the contemporary situation, West African revivalists sought a return to the same basic principles—but not in order to accommodate or adjust, but rather to rediscover and revive; not so much to face the challenge of the West, but rather to confront the incursions of syncretism and polytheism. Recourse was made to the classic technique of the jiha¯d fī sabīl Alla¯h—a three-stage process of revival beginning with the spiritual jiha¯d and culminating with the temporal jiha¯d. The popular expectations that the final triumph of Islam over infidelity would be accomplished by a messianic figure in the thirteenth century of the Hijra helped to create a favourable climate for the emergence of several would-be revivalists. But the success of their movements was contingent upon their reputations for sanctity, their abilities as preachers and teachers, and their capabilities as political organizers. The jihads of ‘Uthma¯n b. Fūdī and al- Ḥa¯jj ‘Umar b. Sa'īd were both characterized by a conscious and deliberate effort to reproduce the career of the Prophet in a West African environment. If the Prophet had sought at first to bring about the implementation of the new Islamic dispensation by non-violent means, so also did Shaykh ‘Uthma¯n and Ḥa¯jj ‘Umar initially seek to reimplement that dispensation by aggressive but peaceful exhortations; and if the Prophet had received authorization from Allah to take the jiha¯d into a military phase, in imitation of the Prophetic model, Shaykh ‘Uthmān and Ḥājj ‘Umar awaited divine sanction for the more overt phase of their jiha¯ds.

The article considers the origin and validity of statements made by Budge, MacMichael, Crawford and Arkell associating the establishment of Ottoman control over Lower Nubia and the Suakin-Massawa region with Sultan Selim I. These statements are derived from Na‘ūm Shuqayr's Ta'rīkh al-Sūdān, which has two principal relevant passages. In the first, Shuqayr combines, and dates with misleading precision, two traditional anecdotes concerning Nubia, one derived from Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia (1819), the other an aetiological legend of a frontier-fight. The second passage mentions a legendary invasion of Abyssinia by Selim, and relates to a Fūnj (or ‘Abdallābī) claim to Arab ancestry. The personal connexion of Selim I with these exploits is wholly mythical: it is excluded by the detailed account of his acts during 1517 given by the contemporary chronicler, Ibn Iyās. The establishment of Ottoman rule in these two regions was the achievement of Özdemir Pasha in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The legend of the frontier-fight may refer to an even later episode, in the last quarter of that century.

As a contribution to an already considerable historiography, it is suggested here that the Mane invaders of Sierra Leone comprised two principal elements —a ruling élite originating in the southern section of the Mande world of the Western Sudan, and numerical forces drawn from the area around Cape Mount. The first stage of movement took place in the first half of the sixteenth century, carrying Mande clans to the Liberian coast from the region around Beyla and perhaps even from the hinterland of modem Ghana. There then followed a number of incursions into Sierra Leone during the third quarter of the sixteenth century.

A new ruling class was established in Sierra Leone and adjacent regions, bringing increased exploitation and causing the destruction of the indigenous ivory-carving skills. On the other hand, the Manes brought improved military techniques and advances in the manufacture of iron and cloth. They also profoundly influenced religious and social patterns, particularly with respect to the secret societies of the area.

Historians have frequently included the Bantu-speaking peoples of the eastern Kenya Highlands—Kikuyu, Embu, Mbere, Kamba, Meru, etc.—in the general migrations of the North Eastern Bantu from Shungwaya. The most authoritative statement in support of this view is set out in H. E. Lambert's The Systems of Land Tenure in the Kikuyu Land Unit: Part 1, History of the Tribal Occupation of the Land. However, only the Meru have oral traditions pointing to a Shungwaya origin, and chronological and linguistic evidence which Lambert presents himself suggests that the Meru experience may not be typical of this group of peoples. As evidence is lacking in their own traditions, proof of the migrations of the Kikuyu–Embu–Kamba from Shungwaya can only come from archaeology.

An inventory of ethnolinguistic units on the Guinea coast can be drawn from early written sources, that is, from Portuguese and other European records of between 1440 and 1700. When this inventory is compared with the present-day inventory it is found that, in the particulars cited, the units have remained very much the same for three, four, or five centuries. Summary evidence relating to the coast, section by section, from the Senegal River to the Cameroons River, is presented, and this includes reference to the linguistic evidence provided by early vocabularies. Not only do all earlier units correspond to present-day units, but the sequence of units along the coast is the same in the earlier as in the present-day inventory. However, some of the units have expanded or contracted; and one of the modern units (Mende) is not recorded before 1700. It is finally suggested that research into the documented period of continuity, through study of the written records, should precede attempts to evaluate the accounts of Völkerwanderungen supplied generously in oral traditions.

In nineteenth-century Egypt Circassian females were mostly kept in the harems of wealthy Turks, the concubines of ‘middle class’ Egyptians generally were Abyssinians, while male and female Negro slaves were used for domestic service by almost all layers of Egyptian society. In addition to domestic service, black slaves were used as soldiers by Egypt's rulers and, contrary to the prevalent assumption, as agricultural workers on the farms of the Muḥammad Alī family and elsewhere in Upper Egypt and during periods of prosperity and shortage of labour also in Lower Egypt. Apparently there were at least 30,000 slaves in Egypt at different times of the nineteenth century, and probably many more.

White slaves were brought to Egypt from the eastern coast of the Black Sea and from the Circassian settlements of Anatolia via Istanbul. Brown and black slaves were brought (a) from Darfur to Asyūṭ, directly or through Kordofan; (b) from Sennar to Isnā; (c) from the area of the White Nile; (d) from Bornu and Wadāy via Libya and the Western Desert; (e) from Abyssinia and the East African coast through the Red Sea. The slave dealers in Egypt were mainly people from Upper Egypt and the Oases, beduin and villagers of the Buḥayra province. They were divided into dealers in black and in white slaves and organized in a guild with a shaykh. Cairo was the great depot of slaves and the centre of the trade, but a very important occasion for trading in slaves was the annual mawlid of Ṭanṭā.

Official measures taken against the slave-trade were among the important causes for the final disappearance of slavery in Egypt. These were, amongst others, the appointment of foreigners, mainly British, as governors of the Sudan and commanders of special missions to suppress the trade; two Anglo-Egyptian conventions, of 1877 and of 1895, for the suppression of slavery; and, from 1877 on, the establishment of offices and later a special service for the fight against the trade and for the manumission of slaves. However, were it not for the internal development of Egyptian society, these measures could never have succeeded; this is illustrated by the tremendous obstacles they encountered and their ineffectiveness for a long time. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century most of these impediments vanished. In addition to the Mahdist revolution and the reconquest of the Sudan, the most important change was the emergence of a free labour market as a result of accelerated urbanization and the collapse of the guild system. At the same time a small but important section of Egyptians had changed their attitudes towards slavery as a result of their cultural contact with Europe.

The East African ivory trade is an ancient one: East African ivory is soft ivory and is ideal for carving, and was always in great demand. It figures prominently in the earliest reference to trading activities on the East African Coast. But the great development came in the nineteenth century when an increased demand for ivory in America and Europe coincided with the opening up of East Africa by Arab traders and European explorers. The onslaught on the ivory resources of the interior took the form of a two-way thrust—from the north by the Egyptians who penetrated into the Sudan and Equatoria, and by the Arabs from the east coast of Africa. The establishment of European protectorates and a settled administration in the 1890s ended this exploitation.

During the nineteenth century ivory over-topped all rivals in trade value— even slaves. The uses of ivory were wide and novel—it played the same part in the nineteenth century as do plastics in the mid-twentieth—but it was always a much more expensive article.

The oral traditions of the acephalous pre-contact Embu are critically summarized. The Shungwaya hypothesis concerning the origin of the Kikuyu and related peoples is examined and rejected. The possibility of using the Embu oral tradition as a source of historical information is discounted and some opportunities for linguistics and archaeology suggested. The paper concludes with a survey of Embu contacts with the coastal traders and early European-led parties.

It is thought that the conquest of the Sudan by Muhammad Ali was motivated primarily by the legendary gold of the Sudan and by the need for manpower for the newly formed Nizam-I-Jadid (the new army). Because of Egypt's involvements in Syria and Arabia in the 1830s, the need for more funds and manpower for the army had increased considerably. The most promising areas for minerals, trade, and slave hunting bordered on the Ethiopian plateau. Those areas were inhabited by a mixed Hamitic and Negroid population, many of whom were Muslims and pagans. These people, although in many cases they did not realize it, were considered by some of the Ethiopian border lords to be their subjects, since the Ethiopian concept of a border was not that of a dividing line but of undefined areas stretching into their neighbours' lands.

The situation in Ethiopia in the first half of the nineteenth century was generally conducive to an Egyptian conquest. The internal wars which had been gaining momentum ever since the middle of the eighteenth century expedited the fragmentation of the country, weakened most of the important provincial rulers, and exhausted the population. The revival of Islam in the beginning of the nineteenth century had an immediate impact upon Ethiopia. Islam was spread in the interior by the trading caravans monopolized by Muslim merchants, and found many followers among the Galla tribes of Ethiopia. Moreover, the actual rulers of the country were the Galla chiefs who had been the guardians of the puppet emperors in Gondar since the end of the eighteenth century; and as they feared the growing pressure of Tigrean and Amhara Christian lords, they were ready, if necessary, to invite the Egyptians to enter Ethiopia. However, the reappearance of European powers in the Red Sea at the beginning of the nineteenth century not only facilitated the acquisition of quantities of firearms by Tigrean and Amhara lords, but above all curbed the expansionist tendencies of Egypt in the direction of Ethiopia. Thus, until the middle of the nineteenth century Egypt had only limited objectives in Ethiopia, namely to establish its authority over the mineral-rich areas on the slopes of the Ethiopian plateau and to control the caravan routes and the outlets of the seemingly rich Ethiopian trade. Nevertheless, the ground was prepared for the clash between Egypt and Ethiopia in the period of Khedive Ismail.

The Sanford Exploring Expedition was Henry Shelton Sanford's main financial interest in Africa. Sanford established the Expedition in 1886 to foster trade development along the upper Congo. Possessing special State concessions granted by Leopold II of Belgium, Sanford's company founded settlements at Kinshasa, Matadi, South Mancagues, Luebe and Equator, and brought the first commercial steamer over the cataracts to Stanley Pool. This steamer, the Florida, proved of little value, yet a second steamer, the New York, was purchased in 1887. Lt. Emory H. Taunt was the principal company agent, the administrator in Africa; William S. Parminter was second in authority. Delays caused by damages to the Florida and hardships in establishing trading settlements on the Congo drained the company's capital. In 1888 Sanford tried to interest various American businessmen—A. H. Alden, George H. Alden, Charles B. Flint, John D. Rockefeller, H. M. Flagler and others—in investing in the expedition. His attempt failed, and after brief negotiations with an English financier, M. Rilneff, the Sanford board made agreements with a Belgian firm. In December 1889 the Sanford Exploring Expedition merged with a Belgian organization, becoming the Société Anonyme Beige pour i'Industrie et Commerce du Haut Congo. Sanford retained a minor interest in the company, but his stock was sold by his widow shortly after his death.

The Kwahu, an Akan people living on the eastern border of Ashanti in Ghana, are well known for their business activities. An enquiry into the reasons for their predominance among the largest shopkeepers by turnover in Accra traced the history of Kwahu business activities back to the British—Ashanti War of 1874, when the Kwahu broke away from the Ashanti Confederacy. The Kwahu trade with the north in slaves was replaced by the rubber trade, which continued until 1914. Rubber was carried to the coast for sale, and fish, salt, and imported commodities, notably cloth, were sold on the return journey north. Other Kwahu activities at this time included trading in local products and African beads.

The development of cocoa in south-eastern Ghana provided opportunities for enterprising Kwahu traders to sell there the imported goods obtained at the coast. Previously itinerant traders, the Kwahu began to settle for short periods in market towns. In the 1920s, the construction of the railway from Accra to Kumasi, growing road transportation, and the establishment inland of branches of the European firms reduced the price differences which had made trading inland so profitable.

In the 1930S the spread of the cocoa disease, swollen shoot, in the hitherto prosperous south-east, finally turned Kwahu traders' attention to Accra.

Trading remained the most prestigious of Kwahu activities, and young men sought by whatever means they could to save the necessary capital to establish a shop. But Kwahu traders very rarely developed beyond one-man businesses. Profits were siphoned off into buildings and farms which would provide security for times of sickness and old age. (In this respect the Kwahu are typical of Ghanaian entrepreneurs, with some exceptions.)

There is little evidence that this enterprising group of people can provide the new entrepreneurial organization or capital required by a developing country.

The data on early commercial European establishments in Senegal and the Gambia from 1488 to about 1800 are summarized, with particular attention focused on two of them: the French Fort St Joseph on the Senegal River, and the English factory at Yamyamacunda on the Gambia River. These data provide brief but useful histories of their construction and occupation, and each is evaluated for its archaeological potential. The excavation of these and other early settlements discussed should provide trade goods which will be useful in identifying and dating native villages which were contemporaneous with them, thus establishing firm chronological horizons and the identification of native cultural units. It would also provide the basis for permitting more accurate estimates of the rate and nature of the culture change in the historic tribal groups.

One of the crucial reasons for the failure of British policy in South Africa during the Reconstruction period was an acute shortage of African labour for the mines, which were therefore unable to support a large English-speaking immigrant community. According to the prevailing economic beliefs, there was a fairly rigid ratio between the numbers of unskilled coloured workers and of skilled white workers which the mines could employ, so that the scarcity of African labour did inhibit the mines from expanding their white labour force.

The reasons for this scarcity include the deplorable physical conditions in which labourers lived and worked, and the unusually large demands for African labour in other sectors of the economy. British policy also, inadvertently, put less pressure on Transvaal Africans to take industrial or agricultural employment. However, the scarcity of labour was noticeable not only within British South Africa, but more especially outside its borders, where Africans seem to have been more reluctant than usual to take employment in the mines. It is possible to argue that the shortage was caused partly by the disillusionment of the workers as a result of their experience of British administration, and partly by a fairly extensive determination to withhold labour until conditions were improved. Such an interpretation is compatible with the facts of the case, though impossible at this stage to prove.

Whatever the reasons for the scarcity, the result was the importation of Chinese labour to supplement the existing unskilled labour force. The well-documented complaints of the Chinese labour throw some light on the treatment of African labour. The Chinese also undercut the wages paid to Africans, who lost their commanding position as unconscious arbiters of the success of mining. Further, the Chinese were employed in terms of a very restrictive contract, whose terms were later extended to cover African labour as well, with the result that the industrial colour-bar was solidified at a time when white labour was in control of an unusually large area of employment.

The French government, in the early part of this period, from 1854 to the turn of the century, did not have a consistent or systematic ‘Islamic policy’ for ts colonial possessions. There were, however, certain patterns of administration which, quite unintentionally, gave a new impetus to the spread of Islam in Vest Africa. The first section of the article deals with this period, when the basis for later policy was laid but when policy was not yet systematically articulated.

The creation of the Service des Affaires Musulmanes et Sahariennes in Paris in 1900, and of the Service des Affaires Musulmanes in Dakar in 1906, together with the works of scholar-administrators such as Le Chatelier, Arnaud and Marty, marks the definition of a general policy towards Islam in colonial territories. This policy was aimed, in particular, to secure the loyalty of the Muslim notables, and to use them as intermediaries and tools of administration.

In a final section, the article deals with the renewed fear of Islam which affected France, with the intensification of pan-Islamic propaganda from Turkey immediately before the First World War, and with the change in policy which resulted. The outbreak of war, which enabled the Muslim élite to demonstrate its real loyalty to France, provided, however, a final reassurance.