Sub-Saharan Africa (Geographic Keyword)

1-13 (13 Records)

Archaeology, Cosmology and African Ritual Past. Perspectives from Yikpabongo, Koma Land, Northern Region, Ghana (2013)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Kankpeyeng.

The legacies of the slave trade in northern Ghana recognized in the traditions/memories of peoples of the area include vanished communities within vast territories today represented by archaeological assemblages. These archaeological regions suffered from raids resulting in the enslavement or dispersal of the inhabitants. Koma Land is located within such an archaeological region and contains unique mounds with insightful information for understanding the cosmological beliefs of the populations...


Assessing the Damage and Remaining Archeological Potential of Commercially Salvaged Sites Mozambique Island: the case of São Sebastião fortress wrecks. (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Cézar Sebastião Mahumane.

Following discovery of sea route around the Cape by Vasco da Gama in 1498 that opened the maritime trade between Europe and India, Mozambique Island-which served as capital of Portuguese East Africa from 1507 to 1898-came to play an important role in mediating the maritime interactions that subsequently emerged. The Island’s underwater archaeological heritage that results from this history has been heavily impacted over the last decade by commercial salvage activity as assessed in 2015 by the...


Between the South Sea and the Mountainous Ridges: Coerced Assemblages and Biopolitical Ecologies in the Spanish Colonial Americas (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Noa Corcoran-Tadd. Guido Pezzarossi.

Although the historical archaeology of the Spanish colonial world is currently witnessing an explosion of research in the Americas, the accompanying political economic framework has tended to remain little interrogated.  This paper argues that Spanish colonial contexts bring into particular relief the entanglements between ‘core’ capitalist processes like ‘antimarkets’, dispossession, and the disciplining of labor and dynamic biopolitical ecologies of assemblage, coercion, and accumulation. ...


THE DECLINE OF THE TRADITIONAL IRON WORKING INDUSTRY IN THE ABUJA AREA OF CENTRAL NIGERIA: THE ROLE OF BRITISH COLONIAL POLICIES. c. 1800-1960 (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Abiye E. Ichaba.

By the beginning of the 19th century iron working played important roles in the economic and socio-cultural ways of the inhabitants of Abuja. The traditionally produced iron tools and implements provided the much needed tools for agriculture, warfare, trade, inter-group relations, control of the environment, and other socio-cultural developments. By c. 1800 A.D., British colonial interests in the area had increased, just like other parts of Nigeria. This paper explores the decline of the...


Diverse Threats to MAST And Its Heritage in Africa : Confronting Historical Amnesia And Salvors; Securing Slim Resources And Social Relevance (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Sharfman.

In much of the developing world a triumvirate of treasure hunting, politics, and a lack of technical capacity/resources have skewed portrayals of what maritime history is and why it is meaningful. Shipwreck sites in particular have been promoted as the embodiment of the heritage of "the other" with little local relevance. Treasure hunters accordingly go unchecked in their efforts to recover valuable historical cargos—with detrimental effects for the archaeological inventory. This paper will...


Fortifications among the Tikars in Cameroon. Temporal security borders and indicators of an autarchic economic and social life. (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin ELOUGA.

Shortly after settling in the upper Mbam catchment due to migration which took them from the Adamawa highlands to their current habitat, the Tikars faced attacks from neighboring and distant ethnic groups. The fortifications that encircle the chiefdoms created indicate the conflicts that marred relations with other social groups. These fortifications which could be seen as factors of reconfiguration of space in the chiefdoms, were temporal borders put in place to ensure the safety of property...


Fuzziness of Autonomy and Vassality: Materiality of History in OrileKesi during the Oyo Imperial Age, ca. 1640-1827 (2013)
DOCUMENT Citation Only James Bamidele Odunbaku.

To paraphrase, Akin Ogundiran has posed the question: How did the political contestations between the Oyo imperial power and the frontier communities affect the everyday life of the later, especially the villages and towns located in the frontier zones? An historical archaeological approach that melds oral traditions and ethnography with material culture is being utilized by a number of scholars, working independently at different sites in the Yoruba region (Nigeria), to find answers to this...


Identifying a Luso-African Slaver in Cape Town: An Overview of the Archaeological and Archival Evidence for the São Josè Paquete d’Afrique (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaco Boshoff. Stephen Lubkemann. Yolanda P Duarte.

In December of 1794 the São Josè Paquete d’Afrique foundered off of Capetown while transporting nearly five hundred slaves from Mozambique who were destined for northeastern Brazil, resulting in the death of over two hundred souls. This presentation reports on how ongoing archaeological work on site combined with archival work in Africa, Europe, and South America have enabled identification of the shipwreck. It reflects on some of the insights research about this event is providing about the...


Missions at the Margin: excavating the London Missionary Society in Botswana (2013)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ceri Z Ashley.

The activities of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in Botswana are widely known thanks to the popular writings and high profiles of pioneers such as John Moffat and David Livingstone. The role of archaeology within such discourse may thus appear redundant. However, as widely recognised within the discipline, the scope and scale of archaeology, and in particular its focus on the mundane and everyday, has the potential to add a new dimension to our historical understanding of early Missions in...


Moving Inland: Archaeological Insights into the Possible Origins of the Slaves on the Shipwrecked Slever São José. (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Chafim Belson Braga.

This paper reviews the findings of recent archeological and archival work undertaken in two slave taking areas, potentially related to the origin of the slaves carried from Mozambique in 1794 on the ventually shipwrecked slaving vessel, São José.  Resulting from the triangulation of archival sources and previously conducted archeological surveys, we present the results of preliminary field studies of two "arringas" (fortified camps in the Mozambican interior associated with the slave trade) -...


Patterns of settlement changes in colonial Cameroon: a theoretical approach. (2013)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin ELOUGA.

The theoretical basis of historical archaeology in Cameroon is being set down. Ongoing research in this field focusses on the formative period, european hegemony and the decolonisation of Cameroon. Despite the availability of abundant historical data related to the recent past of Cameroon, questions still come up to which research must find answers: the processes of state formation, subsistence activities and their environmental impact, the relationships between social groups and the reshaping...


Place Of Refuge: "The Fighting Missionary", Alexander Merensky, And The Forts Of Botshabelo Mission Station, South Africa. (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalie J Swanepoel.

Botshabelo Mission Station, Mpumalanga, South Africa was established in 1865 within the borders of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (ZAR) by Alexander Merensky and groups of Bapedi and Bakopa converts and refugees, all of whom had been displaced from territories further to the north through processes of intra-societal and colonial violence. It is perhaps for this reason that the mission station boasted three forts, unusual features for such a site. This paper examines the ways in which the object...


Using Available Archaeological Insights into a Maritime Landscape: Can We Learn From Beads and Porcelain on the Beaches of Mozambique Island—Even When these Have Been Collected for Commercial Purposes? (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Celso Zefanias Simbine.

This paper presents the results of the archeological survey of porcelain shreds and beads that were collected from beaches in the Mozambique Island maritime landscape. This assemblage represents a long history of maritime interactions dating to at least the 15th century initially focused on the Indian Ocean, but eventually also encompassing the Atlantic. It first describes the collected assemblage (which includes significant representation from the Ming Dynasty (Wanli period 15th to 16th...