Critical analysis of archaeological research trends in Uganda: 1920-2018

Much as the first collections of stone tools in East Africa were made by geologist J.W. Gregory, beginning in 1893, E.J. Wayland’s joined the government service in Uganda in 1919 to set East African Archaeology on the course that it was to follow for the next 40 years or more. However, over 90 years from its inception, a larger percentage of archaeological research in Uganda seems regionally imbalanced, dominated by foreign researchers and periodically generalized. In order to understand these anomalies, this study undertook a critical literature review of archaeological research data from 1920 to 2018. The main objectives were to; document the regional distribution of archaeological research in Uganda; analyze the interplay between local and foreign researchers, and examine the period of archaeological research, that is Stone Age or Iron Age. Results show that, there is a wide gap in regional distribution of archaeological research in Uganda, dominated by foreign researchers with a focus on Iron Age period. The study concludes that, the limited research interest in other parts of Uganda is not because of lack of archaeology but a long set ideology of foreign researchers to dominate local research space. This calls for active involvement of local researchers in archaeological research, in order to neutralise the long set colonial research ideology and take charge of archaeological research directions. This will aid in narrowing the regional research gaps as well as presenting the true picture of Uganda’s past.


INTRODUCTION
In this paper, a critical documentary review of archaeological research trends in Uganda by examining a selected number of archaeological literature was done. This was supplemented by visits to key archaeological sites in Uganda. The main reason was to document the regional distributions of archaeological research in Uganda; understand the interplay between the foreign and local researchers and the archaeological periods being covered. This is to understand the driving force behind the archaeological research agenda in Uganda, since its inception in the 1920s. The paper argues that far from the preconceived wisdom that other regions of Uganda, other than the southwestern, western and central parts of Uganda have no deep time archaeology, it is the lack of archaeological research in the areas.
The lack of research in these areas is a result of colonial set ideology to dominate the local research space or in straight words, to continue colonising African archaeological research space. This has always been through partitioning research fields into regions by focusing on a particular region and viewing the other regions as of less archeological potential. A case in point is Bigo by Mugenyi and Ntusi (Lanning, 1953(Lanning, to 1970Reid 1994 to date), which still enjoy high research attention to date. Hence other regions have probably been shelved for future archaeological research projects.
Secondly, the trend also shows that despite several years of involvement of local archaeologists in archaeological research projects in Uganda, their participation is limited to physical manual work and not core scientific decision making. Finally, despite the diverse archaeological potential of Uganda from the Early Stone Age (ESA) all through to Late Iron Age (LIA), a major focus has been on the Iron Age period, backed by the legendary Bachwezi myth.
The paper, therefore, appeals for decolonisation of archaeological research from the current foreign-dominated trend to a stage where local researchers could direct archaeological projects or work as mutual collaborators with their foreign counterparts. This will help in diversifying the geographical and period coverage. It is only through this that a true picture of Uganda's past could be revealed. This thinking is in line with Late Prof. David Kiyaga Mulindwa, who wished to see Uganda take its place with other African countries in archaeological research (Pwiti and Bukenya, 2007).

Background of the Study
The first collections of stone tools in East Africa were made by geologist J.W. Gregory, beginning in 1893 (Gregory, 1896: 322-5). His collections and those of several others, notably C.W. Hobley (Dewey and Hobley, 1925), were vaguely classed as "Neolithic (Leakey, 1931:3). In Tanzania a German, Hans Reck excavated a fossil human skeleton at Olduvai in 1913 but without observing any stone artefacts, since he had expected that these would be made of flint (Reck, 1914;Robertshaw, 1990). Reck also investigated several burial mounds in the Ngorongoro Crater and visited the Iron Age sites at Engaruka (Reck, 1926;Robertshaw, 1990).
However, it was E.J. Wayland"s arrival to join the government service in Uganda in 1919 that was to set East African Archaeology on the course that it was to follow for the next 40 years or more (Robertshaw, 1990). Okeny et al. 15 However, right from its inception in the 1920s, most archaeological research has been concentrated in the southwestern, western and central parts of the country (Reid, 1994;Lanning, 1953;Shinnie, 1960;Reid, 1994;Robertshaw, 1994), predominantly, taken by foreign researchers trying to understand the legendary Bachwezi myth through material culture. Several literature on archaeological research in Uganda such as Bishop and Posnansky (1960);; Shinnie (1960); Lanning (1953Lanning ( -1970Marshall (1954); Morris (1956); Pearce and Posnansky (1963);Posnansky (1963); Posnansky and Cole (1963);Soper (1971);Sutton (1985Sutton ( -1998; Robertshaw (1994-2010) and, Reid (1994-2016, indicate that research has been going on since the early 1920s. The foundation of this research was set by the staff of the Uganda Geological Survey Department, led by E.J. Wayland. This was vigorous right from the early colonial period to the late 1960s (Kiyaga-Mulindwa, 2004), and in the process, many archaeological materials recovered and site located during these surveys. Also, various colonial officers from their duty areas recovered several chance finds (Kiyaga-Mulindwa, 2004). All these have immensely contributed to the artifact records of Uganda. Much as these were amateur archaeologists, their work ignited interest in several archaeologists up to date.
Geographically, whereas these early investigations focused on archaeology, their surveys tended to concentrate on the grassland areas of western Uganda (Lanning 1953(Lanning -1970Reid 1996b). or the arid areas of northeastern Uganda, such as Karamoja (Wayland and Burkitt, 1932;Posnansky and Cole, 1963). Furthermore, most of the work in the western Uganda grasslands also tended to focus on tracing the origins of the centralized polities of the legendary Bachwezi and/or to provide historical depth to these and sister kingdoms in the Great Lakes region (Kiyaga-Mulindwa, 2004;Reid, 1994;Sutton, 1985;Robertshaw, 1994). To be precise, most of them focused on the Iron Age period as guided by the interest in understanding the Bachwezi myth.
After the description of the main features of Uganda's past and its Stone Age sequence by E.J. Wayland in the 1920s and 1930s, European archaeologists (Lanning, 1953;Shinnie, 1960;Posnansky, 1961;Sutton, 1985;Reid, 1994;Robertshaw, 1994, etc.) started researching in Uganda. The idea imparted in them was that the southwestern, western and central part of Uganda had deep time archaeological deposits supported by the legendary Chwezi"s presupposed ancient occupation of western Uganda. Furthermore, the belief that there existed an ancient city at Bigo bya-Mugenyi (Ejiet 1993) escalated archaeological interest in the region. This drew the attention of most archaeologists from the rest of Uganda, except the northeastern part, specifically Karamoja, where stone tools were earlier found exposed on the surface (Wayland and Burkitt, 1932). Besides, the recognition of Urewe pottery tradition, other Early Iron Age (EIA) pottery, and their apparent association with riverside and the lacustrine environment in the central and western part of Uganda, also provided additional field for pioneering archaeologists to justify their activities in the regions.
This idea saw several archaeologists, among others; O'Brien (1963) and Lowe (1952) conduct studies in Nsongezi and other parts of Uganda with the major interest of outlining the Neolithic sequence. E.C. Lanning, whose early work ignited most archaeological research in western Uganda from 1953-1970, explored extensively the cultural landscapes of western Uganda (Lanning, 1970). Similarly, Posnansky and Bishop (1960), reported on the areas in Uganda from which stone tools or fossil remains were recovered in stratified deposits. Their interest was to reconstruct as far as possible, the conditions under which early man lived. They dealt with geological and fossil evidence of the former environment at each locality and tried to show how conditions may have differed from those of the present day.
Besides, they also showed how man's tools developed over time and how his mode of life changed to meet the challenge of his environment until eventually, he was able to modify the conditions themselves as he became more skilled. Posnansky and Bishop (1960) admitted that their observations in Uganda were however incomplete focusing on areas with more robust evidence and the archaeological data, not in question. Thus, the links between different regions remained only tentative and with many gaps in the time sequence.
However, this intellectual call never attracted attention from the earlier archaeologists of Uganda. Over 40 years after, several archaeologists (Reid, 1994;Robertshaw, 1990;Soper, 1971;Basell, 2010;Schmidt, 2016) continue to focus on the sites identified by pioneering archaeologists. It is not very clear what the pull factor to these same localities is, but the need to solve the so far unsolvable Bachwezi myth is one key factor that undeniably played a great role.
From the above background, this current research was conducted between 2018 and 2019 with the main objective of critically analysing the trends in archaeological research in Uganda from its inception in the 1920s to 2018. Specifically, it was intended to; i) map the regional distribution of archaeological research in Uganda; ii) examining the interplay between the local and foreign researchers and; iii) examining the relationship between Stone Age and Iron Age research. Fieldwork consisted of two main activities, namely; i) documentary reviews of archaeological records, which entailed examining ancient records such as written source materials in the form of chronicles, descriptive accounts, primary source materials from private and official archives; cartographic documents like old maps, library and archaeological store of Uganda National Museum and; ii) Visit to major archaeological sites.

Uganda's Physical Information
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda is a landlocked country in East-Central Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the West by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region and lies within the Nile basin, with varied but generally a modified equatorial climate. Administratively, it is currently divided into four regions; namely, central, northern, eastern and western (UBOS, 2014:1) However, archaeologists researching in Uganda from the 1920s up to 2018 have frequently divided research areas using regional terms such as Northern; Centralnorth; North-eastern; southern; southwestern; western; eastern; Victoria Nyanza; Great Lakes Africa; central; south-western and central; central and western; Eastern and north-western and; central, western and Eastern. On the contrary, this study used administrative divisions of central, northern, eastern, western and southwestern Uganda. This is to help understand fully the geographical distribution of archaeological research in the country (Figure 1).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data for this study were collected by searching the extant literature. This was by compiling an exhaustive list of archaeological research conducted in Uganda by local and foreign archaeological researchers from the 1920s to 2018. The exhaustive list was gathered from all published and unpublished archaeological reports, field notes, and reference sources stored in the Uganda Museum library, Makerere University Library, Uganda society and British Institute in Eastern Africa library. Journals such as the Uganda Journal of Uganda Society, housed in the Uganda Museum and Azania of the British Institute in Eastern Africa were the main source of information for this research. This is because they were the early engine where archaeological research in Uganda was published. Besides, an internet search for archaeological research in Uganda was also conducted. After ensuring that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, were included in the review, selection criteria based on year of research, region, technological period and researchers were used to categorise the research. Conclusions were therefore based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. Under the criterion of Year of research, any research that was conducted in Uganda between 1920 and 2018 was included in the list of the literature for this research. Those that were published before 1920 and after 2018 were not included. This is because there was no substantive archaeological research in Uganda before the 1920s and those after 2018 saw a drastic change in ideology and involvement of local researchers.
In terms of Region (Figure 1), 5 categories were considered, that is northern, southwestern, western, eastern and central. These categories correspond with the subdivisions frequently used by archaeologists. Much as sometimes the regions are generally categorised as south of the Nile to mean southern Uganda and North of the Nile to mean northern Uganda (Kiyaga-Mulindwa 2004), most archaeologists frequently use(d) the 5 region categories. In this research, therefore, all literature that falls within the above 5 categories were considered.
In the Technological Period, archaeological research in Uganda started with a major focus on the Stone Age and Iron Age. Pioneering archaeological researchers intended to divide the archaeological potential of the regions based on these two categories. For this research, the conventional category was used to have inclusive literature.
Finally, the criteria for selection of researchers was based on two divisions; local and foreign researchers. Local researchers include strictly Ugandans, and foreign researchers include any other researcher from outside Uganda. To come up with clear literature, an exhaustive list of all researchers in Uganda from the 1920s to 2018 was compiled. The selection of literature to be included in this research was based on this exhaustive list. Where collaborative research was conducted, the origin of the Principal Researcher (PI) was considered. For example, where local researchers and foreign researchers collaborated, and the PI was a local researcher, the research was considered local.
After creating an inclusive list based on the above criteria, data was extracted. This involved gathering applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to this research. The extracted data was collated, summarized, and compared with the evidence extracted from the included studies. In the end, 113 studies were selected for the final list of data for this study.
Besides, random visits to known archaeological sites such as Bigo by-Mugenyi, Ntusi, Munsa, Sango Bay, Kibiro, Nsongezi, Nyero rock art site, Dolwe Island, Kinanisi, Luzira, Busi Island, Kigezi iron working areas, Fort Patiko in Gulu, Agoro precolonial sites, Palabek precolonial sites in northern Uganda among others was undertaken to generate GPS coordinates for the location map of this research. Panoramic digital camera photos of some of the areas were also taken (Plate 1 and Figure 2).

RESULTS
The result of this study is based on the 113 final lists of literature reviewed. The literature was also supplemented by random site visits to some known archaeological sites. The main objective was to examine trends in archaeological research from its inception in the 1920s to 2018. The result of the study is as summarised in Tables 1 and 2.

Analysis of regional distribution of archaeological research in Uganda 1920s to 2017
The current study examined 113 archaeological studies in Uganda between 1920 and 2018 (Table 1 and Figures  1 and 3). The results indicate that indeed archaeological research has been going on since the 1920s. The first substantial publication of results came out in 1932, with the research of E. J. Wayland and M. C. Burkitt of Early Stone Age site of Magosi in northeastern Uganda. However, the regional distribution continued to be disproportional, with some regions heavily researched, while others remain archaeologically terra incognito.

Plate 1. One of the authors and a Local Resident examining Rock Art in Dolwe Island.
In the Table 2, the data shows that out of the 113 archaeological studies examined, northern Uganda has so far received 09 archaeological research, constituting 8.0%; southwestern received 13 constituting 11.5%; western 49, constituting 43.4%; eastern 11 constituting 9.7%, and central 31 constituting 26%. This clearly shows great imbalances in the regional conduct of archaeological research.

Analysis of archaeological research periods from the 1920s to 2017
This study divided archaeological research into two main periods, namely; Stone Age (SA) and Iron Age (IA). The data on these two periods indicate that out of 113 research examined, only 8 (8.0%) were on SA and 105 (92.0%) were on IA. Much as this is so, the early works on SA sites set the foundation for archaeological research in IA (Table 2 and Figure 4).

Analysis of Interface between Foreign and Local Researchers
Data from the 113 studies examined by this study indicate that right from the inception of archaeological research in the 1920s, it was solely conducted by foreign researchers. This notwithstanding the unrecognised contributions of local participants who greatly facilitated the success of all these work, the trend continued for about seven decades before any significant contribution of a local researcher was acknowledged. This does not mean that for all these periods, no local researchers were participating, rather their contributions were deemed insignificant to cause any impact to the reigning research paradigms of the time. It is only in the early 2000s that the impact of local archaeologists begun to be felt. Much as this is a great step towards decolonisation of archaeological research in Uganda, the contributions continue to remain a drop in the Ocean (Figure 4).

DISCUSSION
The history of East African archaeology is one of changing research priorities within a complex web of development (Robertshaw, 1994). For the case of Uganda, the first period of archaeological research is defined by two main episodes; first, it was started by "amateur" archaeologists, led by E.J. Wayland, the then director of Uganda Geological Survey Department. He was a geologist but became archaeologist by avocation and his main interest was in establishing pluvial/ climatological sequences than the reconstruction and analysis of cultural developments in Uganda (Posnansky 1967;Kiyaga-Mulindwa, 2004;Robertshaw, 1994). E.J. Wayland used his ingenuity to identify sites of archaeological importance in the process of his work.
The second episode is that Uganda was the first East African country (original east African countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda) to receive archaeological study. Surprisingly, it is the least researched archaeologically todate, with no institution of learning to teach and practicing archaeology on a full scale. Furthermore, it has less than ten qualified archaeologists but the reason why it lagged is yet a mega topic of another day ( Figure 5). The data examined in this study indicate that since the inception of archaeological research in Uganda, the participation and contribution of local researchers were well known to their foreign counterparts and, was highly valuable. The former in most cases work as guides, sugar-coated as local collaborators and the latter project managers. However, foreign archaeologists take all the final decision-making processes. Presumably, foreign archaeologists were thought to possess all the scientific knowledge to conduct and direct archaeological research. The local "collaborators" were seen as good at guiding and handling hard manual excavation works. Consequently, this colonial ideology held back significant participation and impact of local archaeologists for more than seven decades and by extension, still in play to date. There seem to be no deliberate decolonisation efforts by foreign researchers and Uganda continues to be the 'archaeological research field' for foreign researchers.
The 113 previous archaeological studies and 14 archaeological sites examined indicate that indeed Uganda is the first east African country to establish and practice archaeological research. However, the data presents a huge regional imbalance with more concentration of archaeological research in the central, southwestern and eastern Uganda compared to the northern region. The major factor behind this could have been the need to solve the Bachwezi question, which has preoccupied most researchers since the 1920s. In northern Uganda, other than the work of Okeny (2011, unpublished MA Dissertation), the ongoing work of Dismas Ongwen in Agoro, Lamwo district and that of Kiyaga-Mulindwa (2006) in Karuma, the rest had colonial ideological motives.
For example, the work of Robert Soper in Chobe in 1971 was to trace the occurrence of Urewe ware previously in the southern part. He was armed with the assumption that Urewe ware does not cross the Nile River to the north, an area thought to have been populated by recent unilinear migration of the Lwo from South Sudan. The one of Posnansky in Dufile and Patiko was meant to prove that Europeans built the Forts in the two areas. Those of E. J. Wayland  This research finds it misplaced to continue arguing that because of the lack of archaeology in northern Uganda, there was no need to conduct archaeological projects in the region. This argument can no longer be sustained with the new evidence emerging from northern Uganda. The ongoing Ph.D. work of C. K. Okeny in Palabek, Lamwo district is producing wonderful  archaeological sites that are equally important like those elsewhere in central and southwestern Uganda. The fact that most researchers researching in Uganda right from the 1920s up to 2018 were foreigners with their funding; they always apportion research fields like their land. Ntusi, Munsa, and Bigo became the research fields that preoccupied most foreign researchers since the 1920s. The answers to the questions they posed relating to these sites have become fewer than the questions asked. Surprisingly, some of the local researchers except a few have also fallen in the trap of pioneering research paradigms where research sites earmarked by the pioneering archaeologists are seen to be more important than discovering new ones. This accounts for the major reason why most local researchers have also concentrated on the Iron Age period as opposed to the Stone Age cultures of Uganda.

Conclusion and Recommendations
In a nutshell, this study argues that the limited research interest in northern Uganda is not because of a lack of archaeology or sites with deep time history but a long set ideology of foreign researchers to dominate the local research space. This has been through classifying Uganda"s regions into potential and less potential archaeological regions. Unfortunately, some of these classifications were based on mere assumptions with limited research undertaken. It is against this background that this research calls for active involvement of local researchers in archaeological research, in order to neutralise the long set colonial research ideology and take charge of archaeological research directions. This will aid in narrowing the regional research gaps as well as presenting the true picture of Uganda"s past. This however will not be very easy in a country like Uganda where there is limited avenues for research refunding, a fact that foreign researchers have ridden on to manipulate and use local researchers as their manual workers for a long time. It is against this background that the current research calls for decolonisation of archaeological research in Uganda and revisit of archaeological research direction to cover all regions of Uganda. Secondly, such research and researchers should be one that takes the interests and opinions of local researchers and provides due consideration to the true picture of Uganda's past, other than making unfounded assumptions