"More field than habitation, and far more fallow than field": Settlement Patterns, Farming Practices, and Demographic Change on the Abomey Plateau, Republic of Bénin

Summary

Archaeologies of urbanism in West Africa have long focused on major cities associated with expansive kingdoms and empires of the second millennium AD. In recent decades, however, archaeologists have turned to the countryside for an alternative view on urban dynamics in this period. Yet, for most of the forested region this shift has been hampered by the problem of identifying sites, both large and small. This difficultly arises from the combined effects of dense vegetation, poor site preservation, and farming practices that generate low density blankets of artifacts around sites. Archaeological survey recently completed on the Abomey Plateau of the Republic of Bénin adopted an artifact and feature-based approach to redress this issue. Adopting GIS-based spatial analytical tools, this paper presents a method for distinguishing low density settlements from intensive farming practices, significantly advancing our understanding of settlement patterns, farming, and demographic change on the Abomey Plateau in the 2nd millennium AD.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Fire, Food, Farms, and Fortifications: Recent Advances in the Archaeology of Africa

Keywords

Spatial Coverage