Republic of Ghana (Country) (Geographic Keyword)

351-375 (424 Records)

Slavery without Slaves: Archaeology of Frederikssted Plantation and Its Implications for Plantation Archaeology in Ghana (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only David Mensah Abrampah.

In 1803, Denmark and Norway abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which took effect on 1st January 1803. However, this did not end slavery itself in Africa. Intensification of cash-crop agriculture on the West African coast by the Danish colonists provoked an upsurge in the local slave trade. As the Danish plantation economy solidified, increasing numbers of enslaved people were engaged to labour in these plantations in Ghana. The research examines the documentary and the archaeological data...


The Socio-economic Dynamics of Iron Production in Viking Age Northern Iceland (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Zeitlin.

This is an abstract from the "SANNA v2.2: Case Studies in the Social Archaeology of the North and North Atlantic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding how an agricultural society organized the production of iron and the trade of farming implements allows us to describe how they managed natural resources and non-agricultural activities as a community. In the North Atlantic region known for its ephemeral material culture, slags and other...


Sourcing Lithic Raw Materials in the Namib Desert: Exploring land use and technological organization (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodore Marks. Grant McCall. James Enloe. Andrew Schroll. James McGrath.

Under a technological organization perspective, archaeologists seek to understand how prehistoric societies organized their activities across landscapes and how variation at individual sites articulates with changes in large scale land use systems. Lithic sourcing offers a powerful tool for testing hypotheses about technological organization and land use, but its application across the globe has, until recently, been hindered by expense and methodological difficulties. In this paper, we use pXRF...


The Span of ‘Slavery’: Considering Systems of Domination and Labour in the Lake Chad Basin (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott MacEachern.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Approaches to Slavery and Unfree Labour in Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. "The kings of the Sudan sell their people for no reason, and quite apart from any wars…" (Ahmad al-Ya’kūbī). The Lake Chad Basin was one of the anchor points of the trans-Saharan slave trade, through the millennium after al-Ya’kūbī wrote about the rulers of Kanem in the 9th century AD. This region had no equivalent to...


The spread of iron metallurgy: the African continent (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Louise Iles.

Theories of the origin(s) of iron production and the spread of ferrous technology have provoked many decades of lively and enduring debate. The notion that iron production developed in one core location – from where knowledge of it spread – has been challenged by claims of early, independent inventions of iron production in Africa, India and China. However, it has proved problematic to verify the timing and contexts of these multi-origin hypotheses without placing undue emphasis on isolated...


Statistical Evidence For a New Method of Identifying Anthropogenic Fire in the Archaeological Record (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ross Campbell. Russell Cutts. David Braun. Jack Harris.

Clarifying evidence for anthropogenic fire in the archaeological record has been subject to contention and vagueness. This uncertainty centers not on evidence for fire, rather what constitutes it being human-controlled. New research pursuing this question suggests that a peculiar angular fragment, termed thermal curved-fractures (TCF), are the byproduct of knapped materials (flakes, cores, bifaces) exposed at length to high heat. We present here results of experiments expanding our...


The Stimuli of Technological Inventions (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Abidemi Babalola.

This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Technology transfer is a popular concept in the studies of pyro-technologies globally. This concept has been used uncritically in discourses on the origins and development of sophisticated technologies in sub-Saharan Africa. Instead of continuous patronage of this inherently derogatory concept in sub-Saharan African archaeology,...


Stone implements: how they were made and used (1950)
DOCUMENT Citation Only L S B Leakey.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...


Storage, Cooking, and Transport. A Preliminary Residue Analysis of Ceramics from Mai Adrasha (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Terrah Jones. Rachel Moy. Hans Banard.

This paper outlines the preliminary investigation of a collection of diagnostic and undiagnostic ceramics recovered from the site of Mai Adrasha, located in the Shire region of Ethiopia. Mai Adrasha is one of the largest and arguably most significant early town sites west of Aksum dating to the pre-Aksumite to Early Aksumite periods (12th century BCE-2nd century CE) located in the Western Tigray. The site consists of a cemetery and a domestic area characterized by a collection of stone walls and...


‘Stuck like Glue’: A Multi-method Analysis of Hafting Adhesives from Later Stone Age Assemblages in Southern Africa (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret-Ashley Veall. Erika Ribechini. Thibaut Deviese. Mark Pollard. Peter Mitchell.

The characterization of hafting adhesives, the glue of composite tools, by chemical analysis and microscopy provides a means by which we may evaluate the organic components of technologies. In southern Africa, the well-preserved assemblages of the Later Stone Age (LSA) present a unique opportunity to evaluate the procured raw materials related to tool manufacture, with a focus on the ingredients of these plastic components. This paper presents the findings of a multi-site study of hafting...


A Survey of Hilltop Settlement in Northern Jos Plateau, Nigeria: A Preliminary Report (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Chiamaka Mangut.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A reconnaissance of Dutsen Kura hill was carried out in June 2022. It is claimed that former occupants of the hill had ancestral links with Dutsen Kongba, a sixth millennium BC Later Stone Age hill settlement located in the same region. In addition, the present-day Bace group living in the plains in Dutsen Kura claims an ancestral link with former...


Sustainable Heritage through Community Engagement and Education (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Maher. Jane Downes.

In addressing the problem of burning libraries, this paper focuses on sustainable heritage through public awareness and civic engagement. Political rhetoric and limited first-hand experience has created a system whereby the impacts of climate change, coastal erosion, and rising sea levels are no longer a priority; and for students, it has become but a distant concern. This paper addresses these problems through education programs designed to (i) get students involved in the archaeology of...


Swahili Agriculture and Power Dynamics in Regional Perspective (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Walshaw. Jack Stoetzel. Matthew Pawlowicz.

Urbanization along the Swahili coast coincided with an increasing importance of Islam, stone architecture, and materials traded through connections built inland as well as with Indian Ocean merchants. Archaeobotanical data from the town of Chwaka on Pemba Island, Tanzania (AD 1100-1500) suggest that foodways turned towards Asian crops, including rice and legumes, during the urbanization process. Beyond subsistence, crops held political power. Jeffrey Fleisher (2010) has suggested that feasting...


Swandro, Rousay, Orkney: Between Sea and Land (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Dockrill. Julie Bond.

The site of Swandro is on the eroding coastal fringe of the island of Rousay, Orkney and has been the focus of field training for the next archaeological generation between the University of Bradford, Archaeological Institute UHI and Hunter College, CUNY since 2010. Such sites are a finite resource, endangered by coastal erosion exacerbated by the effects of climate change. The site straddles both the shore and the land and consists of a Neolithic Chambered Cairn and a later settlement dating...


Synthesis of Social-Ecological Change in the North Atlantic and US Southwest (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Nelson. Thomas McGovern.

This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anna Kerttula had the vision and commitment to support an experiment: two interdisciplinary research teams working in dramatically different settings, striving to find valuable insights from cross-region, cross-case studies. One team from the North Atlantic islands (NABO) and another from the US Southwest (LTVTP) combined...


Systematic Differences in Sieved and Point-Provenienced Fauna Ecofacts from PP5-6, South Africa (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Fahey. Kelsi Stroebel. Olivia Boss. Curtis Marean.

This is an abstract from the "Human Origins Migration and Evolution Research Consortium Poster Symposium" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In zooarchaeological analysis, there is a tendency to give point-provenienced ecofacts analytical priority over ecofacts found in sieved material. To test for the effects of this bias, we conducted a zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis of faunal ecofacts (n = 841) found in the 10 mm sieved material from...


Taphonomic and geological approaches to the identification of in situ versus ex situ archaeological material: a case study from BK East, Bed II, Olduvai Gorge (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Wilson. Cynthia M. Fadem. Victoria P. Johnson. Audax Z. P. Mabulla. Charles P. Egeland.

A variety of post-depositional processes can add to, subtract from, and/or spatially reconfigure archaeological deposits. The challenge for archaeologists, then, is to unravel these processes in order to assess the fidelity with which a given deposit reflects hominin behavior. BK East, an early Pleistocene locality in Olduvai Gorge’s middle/upper Bed II, preserves stone tools, butchered animal bones, and hominin remains. This rich archaeo-paleontological collection rests within an interbedded...


Taphonomy of a modern landscape bone assemblage in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Liat Lebovich. Victoria P. Johnson. Ryan M. Byerly. Cynthia M. Fadem. Charles P. Egeland.

Bone assemblages from modern landscapes can help address a variety of issues, from the degree to which bone scatters accurately reflect local habitats to what variables condition the deposition, preservation, and spatial distribution of faunal material. In 2015, systematic pedestrian survey recovered ~350 bone specimens within a 200m x 200m area of open grassland about two kilometers north of Olduvai Gorge in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). Weathering profiles suggest an exposure,...


"Tell me what you are eating and I tell you who are you": Differences in Subsistence Systems of Elite and Non-Elite Gamo Society of the Ethiopia Highlands during Historical Times (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Garay-Vazquez. Michele Wollstonecroft. Dorian Fuller.

There is little archaeobotanical data from Ethiopia, in this presentation, we will be comparing samples from two historic domestic archaeological sites spanning from late seventeen centuries to the late eighteen century A.D. within the same environment (Gamo highlands in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR), Ethiopia) with the intention of examining status differences through subsistence remains. The food habits of past human societies are of importance because the act of...


Temporal and Spatial Variability in Pre-Aksumite Lithics from Mezber, NE. Ethiopia: Social and Economic Implications (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Brandt. Lucas Martindale Johnson. Abebe Taffere.

With over 33,000 total excavated flaked stone artifacts and >18,000 analyzed from deposits in primary context, Mezber offers a unique opportunity to understand the role of lithics in Pre-Askumite societies. Using multiple raw materials and reduction sequences, knappers produced a wide array of LSA/Neolithic tools for domestic use, and a narrower range for specialized activities. Locally available chert was the most common raw material, although pXRF results indicate ≥3 as yet unknown distant...


Terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene settlements in West Turkana (northern Kenya): New radiocarbon dates (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanuel Beyin. Hong Wang. Mary Prendergast. Katherine Grillo.

Lake Turkana in northern Kenya has played a central role in generating archaeological and paleoclimatic datasets relevant to studying key transitions in human prehistory. Generally, despite its rich Plio-Pleistocene hominin fossil record, the later prehistory of the basin, particularly the period between 50 and 10 ka, remains comparatively underexplored. In this paper, we discuss new radiocarbon dates from two recently excavated sites in West Turkana, namely Kokito 01 (GcJh11) and Kokito 02...


Terminal Pleistocene Lithic Technology and Adaptation from Bulbula River B1s4 Site, Ziway-Shala Basin, Ethiopia (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Abebe Taffere.

Archaeological excavation which had been conducted in 2009 and 2010 in the Ziway- Shala Basin, close to the Bulbula River Canyon at B1s4 site, has yielded lithic assemblages and few faunal remains. Two human occupation horizons (PS1 and PS2) were identified which are separated by an occupational hiatus at the very end of the terminal Pleistocene. Analysis of debitage on both unit levels indicates the presence of similar features that lead us to assume that B1s4 lithic industry was oriented...


Textilhandwerk in West-Afrika (1972)
DOCUMENT Citation Only René Boser-Sarivaxevanis.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...


Textilien aus Westafrika (1972)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Brigitte Menzel.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...


Textilien aus Westafrika (1973)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Brigitte Menzel.

This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...