Cultural continuity: technology and stylistic evolution of pottery in North Pare in the 1st Millenum A.D.

This thesis is based on archaeological work, which was conducted in Ugweno, North-Pare in the District of Mwanga in Kilimanjaro Region. The research objective was to investigate the pottery of EIW-Kwale and LIW-Maore traditions dated to the lst* millennium AD. The sites of the same kind had been studied by Odner (1971a, b) who asserted that the relationship between the two pottery traditions was unclear. This work was designed to assess his views in the light of new archaeological development on the coast of East Africa and elsewhere (Charm, 1994 and 1996).The survey work identified eight sites of which two had been excavated; these are Mwaniko and Katola sites. Analysis of pottery focussed on technological and stylistic traits, which included general surface finishing, colour of sherd, firing, type of temper and grain size, vessel form and decoration. The results suggest that the LIW-Maore pottery tradition evolved from the earlier Kwale of Ugweno (KU) pottery tradition. Probably there existed some favourable environmental conditions, which facilitated continuity of habitation. This enabled groups of people and/or descendants of the Kwale of Ugweno tradition to gradually evolve technologically and stylistically into Maore pottery tradition. Thus through time and due to internal dynamism people improved ability to act by their thought to manipulate the EIW - Kwale of Ugweno pottery tradition into LIW tradition of Maore to meet the pottery requirements of their community.