gems, ancient history, ancient technology, iron working

The early history of the East African coast, up to around the thirteenth or fourteenth century A.D., remains largely unknown and is still mostly speculative, relying on conjecture or, at best, inspired interpretation. Progress beyond this uncertainty depends on archaeological excavation of sites whose existence has yet to be confirmed, though their probable locations can be guessed. The earliest known inhabitants were people of Bushman type, evidenced by their tools found at various coastal locations. Later, at unknown times, the main groups forming the present coastal population arrived—the Galla, Somali, Bantu, and Arabs. The Galla, a Hamitic people linguistically related to the Arabs, came from southern Arabia across the Red Sea, likely as early as the first millennium B.C. They initially settled in northern Somalia but were pushed south and west by the Somali. By the sixteenth century, the Galla had overrun southern Ethiopia and most of the Kenyan coast up to just north of Mombasa. Their influence waned in the nineteenth century as they were attacked by the Masai and Somali and gradually retreated northward. Their final collapse occurred in the 1860s when their chiefs were treacherously killed by the Somali, effectively destroying the coastal Galla presence. Nomadic pastoralists by tradition, their impact on coastal civilization was largely destructive.