Zanzibar Tanzania's Mafia Island, are sometimes called the "Spice Islands" (a term also associated with the Maluku Islands of Indonesia). Zanzibar is the home of the endemic Zanzibar red colobus, the Zanzibar servaline genet, and the (possibly extinct) Zanzibar leopard. The word "Zanzibar" came from Arabic "zanjibār" ( [zandʒibaːr]), which is in turn from Persian "zangbâr" ( [zæŋbɒːɾ]), a compound of "Zang" ( [zæŋ], "black") + "bâr" ( [bɒːɾ], "coast"), cf. the Sea of Zanj. The name is one of several toponyms sharing similar etymologies, ultimately meaning "land of the blacks" or similar meanings, in reference to the dark skin of
Zanzibar the inhabitants. The presence of microliths suggests that Zanzibar has been home to humans for at least 20,000 years, which was the beginning of the Later Stone Age. A Greco-Roman text between the 1st and 3rd centuries, the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", mentioned the island of "Menuthias" (), which is probably Unguja. Zanzibar, like the nearby coast, was settled by Bantu-speakers at the outset of the first millennium. Archaeological finds at Fukuchani, on the north-west coast of Zanzibar, indicate a settled agricultural and fishing community from the 6th century CE at the latest. The considerable amount of daub found