Ichumbaki, Elgidius B.2017-03-172017-03-172017-01Ichumbaki, E. B. 2017. ''When did the Swahili Become Maritime? A Reply to Jeffrey Fleisher et al., 2015''. In: L. Harris (ed.). African Maritime Landscapes: Sea Ports and Sea Power, pp. 1-11. Springer.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11810/4504In a paper titled ‘When Did the Swahili Became Maritime’ published in the American Anthropologist, authors are skeptical about accepting the idea that Swahili societies of the East African coast were fully maritime from their earlier settlement times (about 20,000–30,000 years ago). Instead, they argue that “despite their proximity to the sea and the use of it, they practically remained not maritime societies until after circa C.E. 1000 when the level of maritimity increased greatly and became fully realized.” Although tracing when a certain society becomes ‘maritime’ is problematic, the authors did not recognize the full maritime-ness of the Swahili societies that existed several centuries before 1000 C.E., hence this reply. This paper uses historical and archaeological data with the view that the maritime-ness of the Swahili communities of the East African coast is older than thought by authors. I hereby argue that from their earlier settlement, Swahili communities were not merely part of their maritime environment but they were fully maritime and interacted with the Indian Ocean. Movements of people between and among the islands of the Indian Ocean along the coast of East Africa, individuals navigating abroad to learn some aspects of a foreign culture which they later brought back home, and the day-to-day uses of resources from the ocean verify that the maritime-ness of the societies is before 1000 C.E.enSwahiliEast AfricaIndian OceanMaritimeEarly settlementBook chapter10.1007/978-3-319-46985-0_1