Also contact Adria LaViolette at U. Virginia, who has worked on coastal
Swahili materials in Tanzania, and who knows the most active scholars
in eastern Africa.  You need to understand that archaeology is hopelessly
underfunded in even the richest of eastern African nations (Kenya), and
that most indigenous archaeologists are either in administrative posts
at site museums or in history departments, rather than in freestanding
archaeology departments.  A consortium of East African, Swedish, and
North American-based scholars has worked on the archaeology of the Indian
Ocean trade, and Adria is probably your best entree into contacts in that
group.
 
Diane Gifford-Gonzalez
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408-459-2633