Oral Traditions and African Archaeology

Clicks: 3
ID: 322032
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #995 of 1,518 articles by views in Oxford University Press eBooks

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,518 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract This chapter examines the integration of oral traditions with archaeological, linguistic, and documentary evidence for reconstructing Africa’s deep past. Drawing on four decades of fieldwork on the Swahili coast of East Africa, the author argues that oral narratives—songs, genealogies, praise poetry, proverbs, riddles, and founding chronicles—constitute indispensable archives of historical memory, cultural identity, and worldview that complement and enrich material evidence. He traces the intellectual history through which oral traditions gained legitimacy as historical sources, from Jan Vansina’s foundational methodologies to the decolonization of Africanist historiography by African scholars. Three extended case studies—Great Zimbabwe, the Luba Kingdom of central Africa, and the Mali Empire—demonstrate how oral accounts, critically analyzed alongside archaeological data, have overturned colonial-era myths, decentered externalist models of state formation, and restored African agency to narratives of political complexity and long-distance commerce. A fourth, more detailed case study focuses on the Swahili coast, where town chronicles, the Shungwaya hypothesis, and the rich corpus of Swahili orature—including the poetry of Fumo Liyongo, “Al-Inkishafi,” Mwana Kupona, and Muyaka bin Haji—have shaped archaeological interpretation and challenged diffusionist accounts of Swahili origins. Recent genetic evidence, combined with oral and archaeological data, confirms the African foundations of Swahili civilization while acknowledging sustained Indian Ocean interactions. The chapter concludes with reflections on how oral testimonies gathered from over two hundred elders, poets, artisans, and tradition-bearers have deepened the author’s own archaeological practice and argues that listening to local voices is essential for writing inclusive histories of past lifeways.
Reference Key
openalex_W7170068829 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Chapurukha M. Kusimba
Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197557686.013.0042
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197557686.013.0042
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.