One aspect of historical archaeology in sub-Saharan Africa that distinguishes it from comparable work in many other parts of the world, particularly North America and Europe, is the greater integration of oral histories. This is partly because the growth of scholarly study of the oral history and traditions of African societies coincided with a rise in interest in the later Holocene archaeology of the continent, and especially that concerning the origins and spread of food production, metal-working, urbanism, and complex political systems. As part of this intellectual trend, the use of such traditions became a common component of most archaeological surveys, principally as a means of providing an overview of the more recent history of the area under investigation. Moreover, a particular characteristic of a great many oral traditions concerning different African societies is the emphasis placed on migration as the primary driving force of social change. The first generation of Africa’s historians to be trained in the Western academic tradition were thus often keen to see their archaeological counterparts provide material verification that the routes and stopping places described in the oral accounts, were indeed associated with the settlement histories of specific ethnic groups. It is rare however, to find unequivocal confirmation of this kind in the archaeological record, and attempts to link the various oral traditions with specific archaeological sites commonly encounter several difficulties.
One region where archaeological investigations were initially guided by oral histories but subsequently generated a complete rethinking of the historical and metaphorical significance of these is the Great Lakes area of East Africa. Here, several important archaeological sites have long been associated in oral traditions with an elite known as the Bacwezi. According to at least one set of traditions, the Bacwezi had been the historical rulers of a large region centered in the lush grasslands of western Uganda, which, by calculating from genealogical data, would appear to have existed sometime during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries CE. A number of extensive complexes of ditched earthworks, including the sites of Bigo, Munsa, Kibengo, and Kasonko, are known from this area. During the 1950s and the 1960s, various archaeological campaigns were undertaken at some of these in an attempt to provide a clearer understanding of their date and function, and their link with the Bacwezi dynasty. The discovery at Bigo of an enclosure similar in form to that found at some of the later royal capitals in Uganda, and a suite of radiocarbon dates from the site suggesting occupation between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries CE, led to the conclusion that Bigo was indeed the capital of the pastoral Bacwezi kingdom, and that the other sites were part of the same political system. Reappraisals of these investigations, however, have called into question many of historical interpretations that were used to guide the archaeological excavations, and highlighted some of the more general problems associated with trying to substantiate oral traditions archaeologically. Moreover, the results of more recent field investigations at Munsa and Kibengo indicate that despite some superficial similarities these not only differ from one another but also from Bigo, in terms of their site inventories and material culture traditions. Thus, rather than belonging to a single state, each of these sites probably represents the center of an independent polity that was in competition with its neighbors over resources and control of the local populace.
Other scholars have argued that the Bacwezi ‘myth’ must be seen as a symbolically loaded, metaphorical account of trends in the region’s history and changing power relations, rather than as a literal description of actual historical events and relationships. In the Kagera region of northwest Tanzania, for instance, oral traditions link the more recent, immigrant Bahinda ruling dynasty with the Bacwezi, and indicate that the power and authority of the Bahinda clans was generally associated with control over ironworking, rainmaking, and fertility rites. However, genealogical reckoning places the period of Bacwezi rule up to 20-25 generations ago and thus significantly earlier than has been estimated from the Ugandan traditions. Moreover, excavations at Katuruka, the former capital of Rugamore Mahe, one of the Bahinda rulers of the Kiamutwara kingdom during the seventeenth century CE, led to the discovery of iron smelting remains associated with the very beginnings of settled farming in the region and dating to around 500 BCE. Although similar remains of early farming and iron smelting communities were found at many of the other ritually important places within the historical topology of the Bahinda landscape, in other respects there was a lack of direct settlement continuity as evidenced by typological differences between the early farming (or Early Iron Age) ceramics and those associated with the second millennium CE kingdoms. On the basis of this, it has been suggested that whereas the Bacwezi may have been indigenous rulers of small-scale polities during the first millennium CE or possibly earlier, later leaders, unconnected with Bacwezi, subsequently manipulated traditions and appropriated the archaeological remains of the Bacwezi’s evident iron smelting abilities to legitimize their own assumption to power.
World History
