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Link to original content: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-022-09509-2
Networked Farmers, Ancestral Rituals, Regional Marketplaces, and Salt: New Insights into the Complexity of First Millennium BC/AD Farming Societies in West Africa | African Archaeological Review Skip to main content
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Networked Farmers, Ancestral Rituals, Regional Marketplaces, and Salt: New Insights into the Complexity of First Millennium BC/AD Farming Societies in West Africa

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Abstract

In West Africa, there is a disjuncture between historical processes in the second millennium BC and late first millennium AD due to a comparative lack of archaeological data. In the Mouhoun Bend of western Burkina Faso, recent research has found that beginning in the second quarter of the first millennium BC, a landscape emerged of dispersed agricultural homesteads spaced 1–3 km apart. This paper synthesizes published data from the basal levels (Yellow I subphase) of the site of Kirikongo, adds new survey and excavation data from three sites identified by the Kirikongo Regional Project, and integrates data from previous archaeological research in the region. During Yellow I, Mouhoun Bend residents lived in economically generalized multi-family houses that produced their own material culture (ceramics, iron), farmed, kept domestic animals, fished, hunted, and managed wild plants. Funerary rituals involved the creation of earthen structures and the ritualized deposition of material culture and food remains in pits or concavities. Comparing these sites with contemporary and earlier communities in the region including Kintampo, Rim, and Jenne-jeno, we argue that West Africa from the second millennium BC through the early first millennium AD was home to a complex and culturally diverse interconnected network of dispersed farming societies. The capillary network they created facilitated broader trade and exchange including transfers of technologies and new economic resources throughout the region. The emergence of early marketplace centers was supported by and served these networks and may have been linked to mineral salt production and/or exchange.

Résumé

En Afrique de l'Ouest, il existe une lacune entre les processus historiques du deuxième millénaire avant notre ère et de la fin du premier millénaire après JC, en raison d'un manque relatif de données archéologiques. Dans le boucle du Mouhoun, à l'ouest du Burkina Faso, des recherches récentes ont montré qu'à partir du deuxième quart du premier millénaire avant notre ère, se développa un paysage de propriété agricoles dispersées, espacées de 1 à 3 km. Cet article synthétise les données publiées des niveaux basaux (sous-phase Yellow I) du site de Kirikongo, ajoute de nouvelles données de la prospection et des fouilles de trois sites identifiés par le Kirikongo Regional Project, et intègre les données des recherches archéologiques antérieures dans la région. Pendant Yellow I, les habitants du Mouhoun Bend vivaient dans des maisons pluri-familiales économiquement non-spécialisées qui produisaient leur propre culture matérielle (céramique, fer), cultivaient, élevaient des animaux domestiques, pêchaient, chassaient et géraient des plantes sauvages. Les rituels funéraires nécessitaient la création des structures en terre et le dépôt ritualisé de la culture matérielle et des restes de nourriture dans des fosses ou des concavités. En comparant ces sites avec les communautés contemporaines et antérieures de la région, notamment Kintampo, Rim et Jenne-jeno, nous proposons que l'Afrique de l'Ouest, du deuxième millénaire avant J.-C. au début du premier millénaire après J.-C., était lieu d'un réseau complexe et culturellement diversifié de sociétés agricoles dispersées. Le réseau capillaire qu’ils ont créé a facilité le commerce et les échanges plus larges, y compris les transferts de technologies et de nouvelles ressources économiques, à travers toute la région. Ces premiers centres servaient les réseaux, et étaient soutenus par eux. Leur émergence était peut-être lié à la production et/ou à l’échange de sels minéraux.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to a variety of funding sources that supported the Kirikongo Archaeological Project and Kirikongo Regional Projects, including a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (BCS-0520614), a Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship at the National Museum of Natural History (Archaeobiology Program), an Africa Initiative Research Grant from the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan, a grant from the Douglas Bridges Memorial Education Fund, an American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellowship, a National Geographic Society for Research and Exploration Grant (8849-10), an Institute for Cognitive and Decision Making Sciences Grant (University of Oregon), and an Oregon Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship, and additional support from both the University of Michigan and University of Oregon.

In Burkina Faso, we thank Lassina Koté for his extensive support of our research. He has encouraged and shaped our approach to archaeology and provided key advice and logistical support over the years. In addition, as an important advocate for archaeology in western Burkina Faso, Koté oversaw the construction of the local museum in Douroula, where materials from all the projects undertaken in the Mouhoun Bend are housed, and he curates these important collections. Research permits for both projects were issued by the National Center for Science and Technology (CNRST) of Burkina Faso. We thank Vincent Sédogo, Eloi Bambara, and Moussa Ouadraogo for their support. Export permits for animal bones and botanical remains from both projects were issued by the Ministry of Culture under the direction of Oumarou Nao and then Jean-Claude Dioma.

Fieldwork in the Mouhoun Bend has been possible due to the hospitality and support of the communities of Douroula, Kirikongo, and Tora, for which we are extremely grateful. In particular, we wish to acknowledge the important contributions of Drissa Koté, Abdoulaye Koita, Amadou Koté, Haruna Sankara, and Madelaine Taro to the success of the projects. Léonce Ki and Fabrice Dabiré, students at the University of Ouagadougou, participated, respectively, in the excavations at Kirikongo and the regional survey and excavations. We appreciate their hard work and dedication. At the African Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Oregon, we thank Samantha McGee for re-drawing the Unit H map and Ethan Schmunk and Lauren Sonomura for aiding with the ceramic illustrations. Alethea Steingisser and Ian Freeman in the Infographics Lab at the University of Oregon Geography Department produced the two regional maps (Figs. 13 and 14). We thank James Fujitani for his editorial suggestions on the French abstract. Finally, we thank the peer reviewers whose insights have strengthened this paper.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, 1218 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Stephen A. Dueppen

  2. Robert D. Clark Honors College, 1293 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Daphne Gallagher

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Dueppen, S.A., Gallagher, D. Networked Farmers, Ancestral Rituals, Regional Marketplaces, and Salt: New Insights into the Complexity of First Millennium BC/AD Farming Societies in West Africa. Afr Archaeol Rev 40, 21–52 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-022-09509-2

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