Kc MacDonald

The Domestic Chicken (Gallus gallus) in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Background to its Introduction and its Osteological Differentiation from Indigenous Fowls (Numidinae and Francolinus sp.)

Abstract The co-occurrence of domestic guineafowl ( Numida meleagris ) and chicken ( Gallus gallus ) in prehistoric sites both in Africa and Europe has necessitated the construction of an osteological key to aid in their differentiation. This study deals particularly with the osteomorphological and to a lesser extent osteometric separation of fowls in a West African context (including larger Francolinus sp., Numida, Guttera and Agelastes sp. and Gallus gallus ). This article will, however, be of interest to other Africanist and European researchers as well. The spread of the African guineafowl into Europe during the 5th century bc or earlier and Asiatic chickens into West Africa before 850 ad are important indicators of cultural contact which have gone relatively unnoticed. A summary of archaeological data available concerning the chicken in Africa is provided to give a background to the problem.

Korounkorokalé Revisited: The Pays Mande and the West African Microlithic Technocomplex

In 1992 and 1993, the author reexcavated the rockshelter of Korounkorokalé, located in the heart of the Pays Mande. Evidence from this reinvestigation supports the idea of a long-term recurrent occupation of this site by peoples possessing a conservative quartz microlithic tradition for at least 5000 years. Seemingly aberrant “recent” first millennium AD dates from similar sites in the region are reexamined in the light of the Korounkorokalé sequence. It is argued that some isolated groups of Sub-Saharan peoples maintained a hunting-gathering lifestyle as recently as the mid to late first millennium AD. Oral traditions among modern Savanna groups, which refer to the presence of “little peoples” at their first colonization of the region, are used to support this argument. A new model for the peopling of West Africa is presented based upon a long-term autochthonous presence south of the Sahara.ResumeEn 1992 et 1993, l’abri-sous-roche de Korounkorokalé, localisé au cour du Pays Mande, a été refouillé par Vauteur. Les données de ce réexamen soutiennent l’idée d’une occupation périodique de longue durée à ce site par des peuples possedant une industrie microlithique du quartz pendant au moins 5000 ans. Des datations apparemment aberrantes du premier millénaire aprés J-C, viennent des sites dans la meme région sont réexaminées dans la lumière de la séquence culturelle de Korounkorokalé. Il est proposé que quelques groupes isolés ont maintenu un mode de vie chasseur-cueilleur jusqu’à aussi récemment que la fin du premier millénaire après J-C. Les traditions orales parmi les groupes ethniques moderne de la Savanne, qui parlent de la présence des “petits-gens” au moment de leur arrivée dans la région, sont uilisées por soutenir cette argumentation. Un nouveau modèle pour le peuplement de l’Afrique de l’Ouest est presenté, fondé sur l’idée d’une présence à long terme de societiés indigènes au sud du Sahara.

The Dia archaeological project: rescuing cultural heritage in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)

Mali is a country with a rich history and diverse cultures. Its cultural heritage is, however, threatened by both the pillage of archaeological sites and illicit trade (ICOM 1995; Bedaux & Rowlands, this volunle). Looting has dramatically increased in recent years, especially in the Inland Delta of the Niger, and has obliged Malian authorities to take measures to counteract this destruction. Within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage programme, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden recently initiated large-scale excavations in the Inland Niger Delta at Dia, in close cooperation with the Université du Mali, the Institut des Sciences Humaines and the Musée National du Mali in Bamako, the Mission Culturelle in Djenné, the Universities of Paris I and VI, the C.N.R.S., University College London and Leiden University. This excavation, financed principally by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started in 1998 and will continue until 2004. It is a continuation of previous international programmes of site survey and documentation in the Inland Niger Delta, which the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako has co-ordinated over the past two decades (e.g. Raimbault & Sanogo 1991; Dembele et al. 1993; Togola 1996). An initial season of prospection was carried out in 1998 in the Inland Delta, following which the vicinity of Dia was chosen as the principal research zone for the project.

Dhar Néma: from early agriculture to metallurgy in southeastern Mauritania

Dhar Néma, easternmost of the Tichitt escarpment chain, was neglected by archaeologists throughout the twentieth century. However, since 2000, two separate archaeological teams have conducted survey and test excavation work in the region. This article presents the final research results of one of these teams. Two sites in particular are closely examined: the settlement mound of Djiganyai with stratified intermittent occupation between c. 2000 and 800 cal. BC, and the multi-component site of Bou Khzama II, featuring structural elements, inhumations, and large scale iron-smelting remains. It is argued that Dhar Néma, although an ecologically favourable zone, was politically peripheral to the central Tichitt-Walata polity and comparatively sparsely settled. A period of relative regional abandonment, or widespread shifts in settlement, between 1400 and 1100 cal. BC is also noted. Regardless, a range of Pre-Tichitt and Tichitt Tradition settlements are documented for the region, including evidence for millet agriculture equivalent in age to that of the Dhar Tichitt region. It is suggested that the origins of Tichitt agriculture must now be sought in the third millennium BC. Concerning more recent periods, putative new data for first millennium BC iron metallurgy in the Dhar Néma region are presented and their technical aspects analysed. Finally, a revised hypothesis for the role of incoming Berber populations in the denouement of the Tichitt Tradition is considered, with cultural syncretism rather than replacement advocated.

Betwixt Tichitt and the IND: the pottery of the Faita Facies, Tichitt Tradition

This paper examines both decorative and formal change in the ceramics of the Tichitt tradition of Mauritania (c. 1900-400 BC), and this traditions expression in the Middle Niger, the Faïta Facies (c. 1300 – 200 BC). Using attribute-based comparisons, a wide range of assemblages from Mauritania and Mali are utilised to demonstrate how temporal divisions may be discerned in this sequence. Particular attention is paid to the definition of Early and Late Faïta ceramic phases and the origins of finewares in the Middle Niger. It is notable that Tichitt Tradition ceramics feature frequent and early examples of cord roulette use in the West African Sahel.

Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Segou, Slavery, and Sifinso

© Cambridge University Press 2012. INTRODUCTION Slavery formed a fundamental element in the economic production systems of many historic African states. Such economies, which include documented West African cases, such as the Sokoto Caliphate, Songhai, and Segou, appear to have relied upon an enslaved workforce, derived from warfare, for agricultural production (Lovejoy 2005; Meillassoux 1991; Roberts 1987). The settlement landscape of Segou (c.1700–1861) was populated largely by individuals who have been categorized, by both contemporary observers and historians of oral tradition, as slaves (e.g., Park 2000 [1799]; Roberts 1997). Whether cultivators or soldiers, the “ownership” of groups of individuals by ruling elites and their emplacement within the states core landscape appears to have been a major attribute of the Segou state. The present study deals with new enquiries into both the oral history and archaeology of Segous social landscape, considering it in contrast to the mercantile “eternal landscape” of Marka urban centres. Ultimately, it is hoped that this historical archaeological study will be of relevance to the archaeology of other African polities and will inform approaches to the earlier slave economies of the West African Sahel. The extent to which state-level systems of enslavement existed prior to the sixteenth century is a question fraught with difficulties of definition and perception. As Lovejoy (2000:21) states, “that slavery probably existed in Africa before the diffusion of Islam is relatively certain…its characteristics are not.” Some scholars, such as Kopytoff and Miers (1977), have portrayed African slavery as an indigenous development out of a sliding scale of “rights in persons,” ranging from bride-price, to indenture, to actual chattel slavery. Such indigenous systems of obligation and caste may have played a role in the advent of social complexity on the continent. Others, such as Meillassoux (1991), have challenged hypotheses of indigenous slavery, arguing that the “slave mode of production” was a contagion spread by contact between the Islamic world and arid West Africa in the ninth century.

“The least of their inhabited villages are fortified”: the walled settlements of Segou

The penetration of Sahelian West Africa by Europeans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries revealed landscapes dotted with fortified settlements of every size and shape; none more so than that of Segou, the pre-eminent Mande polity of the era. This is not surprising given the insecurity which reigned at that time, with interminable warfare or raiding linked to the capture of slaves, whether for the state itself, or for the brokers of the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Saharan trades (Richards 1987; MacDonald and Camara 2011). Since 2005, I have worked on the archaeology and place-specific oral traditions of Segou with Seydou Camara (MacDonald and Camara 2011, 2012). In the present text, and with an eye to Graham Connahs (2000) own interest in African city walls, I seek to exploit both three seasons of field research and French colonial sources to examine the technology, function and social role of these walls in Segovian settlements. Finally, I consider the history of fortified settlements along the Middle Niger and whether or not the ubiquitous walls of Segou are something new, or something connected with earlier traditions.

Discussing ceramics in the African Atlantic

The impressive array of papers pulled together by Liza Gijanto and Akin Ogundiran to form the present issue of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa engage forcibly with key issues evolving on both sides of the Atlantic. There is much ‘grist for the mill’ here for both African historical archaeology and that of the Diaspora: new ways of studying social practice and ruptures as well as warnings about overly simplistic cultural associations of African material culture. In the following paragraphs, as one of the handful of Africanist archaeologists who also do field research on the Diaspora, I try to make some observations and distil some lessons from this heady brew.

On the Margins of Ghana and Kawkaw: Four Seasons of Excavation at Tongo Maaré Diabal ( AD 500-1150), Mali

This article summarises the results of four seasons of excavation at Tongo Maare Diabal ( AD 500-1150), near Douentza, Mali. Deep stratigraphic excavations were directed by MacDonald and Togola in 1993, 1995 and by MacDonald in 1996. Complementary, large exposure excavations of the abandonment layer were undertaken by Gestrich in 2010. The combined excavation results speak to topics of craft specialisation, trade, and social organisation. They provide evidence of a specialised blacksmithing community situated at the margins of early Middle Niger and Niger Bend statehood and urbanisation.Le present article porte sur les resultats de quatre saisons de fouilles sur le site de Tongo Maare Diabal ( AD 500-1150), non loin de la ville de Douentza au Mali. Des fouilles stratigraphiques en profondeur ont ete realisees par MacDonald et Togola en 1993 et 1995 ; et par MacDonald en 1996. Des fouilles complementaires du dernier horizon d’occupation ont ete realisees sur une grande surface par Gestrich en 2010. Les resultats de ces campagnes portent sur des themes de la specialisation artisanale, du commerce et de l’organisation sociale. Ils nous permettent de decrire une communaute des metallurgistes specialisees, situee en marges des anciens developpements etatiques et urbains du Moyen Niger et de la Boucle du Niger.This article is in English.

Professor Thurstan Shaw CBE, FBA, FSA: a personal appreciation and remembrance

The passing of Thurstan Shaw on 8 March 2013 at the age of 98 marks the end of an era in archaeological history. He was the last of the great founder figures of African Archaeology, including renowned personalities such as Desmond Clark and Peter Shinnie. He laid the foundations of Ghanaian and Nigerian archaeology, founded the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Ibadan, and was for the Igbo an honorary leader, his title Onuna-Ekwulu Ora: the voice that speaks on behalf of Igbo-Ukwu. He will be particularly remembered for his finds of remarkable lost-wax brass castings at Igbo-Ukwu: an early blow against assertions of African backwardness (Shaw 1970, 1977). But more than this, Thurstan Shaw was greatly beloved, not only as an archaeologist, but as a keen humanitarian of broad passions and interests. This short article does not pretend to be a complete obituary. Many have already been written by now. One of the best, and to be recommended, is that by Norman Hammond published in The Times (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/obituaries/ article3711782.ece). Rather, this contribution is a more personal reflection on the man and his significance to our field.