The Impact of Small-Scale Development Projects on Archaeological Heritage in Africa: The Tanzanian Experience

Abstract The governments in Africa implement various development projects to improve livelihoods. The projects are both large and small scale. Large-scale projects include construction of dams, railway lines, roads, industrial complexes, expanding cities and new mines. Small-scale ones include establishing new residential houses and maintenance of roads linking administrative divisions. Both large- and small-scale projects involve land disturbance and have the potential to destroy archaeological heritage particularly when not accompanied by salvage studies. Unfortunately, archaeological salvage studies largely focus on large-scale projects. Only a handful of studies may have investigated the impact of small-scale projects. This paper focuses on small-scale projects and investigates the seven-hectare archaeological site of Bweni in NE Tanzania. The project to build fishing ponds on an area of only 350 m2 destroyed archaeological heritage including human remains and ceramics of the early Swahili period, ceramics and beads of the Swahili ‘golden age’ period, and archaeological records of the post-Swahili period.