China and East Africa: Ancient Ties, Contemporary Flows

(Hardback)

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China and East Africa: Ancient Ties and Contemporary Flows marks the culmination of a new round of archaeological and historical research on the relations between China and Africa, from the origins to the present. Africa and Asia have always been in constant contact, through land and seas. The contributors to this volume debate and present the results of their research on the very complex and intricate networks of connections that crisscrossed the Indian Ocean and surrounding lands linking Africa to East Asia. A growing number of speakers of Austronesian languages returned to Africa, reaching Madagascar in the early centuries of the Common Era. The diffusion of domesticated plants, like bananas, from New Guinea to South Asia and Africa where phytoliths are dated to the mid-fourth millennium in Uganda and mid-first millennium BCE in southern Cameroon, provide additional evidence on early interactions between Africa and Asia. Africa and Asia have always been in constant contact, through land and seas. Edited by Chapurukha Kusimba, Tiequan Zhu, and Purity Wakabari Kiura, this collection explores different facets of the interaction between China and Africa, from their earliest manifestations to the present and with an eye to the future.

Reviews

The book offers a complex vision of different organisational forms of economic life and different evolutionary patterns of Sino-African exchanges. A broad array of commodities (ceramics, textile, coins, etc.) traded between China and East Africa that have been recovered from archaeological excavations are described and discussed.

This book is a great resource for archaeologists working in East Africa and China. Altogether, the contributors provide a better understanding of the ancient socioeconomic ties and contemporary flows between China and East Africa.

Author Bio

Chapurukha Kusimba is professor of anthropology at American University. Tiequan Zhu is professor of scientific archaeology at Sun Yat-Sen University. Purity Kiura is director of museums, sites, and monuments at The National Museums of Kenya