Material complexities in dispersed communities: archaeology of 2nd millennium CE southeastern Burkina Faso (West Africa)

Summary

In several regions of the West African savanna, the pre-colonial complex polities described in oral and written histories have left a minimal archaeological signature on the landscape. One such region is the Gobnangou escarpment of southeastern Burkina Faso, where from the early second millennium CE, the archaeological record consists almost entirely of small, ephemeral sites, likely resulting from short term occupations of household compounds. Broadly dispersed on the landscape, and almost certainly associated with an extensive agricultural land use practice that involved regular shifting of fields and residences, these sites represent an anthropogenic landscape in which physically distant households were likely linked in close political, social, and economic networks. Associated with the emergence of this new landscape was the development of an elaborate material culture tradition that incorporated multiple specialized ceramic wares, each associated with the use of unique decorative techniques. This paper explores the ways that this shared tradition may have provided a sense of persisting collective identity throughout the region.

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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