Jonathan R Walz
Biographic Data
| ID | 160801 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan R Walz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan R |
| FAMILY NAME | Walz |
| SIGNATURE | WALZ J R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rollins College |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4647-8504 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 88 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Africa’s Cultural Crossroads: Archaeological Evidence for Ritual Syncretism in Western Uganda from Western Kansyore, Transitional Urewe, and Bigo-Period Burials
Archaeological research in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) in western Uganda has contributed significant insights into first millennium AD multilingual communities. These diverse communities, sharing food ways, ceramic technologies, and ritual beliefs, are traced to Bantu speakers who interacted with Sudanic speakers who made Kansyore ceramics. One of the significant exchanges of cultural beliefs was the adoption of Kansyore burial urns by B…
Visualizing Empire in Africa: Postage Stamps and Stationery Letterheads as Sites of Affiliation and Subversion
Before the website and the text emoji, the postage stamp and the letterhead adorned written communications. The expansion of the post created a system in which the British Empire (like other states and empires), through these forms, was lent visual presence. Here, an historian and an archaeologist investigate the tableaux of this mundane imperial optic. Increasing literate agency, commerce, and tourism placed stamps and printed letterheads throug…
A Tapestry of Human-Induced and Climate-Driven Environmental Change in Western Uganda: The Ndali Crater Lakes Region
Recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda provide important new insights into anthropogenic impacts on moist forests to the East of the Rwenzori Mountains. This research significantly changes previous interpretations of paleoenvironmental records in western Uganda and helps to distinguish climate change from human impacts. By drawing on multiple sources such as historical lingu…
Multilingualism at the Crossroads of Africa: A Response to Commentaries on “Remaking Late Holocene Environment of Western Uganda: Kansyore and Later Settlers in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region”
Remaki n g the Late Holocene Environment of Western Uganda: Archaeological Perspectives on Kansyore and Later Settlers
Archaeological and environmental research by an international and interdisciplinary team opens new perspectives into the settlement histories of Kansyore, Early Iron Age, and Bigo period peoples in the once forested regions of the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda. The research examines the role of Kansyore agropastoralists and their Early Iron Age and Bantu-speaking contemporaries in remaking a once forested environment into a f…
Carnelian beads from Manda, Unguja Ukuu and Kwa Mgogo: New insights on the stone bead trade between South Asia and East Africa, 7th to 15th Century CE
Real but unrealised: Object transformations and political economy in East and southern Africa, AD 750-1250
Archaeologists of East and southern Africa have long been attracted to large urban centres, such as those on the Swahili coast, and to the circulation of imported goods. Here, the authors aim to refocus attention on the diversity of objects that were produced and transformed by the inland societies of East and southern Africa during the Middle Iron Age (AD 750-1250). Recognition of the remaking, bundling and repurposing of small, portable objects…
Expectations of Community: Meaningful Uses of Caves (beyond Archaeology) in Contemporary Zanzibar
For archaeologists, caves throughout Africa and Eurasia are synonymous with scientific narratives about bipedal human ancestors (e.g., Sterkfontein in South Africa and Zhoukoudian in China), early diversified subsistence strategies (e.g., Klaises River Mouth in South Africa and Niah in Malaysia), and ‘rock art’ (e.g., Apollo 11 in Namibia and Chauvet in France). Thus, most archaeologists attribute caves’ relevance to deep pasts. However, this ten…
An Early Islamic Rock Crystal Amulet Seal from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar
Archaeological excavations at Unguja Ukuu recovered a rock crystal cabochon seal with the word lillāh (“for God”) inscribed in the Kufic script on its domed surface. The artifact is an intaglio amulet seal engraved in the negative. Microscopic examination of the seal surfaces reveals that a rotary tool was used to make the initial inscription. At some later point, a diagonal spall was removed across part of the inscription. The diagonal spall app…
Debating the Swahili: Archaeology Since 1990 and into the Future
Posnansky, Merrick
Schmidt, Peter R.
Trade Beads in Historical Archaeology
When Did the Swahili Become Maritime: A Reply to Fleisher et al. (2015), and to the Resurgence of Maritime Myopia in the Archaeology of the East African Coast
In this article, we respond to an article by Jeffrey Fleisher et al. (2015) in which they pose the question: When did the Swahili become maritime? We draw from our research findings in coastal and inland Eastern Africa to show that inland African societies were an essential component in the development of Swahili urbanism and maritimity. To understand change in any part of the East African coast requires understanding the entire context of econom…
Early inland entanglement in the Swahili world, c. 750–1550 ce
Early inland entanglement in the Swahili world, c. 750–1550 ce - 1
Inland Connectivity in Ancient Tanzania
This research note emphasizes human entanglement inland of the East African marine coastal fringe, but tied to it and to the Swahili World, c. ad 750-1550. Social, economic, political, and ritual intersections developed between late pre-urban/urban communities and their countrysides.1 Stone towns on the Swahili Coast administered countrysides, produced and marketed items for long-distance exchange, and emulated elite Islamic ritual and religious …
Toward an Ethnoarchaeomalacology of Achatina in East Africa
Land snail shell is a material commonly identified in the Late Holocene archaeological record of eastern Africa. Typically, archaeologists designate land snail shell as a natural occurrence or as debris produced from human subsistence. Ethnographic observations in lowland northeastern Tanzania show that contemporary communities employ the soft parts and shells of land snails, particularly Achatina fulica, for a range of everyday and special purpo…
Zigua Medicine, between Mountains and Ocean: People, Performances, and Objects in Healing Motion
Being displaced from the control of some of the conditions of research by the people and events a scholar encounters in the "field" can generate transformative insights.1 To gain a deep familiarity with a community's experiences, practices, and expressions calls for vulnerability,2 a social condition that arises from living with and listening to people and understanding the forms of story-performing that they deem valuable.3 During three years in…
Archaeology: A Treatment
We live in a state of increasing vulnerability, real and imagined. For calm and understanding, around the world individuals and communities employ materials to reflect on, share, and treat traumas of different scales. Our desire to overcome difficulty and to circumvent self-estrangement influences us to engage materials and motivates us to be “archaeologists”. These tendencies suggest that “medical archaeology” - concerned with health, anxiety, t…
The ancient Red Sea port of Adulis and the Eritrean coastal region: Previous Investigations and Museum Collections
Eritrea has a remarkable, but understudied, archaeological past. During the first millennium AD, urban centres on the southern Red Sea coast of Africa developed ties to far-flung powers like Rome a
Historical archaeologies of spatial practices and power
Archaeologists who employ regional landscapes as an organising principle tend to be more concerned about how landscapes-natural, built and imagined-reflect cultural values than how landscapes shape human relations and community perspectives. As the authors of these two volumes skilfully demonstrate, communities deploy landscapes to materialise, and even to naturalise, claims to political authority and power. They reveal how the study of landscape…
Routes to History
This chapter examines the rupture between history and prehistory using northeastern Tanzania as the context. It first considers fragments of East Africa's historiography to show how divisive representations of coastwise East Africa and its past have been shaped by dichotomies of space, time, and scholarly practice. It then looks at the role that historical archaeology and more recent traces and histories can play in integrating deeper (pre-Eurasi…
An Interview with Merrick Posnansky
Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imaginaries of Memory in West Africa Edited by Ferdinand de Jong and Michael Rowlands
Size Matters: A Commentary on Manning and Uplisashvili's “Our Beer”
Re-Representing African Pasts through Historical Archaeology
Historical archaeology in Africa has long privileged issues framed in terms of European sources and the impact of imperialism and colonialism on African peoples. With its emphasis on modernity, historical archaeology of this persuasion overlooks historical archaeologies concerned with revising metanarratives that misrepresent African pasts. We argue that historical archaeologists need to listen to local histories, often held in oral form, and tha…
When Did the Swahili Become Maritime: A Reply to Fleisher et al. (2015), and to the Resurgence of Maritime Myopia in the Archaeology of the East African Coast
In this article, we respond to an article by Jeffrey Fleisher et al. (2015) in which they pose the question: When did the Swahili become maritime? We draw from our research findings in coastal and inland Eastern Africa to show that inland African societies were an essential component in the development of Swahili urbanism and maritimity. To understand change in any part of the East African coast requires understanding the entire context of econom…
Carnelian beads from Manda, Unguja Ukuu and Kwa Mgogo: New insights on the stone bead trade between South Asia and East Africa, 7th to 15th Century CE
Real but unrealised: Object transformations and political economy in East and southern Africa, AD 750-1250
Archaeologists of East and southern Africa have long been attracted to large urban centres, such as those on the Swahili coast, and to the circulation of imported goods. Here, the authors aim to refocus attention on the diversity of objects that were produced and transformed by the inland societies of East and southern Africa during the Middle Iron Age (AD 750-1250). Recognition of the remaking, bundling and repurposing of small, portable objects…
Inland Connectivity in Ancient Tanzania
This research note emphasizes human entanglement inland of the East African marine coastal fringe, but tied to it and to the Swahili World, c. ad 750-1550. Social, economic, political, and ritual intersections developed between late pre-urban/urban communities and their countrysides.1 Stone towns on the Swahili Coast administered countrysides, produced and marketed items for long-distance exchange, and emulated elite Islamic ritual and religious …
Toward an Ethnoarchaeomalacology of Achatina in East Africa
Land snail shell is a material commonly identified in the Late Holocene archaeological record of eastern Africa. Typically, archaeologists designate land snail shell as a natural occurrence or as debris produced from human subsistence. Ethnographic observations in lowland northeastern Tanzania show that contemporary communities employ the soft parts and shells of land snails, particularly Achatina fulica, for a range of everyday and special purpo…
Silences and Mentions in History Making
An Early Islamic Rock Crystal Amulet Seal from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar
Archaeological excavations at Unguja Ukuu recovered a rock crystal cabochon seal with the word lillāh (“for God”) inscribed in the Kufic script on its domed surface. The artifact is an intaglio amulet seal engraved in the negative. Microscopic examination of the seal surfaces reveals that a rotary tool was used to make the initial inscription. At some later point, a diagonal spall was removed across part of the inscription. The diagonal spall app…
Remaki n g the Late Holocene Environment of Western Uganda: Archaeological Perspectives on Kansyore and Later Settlers
Archaeological and environmental research by an international and interdisciplinary team opens new perspectives into the settlement histories of Kansyore, Early Iron Age, and Bigo period peoples in the once forested regions of the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda. The research examines the role of Kansyore agropastoralists and their Early Iron Age and Bantu-speaking contemporaries in remaking a once forested environment into a f…
Debating the Swahili: Archaeology Since 1990 and into the Future
A Tapestry of Human-Induced and Climate-Driven Environmental Change in Western Uganda: The Ndali Crater Lakes Region
Recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda provide important new insights into anthropogenic impacts on moist forests to the East of the Rwenzori Mountains. This research significantly changes previous interpretations of paleoenvironmental records in western Uganda and helps to distinguish climate change from human impacts. By drawing on multiple sources such as historical lingu…
An Interview with Merrick Posnansky
Commentary on “Landscape Politics” in West Africa
Archaeopolitics and Postage Stamps in Africa
Silences and Mentions in History Making
Re-Representing African Pasts through Historical Archaeology
Historical archaeology in Africa has long privileged issues framed in terms of European sources and the impact of imperialism and colonialism on African peoples. With its emphasis on modernity, historical archaeology of this persuasion overlooks historical archaeologies concerned with revising metanarratives that misrepresent African pasts. We argue that historical archaeologists need to listen to local histories, often held in oral form, and tha…
Size Matters: A Commentary on Manning and Uplisashvili's “Our Beer”
An Interview with Merrick Posnansky
Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imaginaries of Memory in West Africa Edited by Ferdinand de Jong and Michael Rowlands
Routes to History
This chapter examines the rupture between history and prehistory using northeastern Tanzania as the context. It first considers fragments of East Africa's historiography to show how divisive representations of coastwise East Africa and its past have been shaped by dichotomies of space, time, and scholarly practice. It then looks at the role that historical archaeology and more recent traces and histories can play in integrating deeper (pre-Eurasi…
The ancient Red Sea port of Adulis and the Eritrean coastal region: Previous Investigations and Museum Collections
Eritrea has a remarkable, but understudied, archaeological past. During the first millennium AD, urban centres on the southern Red Sea coast of Africa developed ties to far-flung powers like Rome a
Historical archaeologies of spatial practices and power
Archaeologists who employ regional landscapes as an organising principle tend to be more concerned about how landscapes-natural, built and imagined-reflect cultural values than how landscapes shape human relations and community perspectives. As the authors of these two volumes skilfully demonstrate, communities deploy landscapes to materialise, and even to naturalise, claims to political authority and power. They reveal how the study of landscape…
Zigua Medicine, between Mountains and Ocean: People, Performances, and Objects in Healing Motion
Being displaced from the control of some of the conditions of research by the people and events a scholar encounters in the "field" can generate transformative insights.1 To gain a deep familiarity with a community's experiences, practices, and expressions calls for vulnerability,2 a social condition that arises from living with and listening to people and understanding the forms of story-performing that they deem valuable.3 During three years in…
Archaeology: A Treatment
We live in a state of increasing vulnerability, real and imagined. For calm and understanding, around the world individuals and communities employ materials to reflect on, share, and treat traumas of different scales. Our desire to overcome difficulty and to circumvent self-estrangement influences us to engage materials and motivates us to be “archaeologists”. These tendencies suggest that “medical archaeology” - concerned with health, anxiety, t…
Early inland entanglement in the Swahili world, c. 750–1550 ce
Early inland entanglement in the Swahili world, c. 750–1550 ce - 1
Inland Connectivity in Ancient Tanzania
This research note emphasizes human entanglement inland of the East African marine coastal fringe, but tied to it and to the Swahili World, c. ad 750-1550. Social, economic, political, and ritual intersections developed between late pre-urban/urban communities and their countrysides.1 Stone towns on the Swahili Coast administered countrysides, produced and marketed items for long-distance exchange, and emulated elite Islamic ritual and religious …
Toward an Ethnoarchaeomalacology of Achatina in East Africa
Land snail shell is a material commonly identified in the Late Holocene archaeological record of eastern Africa. Typically, archaeologists designate land snail shell as a natural occurrence or as debris produced from human subsistence. Ethnographic observations in lowland northeastern Tanzania show that contemporary communities employ the soft parts and shells of land snails, particularly Achatina fulica, for a range of everyday and special purpo…
When Did the Swahili Become Maritime: A Reply to Fleisher et al. (2015), and to the Resurgence of Maritime Myopia in the Archaeology of the East African Coast
In this article, we respond to an article by Jeffrey Fleisher et al. (2015) in which they pose the question: When did the Swahili become maritime? We draw from our research findings in coastal and inland Eastern Africa to show that inland African societies were an essential component in the development of Swahili urbanism and maritimity. To understand change in any part of the East African coast requires understanding the entire context of econom…
Posnansky, Merrick
Schmidt, Peter R.
Trade Beads in Historical Archaeology
Debating the Swahili: Archaeology Since 1990 and into the Future
Expectations of Community: Meaningful Uses of Caves (beyond Archaeology) in Contemporary Zanzibar
For archaeologists, caves throughout Africa and Eurasia are synonymous with scientific narratives about bipedal human ancestors (e.g., Sterkfontein in South Africa and Zhoukoudian in China), early diversified subsistence strategies (e.g., Klaises River Mouth in South Africa and Niah in Malaysia), and ‘rock art’ (e.g., Apollo 11 in Namibia and Chauvet in France). Thus, most archaeologists attribute caves’ relevance to deep pasts. However, this ten…
An Early Islamic Rock Crystal Amulet Seal from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar
Archaeological excavations at Unguja Ukuu recovered a rock crystal cabochon seal with the word lillāh (“for God”) inscribed in the Kufic script on its domed surface. The artifact is an intaglio amulet seal engraved in the negative. Microscopic examination of the seal surfaces reveals that a rotary tool was used to make the initial inscription. At some later point, a diagonal spall was removed across part of the inscription. The diagonal spall app…
Real but unrealised: Object transformations and political economy in East and southern Africa, AD 750-1250
Archaeologists of East and southern Africa have long been attracted to large urban centres, such as those on the Swahili coast, and to the circulation of imported goods. Here, the authors aim to refocus attention on the diversity of objects that were produced and transformed by the inland societies of East and southern Africa during the Middle Iron Age (AD 750-1250). Recognition of the remaking, bundling and repurposing of small, portable objects…
A Tapestry of Human-Induced and Climate-Driven Environmental Change in Western Uganda: The Ndali Crater Lakes Region
Recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda provide important new insights into anthropogenic impacts on moist forests to the East of the Rwenzori Mountains. This research significantly changes previous interpretations of paleoenvironmental records in western Uganda and helps to distinguish climate change from human impacts. By drawing on multiple sources such as historical lingu…
Multilingualism at the Crossroads of Africa: A Response to Commentaries on “Remaking Late Holocene Environment of Western Uganda: Kansyore and Later Settlers in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region”
History (20 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (19 works) · Archaeology (18 works) · Geography (15 works) · History (13 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Anthropology (8 works) · Art (8 works)