Graham Connah

African civilizations : precolonial cities and states in tropical Africa : an archaeological perspective

Figures Preface and acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Concepts and questions 3. Corridor or cul-de-sac: the middle Nile 4. The benefits of isolation: the Ethiopian highlands 5. An optimal zone: the West African savanna 6. Brilliance beneath the trees: the West African forest and its fringes 7. The edge or the centre: cities of the East African coast 8. A question of economic basis: Great Zimbabwe and related sites 9. The problem of archaeological visibility: other precolonial cities and states in tropical Africa 10. What are the common denominators? Bibliography Index.

The Daima Sequence and the Prehistoric Chronology of the Lake Chad Region of Nigeria

An intensive archaeological field research programme conducted between 1963 and 1969 in the Lake Chad region of Nigeria has established the outlines of a prehistoric chronological sequence for the area. The excavations at Daima form the key to this sequence which also includes excavated evidence from Bornu 38, Kursakata, Shilma, Yau, Ajere and Birnin Gazargamo together with surface information from 70 other sites. Twenty radiocarbon dates indicate settlement of the area from the end of the second millennium B.C. (or the last quarter of the second millennium if the dates are corrected to calendar years) to the sixteenth or seventeenth century A.D. Evidence of occupation earlier than the second millennium B.C. may have to be sought in the highlands south of the lake area. In the firki clay plains, south of the lake, it may be possible to trace the evolution of a Late Stone Age pastoralist economy into an Iron Age cereal cultivator economy. In the undulating sandy country, west of the lake, village settlements focused around the Yobe River seem to have developed, in response to external stimulus, the urban civilization which historical sources indicate at Birnin Gazargamo by the sixteenth century A.D. The contrasting environments designated ‘Firki’ and ‘Yobe’ had an important influence on the character of human settlement indicated by the archaeological evidence. It is suggested that the prehistory of this region merits far greater attention than it has yet received and that the presence in this area of settlement mounds, with substantial depths of deposit, offers a wonderful opportunity for large-scale excavation programmes. Further surface investigations would also be justified, however, as the writer suspects that more prehistoric sites remain to be located in the area.

The Salt of Bunyoro: Seeking the Origins of an African Kingdom

Excavations at the salt-making village of Kibiro, on the Ugandan shore of Lake Albert in East Africa, suggest that an important part of the economy of the Kingdom of Bunyoro originated early in the present millennium. The predominance of roulette-decorated pottery, in particular the use of carved roulettes, indicates that Kibiro was first occupied by people with northern affinities, possibly from the upper Nile region or further west. Collectively, these findings provide important clues concerning the origins of the Kingdom of Bunyoro.

Archeological Implications of Traditional House Construction Among the Nchumuru of Northern Ghana [and Comments and Reply]

Ethnographic data from the Nchumuru settlement of Wiae, Kete-Krachi District, northern Volta Region, Ghana, are used to examine the manner in which earth-walled houses in Nchumuru traditional settlements are transferred from the systemic to the archeological record. Archeological survey and excavation of two early Nchumuru sites were conducted to establish the extent to which the observed cultural and natural processes of house and settlement development could help identify the location and distribution of prehistoric structural features. The result was the almost complete reconstruction of the location and distribution of structural features at one of these sites. Knowledge of the mechanisms of construction and maintenance of earth-walled structures and of their deterioration and collapse proved basic to the identification of the spatial characteristics of the archeological sites. Further, the link between the archeological evidence and the processes of house construction and decay observed in modern Wiae underlines the cultural continuity of Nchumuru with the large Guangspeaking society of Ghana and adjoining territories. Finally, the study indicates that material identification and characterisation in archeology should include the processes of formation and decay of structural features.

The archaeology of frustrated ambition: An Australian case-study

Questions concerning cultural adaptation are particularly important in Australian historical archaeology because of the distances involved in the European settlement of Australia, and the unfamiliar environment faced by early colonists.. One such question concerns the socioeconomic and political failure of some early colonial land-holders who ran estates based on assigned convict labor. A notable example was Major Archibald Clunes Innes, who during the 1830s and 1840s developed extensive pastoral, agricultural, and commercial interests in what is now northeastern New South Wales. At Lake Innes, near Port Macquarie, on what was then the very edge of colonial settlement, he created an estate from which he could control his various activities, while living in a style that he could never have aspired to in his native Scotland. The remains of his extensive brick-built house and stables, as well as the sites of a range of estate facilities, reflect his ambitions for the future, while the survival of this archaeological evidence largely results from the frustration of those ambitions.

Archaeology in Benin

Excavations and fieldwork in and around Benin City in the years 1961–4 have established the outlines of an archaeological sequence. This sequence is based on radiocarbon dates for stratified deposits, on a statistical examination of pottery form and decoration, and on datable European imports. The sequence suggested by the evidence extends from about the thirteenth century A.D. to the present time, although the survival of locally found ground stone axes in Benin ritual indicates that the area may well have been inhabited since Late Stone Age times. There is evidence for the artistic use of copper and its alloys from at least the thirteenth century onwards, but it is not known how long it had already been in use. Smithed and chased tin bronzes were found in a thirteenth-century context, whereas cast leaded brass was found in use in a nineteenth-century context. There is little evidence for lost-wax casting in Benin in early times. The writer suggests that future archaeological work should make the origins and early development of the city a priority.

Problem Orientation in Australian Historical Archaeology

Australian historical archaeologists still have to convince many academics in other disciplines and the public at large that archaeological research concerned with the material record of the last two centuries is a legitimate intellectual pursuit in its own right. In the academic arena, their subject has gained comparatively little attention from departments usually dominated by prehistoric archaeologists and social anthropologists. In the heritage management field, they can find themselves competing with historians, architects, and engineers. An examination of a selection of the published research literature in Australian historical archaeology from the last 30 years suggests that this lack of legitimacy exists because of the sorts of questions that are being asked. Often these have been historical rather than archaeological, but the results have seemed inconsequential to historians. Yet archaeology can offer something that history cannot: it can extract unique information from physical evidence, providing it asks archaeological questions rather than historical ones and uses appropriate processes of archaeological analysis.

Mining the Archives: A Pottery Sequence for Borno, Nigeria

New archaeological research in Borno by the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has included the analysis of pottery excavated from several sites during the 1990s. This important investigation made us search through our old files for a statistical analysis of pottery from the same region, which although completed in 1981 was never published. The material came from approximately one hundred surface collections and seven excavated sites, spread over a wide area, and resulted from fieldwork in the 1960s and 1970s. Although old, the analysis remains relevant because it provides a broad geographical context for the more recent work, as well as a large body of independent data with which the new findings can be compared. It also indicates variations in both time and space that have implications for the human history of the area, hinting at the ongoing potential of broadscale pottery analysis in this part of West Africa and having wider implications of relevance to the study of archaeological pottery elsewhere.

The cultural and chronological context of Kibiro, Uganda

During fieldwork in 1994, 53 surface collections were made in the archaeologically unknown area of Uganda between Kibiro on Lake Albert and the north bank of the Victoria Nile below the Murchison Falls. Analysis of the collected material revealed a general similarity in the pottery roulettes in use in this area during the past millennium, in spite of some local differences in pot forms and decoration. This suggests the existence of a widespread cultural homogeneity that would have formed part of the background to the growth of the state of Bunyoro. Also found, however, were sherds of Urewe and Chobi ware, as well as of an associated pottery that it is proposed to call “Fajao ware.” These are presumed to belong to the first millennium AD and to suggest the settlement by foodproducers of the lower Victoria Nile, and to a lesser extent the NE margins of Lake Albert, before the appearance there of rouletted pottery. In addition, sites along both the river and the lake produced numerous stone artifacts that indicate the presence of hunter gatherers in the area during the later Pleistocene and early Holocene.RésuméAu cours de recherches sur le terrain en 1994, on a recueilli en surface 53 pièces dans la région de l’Ouganda archéologiquement inconnue située entre Kibiro sur le lac Albert et al rive nord du Nil Victoria en aval des Murchison Falls. L’analyse des matériaux recueillis a révélé une similarité générale parmi les roulettes à poterie utilisées dans cette région au cours du dernier millénaire, malgré quelques différences locales dans la forme des pots et la décoration. Cela laisse supposer l’existence d’une homogénéité culturelle étendue qui aurait été en partie à l’origine de la croissance de l’état de Bunyoro. En outre, des tessons d’objets Urewe et Chobi ont également été trouvés, ainsi qu’une poterie associée qu ’il a été proposé d’appeler “objet Fajao.” On présume que ces objets appartiennent au premier millénaire après J.- C. et qu ’ils laissent supposer le peuplement de la vallée inférieure du Nil Victoria par des producteurs de nourriture et, dans de moindres proportions, des rives NE du lac Albert, avant l’apparition dans cette région de la poterie décorée à la roulette. De plus, de nombreux objets en pierre ont été découverts sur des sites le long du fleuve et au bord du lac, indiquant la présence dans la région de chasseurscueilleurs à la fin du pléistocène et au début de l’holocène.

Salt-production at Kibiro

Abstract Salt-making at Kibiro, on the Ugandan shore of Lake Albert, is still carried out in a way that appears to have changed little over the years. Salt is produced exclusively by women, who boil brine obtained from leaching saline earth, the salt in which originates from several hot springs at the base of the Western Rift escarpment. An unusual feature of the technique employed is the repeated spreading of loose dry earth on the surface of the salt-bearing deposits, thus absorbing salty moisture from the ground surface which is in turn evaporated by the sun, gradually increasing the salt-content of the loose earth. It is this earth which is subsequently leached and then recycled to be used again and again on the so-called “salt-gardens”. Archaeological evidence suggests that salt-making at Kibiro, which was first reported over a century ago, has probably been practised for 700–800 years. It seems likely that it was an important economic factor in the development of the former Kingdom of Bunyoro.