[5] In essence, the archaeological evidence points to a style of life focused on local issues with few interactions to the outside world.

What is known about Muhembo (the old Pangani) contrasts sharply with the material culture of the affluent minority that resided in stone and plaster towns elsewhere on the East African coast.

The increased number of sites and various signs of contact show that communities living at the bay grew once more in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The coralline promontory at the outlying waterfront (directly east) and the slope on which Muhembo is situated seem to shield it from the harshest monsoon winds.

[9] A small area of the site's surface is covered in mounds of debris that include the remains of a coral mosque and a few crumbling ruins.

To the north of the mosque, a grove of trees also hides pillar tombs that are thought to date from the seventeenth to nineteenth century.

Locals consider this area to be a mzimu, or spirit place, despite the fact that it is now covered in underbrush and shrubbery (a few of whom tend and harvest coconuts there).

[11] In the immediate neighbourhood of the ruins, there are a few plate fragments of blue-green Islamic monochrome (dating from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century), coiled and drawn glass beads, and animal remains that are found in low densities among the palm trees and along a pathway.

Since the 1970s, this coral borrow pit has produced road building materials, destroying a large portion of the site's northern section in the process, most likely including the location of Gramly's (1981) excavation trench, which was dug in the late 1970s.

Daub clusters suggest the inhabitants lived in wattle-and-daub houses east and northeast of the main coral rag ruins (and a lack of them in excavation units 3 and 4).

[15] Despite likely consuming a large portion of their calories from agricultural items (millet, rice, and bananas), the inhabitants of the site were reliant on shellfish and other aquatic remains.

Beginning in the 1970s, the northern portion of the site was damaged by a murram pit dug to supply coral gravel for contemporary road development.

He excavated a small test trench at Muhembo, a Swahili site, and wrote about his findings in a paper that was later published.

However, he discovered Swahili ceramics and identified Muhembo as a substandard, regionally oriented complex from the fourteenth century.