Akshay Sarathi

Biography

Research Interests

• Specialty:

  Indian Ocean Studies – urbanism, subsistence, trade and exchange, migration, state formation, East Africa, pastoralism, maritime cultures, networks

  Archaeological Methods – archaeometry, compositional analysis (both bone and other artifacts), proveniencing artifacts, ethnoarchaeological analogy, zooarchaeology, archaeomalacology, ichthyoarchaeology, behavioral ecology, foodscapes, paleoclimatology, economic and urban modeling, heritage management.

  Current Research Projects:

  • Zanzibar Archaeological Project – Founder and Administrator
  • The Nautical Archaeology Digital Library – Contributor and Administrator
  • Seafaring in East Africa (SEA) Project – Founder

Selected Publications

• As Editor

  • Sarathi, A. (ed) 2018. Early Maritime Cultures on the East African Coast and the Western Indian Ocean. Archaeopress, Cambridge.

  As author

  • Sarathi, A., Kenoyer, J. M., & Walz, J. R. 2022. An Early Islamic Rock Crystal Amulet Seal from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar. Journal of African Archaeology (published online ahead of print 2022). doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/21915784-bja10013

  • Chami, M., Walz, J.R. and Sarathi, A., 2022. Expectations of Community: Meaningful Uses of Caves (beyond Archaeology) in Contemporary Zanzibar. Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies, 3(1), pp.1–7.

  • Sarathi, A. 2018. Marine Mollusc Exploitation at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar: 17kya-1500CE. In Early Maritime Cultures on the East African Coast and the Western Indian Ocean, edited by Akshay Sarathi. pp.171-184. Archaeopress, Cambridge.

  • Li, J., Zhang, S., Bunn, H.T., Sarathi, A., Gao, X. 2017. A preliminary application of dental cementum incremental analysis to determine the season-of-death of equids from the Xujiayao site, China Earth Sci. (2017) 60: 1183-1188

  In Press

  • Sarathi, A., Walz, J., Dussubieux, L., (In press) Glass Beads at Unguja Ukuu in the Late 1st Millennium CE: Results of the 2018 Excavation in Zanzibar, in: Dussubieux, L., Walder, H. (Eds), Glass Bead Technology, Chronology, and Exchange – LA-ICP-MS Glass Compositions from the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility, Studies in Archaeological Sciences series, University of Leuven Press.

  • Seetah, K., Manfio, S., &, Sarathi. A. (In press). Connecting the dots: situating small islands in the historical archaeology of the Indian Ocean studies. In, Hauser. M., &, Haines. J. (Eds). Historical Archaeology of The Indian Ocean. Florida University Press.