Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones

College position: Mandela Magdalene Memorial Fellow

University position: Jennifer Ward Oppenheimer Professor of the Deep History and Archaeology of Africa

Subject: Archaeology

Group membership: Governing Body

Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones is the Mandela Magdalene Memorial Fellow at Magdalene.

Stephanie Wynne-Jones is an archaeologist of Africa who has worked to understand the African past from the ground up. She has an ongoing fascination with early forms of urbanism and the ways people use and interact with objects. She recently began an ERC Advanced Grant project based in the Zambezi Valley of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Previously, she directed a series of excavation and survey projects in eastern Africa, including a study of resource use in early towns on Zanzibar and large-scale excavations at the World Heritage Site of Songo Mnara.

Stephanie’s work includes a strand of community archaeology, working with local collaborators to disseminate research findings and explore how local African communities can benefit from their rich cultural heritage.

Research Interest

  • The history and culture of African societies over the last 2,000 years.
  • The nature and form of urbanism in Africa's past.
  • Archaeologies of daily life and experience.
  • Trade, exchange and value in the African past.
  • Material culture and spatial practice in the archaeological record.

Qualifications

  • PhD Archaeology, University of Cambridge (2006)
  • M.Phil Archaeology, University of Cambridge (2000)
  • BA(Hons) Archaeology, University of Bristol (1998)

Professional Affiliations

  • President, Society of Africanist Archaeologists
  • Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
  • Member, British Institute in Eastern Africa

KEY PUBLICATIONS

Songo Mnara: urbanism, materiality and social memory. S. Wynne-Jones and J. Fleisher. Two vols. British Institute in Eastern African Memoir Series. Routledge, 2027.

Material taxonomies and beads on the East African coast, seventh-fifteenth centuries AD. S. Wynne-Jones. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 59, no. 4, 2024, pp. 507–526.

Colonialism, heritage and conservation: Zanzibari perceptions of the collapse of the House of Wonders. S. Longair, F. Said, S. Wynne-Jones. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 17, no. 4, 2023, pp. 594–614.

Entwined African and Asian genetic roots of medieval peoples of the Swahili coast. E. S. Brielle, J. Fleisher, S. Wynne-Jones et al. Nature, 615, no. 7954, 2023, pp. 866–873.

Integrating spatial and legacy data to understand archaeological sites in their landscape. A case study from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar. T. Fitton, F. Sulas, M. Lisowski, M. Alexander, A. Juma, S. Wynne-Jones. Archaeological Prospection, 30, no. 2, 2023, pp. 185–208.

Diet, economy, and culinary practices at the height of precolonial Swahili urbanism. E. M. Quintana Morales, O. Craig, S. Walshaw, M. Prendergast, C. Cartaciano, O. Mwebi, E. Onduta, V. Nduso, J. Fleisher, S. Wynne-Jones. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 66, 2022, article 101406.

The Chronology of Kilwa Kisiwani, AD 800–1500. M. Horton, J. Olsen, J. Fleisher, S. Wynne-Jones. African Archaeological Review, 39, 2022, pp. 143–166.

Urban Chronology on a Human Scale on the Coast of East Africa in the First Millennium AD. S. Wynne-Jones, F. Sulas, W. Out, S. Kristiansen, T. Fitton, A. Ali, J. Olsen. Journal of Field Archaeology, 46, no. 1, 2020, pp. 21–35.

The Swahili World. Edited by S. Wynne-Jones and A. LaViolette. London: Routledge, 2018.

A Material Culture: Consumption and Materiality on the Coast of Precolonial East Africa. S. Wynne-Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Theory in Africa, Africa in Theory. Edited by S. Wynne-Jones and J. B. Fleisher. London: Routledge, 2015.

The Public Life of the Swahili Stonehouse, 14th–15th centuries AD. S. Wynne-Jones. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 32, no. 4, 2013, pp. 759–773.

Email
saw33@cam.ac.uk