Munsa is an African Iron Age site, located on the Bikegete Hill in the southeastern part of what was the kingdom of Bunyoro. The site includes an area of some 1 square kilometer with an elevation change within that kilometer from 1220-1340 meters above mean sea level.
Munsa's Iron Age occupation includes settlement debris, burials, rockshelters and the evidence of iron-working, grain storage and the consumption and tending of domesticated cattle. Munsa is surrounded by three more or less concentric rings of man-made trenches, which were constructed as defensive structures. Substantial occupation at Munsa began by the end of the first millennium AD; and the site was abandoned in the 17th-18th century.
Munsa and Bananas
A small papyrus swamp located within the confines of the outermost trench at Munsa contained what may be banana phytoliths at its base, in sediments dated to ca 4900 BP, before the major occupation at Munsa. These represent the earliest to date identification of banana in Africa, some 2000 years or better after bananas were domesticated in the Kuk Swamp of New Guinea.
The discovery of what appear to be banana phytoliths at Munsa and at the site of Nkang in Cameroon,is controversial, primarily because it is evidence of much earlier contact with Asia than has been presumed to this date, and suggests that banana cultivation in Africa occurred long before local domestication or adoption of other crops.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to African Iron Age, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Lejju BJ, Robertshaw P, and Taylor D. 2006. Africa's earliest bananas? Journal of Archaeological Science 33(1):102-113.
Neumann K, and Hildebrand E. 2009. Early Bananas in Africa: the state of the art. Ethnobotany Research & Applications 7:3533-3362. Free download.
