S6E2: The World's Oldest Trade Route?

Wavy Line Pottery Sherds (D. Wright)

The early history of Tanzania and Kenya is defined by its environment. During the "aqualithic period", the region's hunting and gathering population relied heavily on the exploitation of marine life from the freshwater swamps that covered much of East Africa during a period of especially high humidity and rainfall. 

Coastal Tanzania and Kenya began to shift to an agrarian lifestyle around 3,000 BC, which can be observed in the form of abandoned irrigation canals and grinding bowls from the period.

Kuumbi Cave, an important neolithic site in Tanzania

Kuumbi Cave is one example of a neolithic settlement site on Zanzibar island. These neolithic settlements often consisted of a series of small dwellings surrounding a natural shelter like a cave, used as a community shelter, with these caves also often being used by their paleolithic ancestors. Kuumbi Cave might also contain evidence for the world's oldest transoceanic trade route, as a series of poultry remains, resembling those of domestic chickens, were discovered in the cave during recent archaeological excavations and dated to roughly 4,000 BC.

Red junglefowl, often identified as the earliest wild ancestors of domestic chickens, may have made their way to Kuumbi cave through international trade with South Asia

If Kuumbi Cave features chicken bones from chickens, it would be evidence of a transoceanic trade route, since, by 4,000 BC, chickens were still only known in their home regions of South and Southeast Asia. As a result, the Kuumbi bones might be evidence of an early trade route between East Africa and South Asia.

Helmeted guineafowl, a more likely candidate for the source of the Kuumbi bones

On the other hand, it seems more likely that these bones originated from helmeted guineafowl, a local species that closely resembles chickens anatomically, and are still widely consumed around the world today.

While 4,000 BC might be an excessively old date for the origin of international trade in East Africa, it would soon become better established, as ancient sources record the region as a crucial trade route by the turn of the first millennium. Our next episode will analyze the appearance of East Africa in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.