Profile

Biography

Stephanie is a Swahili archaeologist, specialising in East African coastal urbanism, material culture, and social practice. She completed a BA in Archaeology at the University of Bristol in 1998, followed by an M.Phil (2000) and PhD (2005) from the University of Cambridge.  Stephanie’s PhD research was based on the Swahili coast of Tanzania, where she conducted a survey of the region around Kilwa Kisiwani, a major Swahili town of c. AD800 – 1500. Stephanie continues to work in east Africa, with a series of projects that focus on Swahili towns, trade, material culture, and identity.

Career

After completing her PhD, Stephanie moved to Nairobi to become the Assistant Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa from 2005 to 2008. She came to York from a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship held at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology in Bristol.

Research

Overview

Stephanie has conducted fieldwork in several regions of the East African coast, including her PhD research at Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, survey on Mafia Island (with Dr Paul Lane and Dr Bertram Mapunda), excavations at Vumba Kuu, Kenya (with the National Museums of Kenya) and along caravan routes through Tanzania, with work near Lake Tanganyika. Currently, she is working on a project back in the Kilwa archipelago, at Songo Mnara (with Dr Jeffrey Fleisher). Excavations at this 14th – 16th century stonetown are aimed towards providing a richer understanding of the uses of urban space among the Swahili, and the ways that objects were bound up in spatial practices inside and outside the structures.

This work at Songo Mnara builds on a broader interest in material culture and spatial practice as a route through which to approach issues of society, identity and interaction. In addition, Stephanie has research interests in urbanism, and in the precolonial African past more generally.

Current projects

Open Spaces and Private Places: Archaeology at Songo Mnara, Tanzania

(with Dr Jeffrey Fleisher, Rice University)

As part of these large-scale excavations at a prominent Swahili stonetown, the domestic spaces will be a particular focus, investigating the ways that these were lived in and structured through practice. This will be part of a comprehensive approach to the site, exploring both the areas outside houses and the larger, public spaces and areas of memorialisation and ritual.

Changing Materialities: Caravan routes and trade in pre-colonial East Africa

This Leverhulme and BIEA-funded project explores pre-colonial trade routes through Tanzania. It is based on fieldwork at several centres known to have been important to pre-colonial trade, in an attempt to explore the material culture of these regions and the ways these were affected by the intensification of trade in later centuries.

Ceramics and Society on the Swahili Coast

(with Dr Jeffrey Fleisher, Rice University)

British Academy-funded research has involved revisiting excavated collections on the East African coast, in order to explore diversity among the ceramics that characterise the early layers of Swahili sites. Collections relating to Manda, Ungwana, Unguja Ukuu, Dakawa, Tumbe, Bandarikuu, and Chibuene have already been added to a database. It is hoped that this will allow us to explore regional variation and aspects of local production and use. We also hope to make the results available online.

Publications

Selected publications

Wynne-Jones, S. 2012. Exploring the use of geophysical survey on the Swahili coast: Vumba Kuu, Kenya. Azania 47(2).

Wynne-Jones, S. and J.B. Fleisher 2012. Coins in Context: Local Economy, Value and Practice on the East African Swahili Coast. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22(1): 19-36.

Wynne-Jones, S. 2011. Recovering and remembering a slave route in central Tanzania. In Slavery in Africa: Archaeology and Memory, eds. P.J. Lane and K.C. MacDonald, 317-342. London: Oxford University Press. 168.

Fleisher, J.B. and S. Wynne-Jones 2011. Ceramics and the Early Swahili: Deconstructing the Early Tana Tradition. African Archaeological Review 28(4): 245-278.

Wynne-Jones, S. and J.B. Fleisher 2011. Archaeological Investigations at Songo Mnara, Tanzania, 2011. Nyame Akuma 76: 3-8.

 

Full publications list

Wynne-Jones, S. 2010a: Lines of Desire: Power and Materiality Along a Tanzanian Caravan Route. Journal of World Prehistory, 23, 219-237.

Wynne-Jones, S. 2010b: Remembering and Reworking the Swahili Diwanate: the Role of Objects and Places at Vumba Kuu. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 43, 407-27.

Fleisher, J.B. & S. Wynne-Jones 2010a: Kilwa-type coins from Songo Mnara, Tanzania: New Finds and Chronological Implications. Numismatic Chronicle, 170, 494-506.

Fleisher, J. B. & S. Wynne-Jones 2010b: Authorisation and the Process of Power: The View from African Archaeology. Journal of World Prehistory, 23, 177-193.

Wynne-Jones, S. & M. Walsh 2010. Heritage, Tourism, and Slavery at Shimoni: Some Thoughts on the Creation of Oral Accounts. History in Africa, 37, 243-273.

Wynne-Jones, S. & B.B.B. Mapunda. 2008. ‘This is what pots look like here’: pots, practice and tradition in the Mafia archipelago. Azania, XLIII, 1-17.

Wynne-Jones, S. 2007a. Creating urban communities at Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, AD 800-1300. Antiquity, 81, 368-380.

Wynne-Jones, S. 2007b. It's what you do with it that counts: performed identities in the East African coastal landscape. Journal of Social Archaeology, 7, 325-345.

Wynne-Jones, S. & S.E. Kohring 2007. Socialising Complexity, in S.E. Kohring and S. Wynne-Jones (eds.) Socialising Complexity: approaches to power and interaction in the archaeological record. London: Oxbow Press, 2-12.

Croucher, S. K. & S. Wynne-Jones 2006. People not Pots: Locally-Produced Ceramics and Identity on the Nineteenth Century East African Coast. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 39, 107-124.

Teaching

Undergraduate

First Year

• Accessing Archaeology - Module Leader

Second Year

• Themes in Historical Archaeology - Module Director and Leader of Medieval Islam component
• Research Skills for Historical Archaeologists - Facilitator

Third Year

• Assessed Seminar - Medieval Africa

External activities

Memberships

• Governing Council Member, British Institute in Eastern Africa
  

Editorial duties

• Editorial board, Azania