Gérard Chouin

Prelude to the Atlantic trade: New perspectives on southern Ghana's pre-Atlantic history (800-1500)

The Ghanaian forest was well settled by agricultural communities prior to the opening of the Atlantic trade in the late fifteenth century. The most prominent of these settlements were earthworks sites, construction of which began in the first millennium ce and continued until their abrupt abandonment prior to the mid-fifteenth century. In this article, previous archaeological data are evaluated in light of current research to provide a plausible alternative hypothesis for the history of the Akan, placing that history in a much broader and deeper context.