Negative and "Natural" Monumental Spaces: Ditches and Sacred Groves in Pre-Colonial West Africa

Summary

This paper builds on recent archaeological efforts to theorize the active role landscape features had in framing social relations, delineating zones of safety and inclusion/danger and exile, and marking spaces where cosmological actors tend to reside. In the coastal forests of pre-Colonial West Africa, ditch features and sacred groves did such social work, and as such; these powerful and liminal features held prominent positions within the kingdoms of West Africa. This paper explores massive ditch systems and expansive forests as monumental public works. Further, it and builds recent efforts to theorize them within the statecraft of complex societies and the theatrics of political economies.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Biographies of Enclosure in Global Context

Keywords

Spatial Coverage