In East Africa, archaeologists have been uncovering the ancient Swahili Civilization, which was a prosperous trading state along the coast of East Africa dating back to the 7th century. For 40 years, University of South Florida anthropologist Chapurukha Kusimba has been dedicated to studying the ancestry of those who built the civilization and restoring their heritage. Kusimba's life's work has been to recover the past of the Swahili and restore them to rightful citizenship. He worked alongside Harvard geneticists David Reich and Esther Brielle and corresponding authors, Jeff Fleisher from Rice University and Stephanie Wynne-Jones from the University of York, to uncover the DNA of 80 individuals from as long as 800 years ago, making it the first ancient DNA uncovered from the Swahili Civilization. Today we will be uncovering one of the first African civilizations with archaeologists.