Projekt

The project seeks to understand how contemporary landscapes in southern Tanzania were shaped by changing human-environment interactions before, during and after the incorporation of the region into the North Atlantic trade system after ca. AD 1500. The main objective is to explore the consequences of the expansion of the nineteenth-century caravan trade on subsistence strategies and land use practices of local communities lying along the main caravan trade route in southern Tanzania, as it is the expansion of this trade that has often been regarded as the primary trigger for major social, economic and environmental changes across the region. More specifically, the study aims to explore two research questions: 1) What subsistence and land use strategies prevailed in the late-eighteenth century prior to the expansion of ivory and slave trade? 2) Were these elements transformed following the expansion of this trade, and if so what were the material and environmental consequences of these changes? By providing new data concerning the southern trade routes (which are under- studied compared to the central or northern routes), the project will facilitate regional comparisons and assessments of whether the impacts of the different caravan trade networks varied geographically. Overall, the results of this study will inform cultural resources and landscape management strategies and conservation policy in the region and more generically.

• Prof. Dr. Brigitte Reinwald

  Universität Hannover
  Philosophische Fakultät
  Historisches Seminar
  Fachgebiet Geschichte Afrikas
  Hannover
  

• Dr. Thomas John Biginagwa

  University of Dar es Salaam
  College of Humanities
  Department of Archaeology and Heritage Management
  Heritage Building, Changanyikeni Road
  Dar es Salaam
  Tansania (Tanzania)