The people and story behind East Africa Archaeology & Heritage Services.

Jocktan Mtani graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 2023 with a bachelor's degree in archaeology and geography. Like many of his classmates, he found himself unemployed. Despite years of study, there was simply nowhere for young archaeology graduates in Tanzania, or East Africa more broadly, to build a career.

A chance opportunity to join a field excavation at Mumba Rock Shelter changed the course of his life. There he met Dr. Musa Mwitondi, a researcher, lecturer, and specialist in the Neolithic period, who took Jocktan under his wing and helped him see that opportunities existed far beyond Tanzania's borders, if he was willing to reach for them.

Jocktan applied to more than thirty opportunities. Then, in December 2023, an email arrived from Dr. Gregor Bader, a prehistoric archaeologist at the University of Tübingen who specializes in Middle and Later Stone Age research across Africa and has fieldwork experience at sites including Mumba Rock Shelter itself. Dr. Bader invited Jocktan to join a three week excavation project in South Africa. It turned out to be the moment that changed everything.

Jocktan worked hard alongside a team of German archaeologists, and his dedication earned him something few of his classmates back home ever got the chance at: a real path forward. He was invited to continue his career in Germany, where he spent two years working on excavations and training to become a qualified archaeological technician.

But even as his own career took shape abroad, Jocktan never stopped thinking about the friends he'd left behind. Talented, capable graduates with nowhere to put their skills to use. He began researching how to build something that could change that for them too, and with the support of close friends, including Ambassador Musa and Lilo Nilima, an idea slowly started to take real shape.

That idea became East Africa Archaeology & Heritage Services. Jocktan founded the company together with close friends and colleagues, including Tafadzwa Vincent Zireva, a fellow archaeologist from Zimbabwe he'd worked alongside in Germany. Vincent had faced the very same struggle to find opportunity in his own field, and the two built a bond that went far beyond colleagues. Today Vincent serves as Co-Director of EAAHSL, and the trust between them runs as deep as family. The mission was clear from day one: create real career opportunities for archaeology and heritage graduates across the region, and open doors for young women pursuing archaeology in school. The same doors Jocktan had once struggled so hard to find himself.

Today EAAHSL continues to grow, creating opportunities for young Africans entering the field. Jocktan still works in commercial archaeology in Europe, and much of what he earns there goes directly toward funding his larger dream: providing financial support so more African students studying archaeology and heritage can keep moving toward their own futures, the way someone once helped him move toward his.