Beyond the Grave: Regional Interaction in the Senegambian Megalith Zone

Summary

Over the past century, archaeological reconnaissance and survey in the Senegambia region of West Africa has identified more than 2000 megalithic cemetery sites dating to the Iron Age (circa 500 BC – AD 1500). Although a number of research programs have explored the histories of individual sites, it remains unclear how these related to one another within a regional tradition of mortuary practice and monument construction. This paper begins to address this issue through integrated geospatial and network analyses of data published in the Inventory of Protohistoric Sites of the Senegambia (Martin and Becker 1974). First, these data are compared to the results of two systematic surveys to identify and account for sampling biases. Second, the physical and socio-material distances among megalithic sites are used to trace interactions and the relational production of identities across the regional landscape. The preliminary results of these spatial analyses illustrate how the production of power and identity in the Iron Age depended both on exclusive participation in elite networks and local legitimation through corporate burial practices.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Interrogating Identity: The Fluidity of Social Boundaries in African Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage