Longevity and authority in a mobile world the megasites of the Ugandan grasslands

Summary

Much of the recent past of Great Lakes Africa is characterised by short-lived settlements and mobile societies, that produced ephemeral occupation sites. In part because of this, attention has long been drawn to sites like Bigo and Ntuusi which seem to offer much more substantive archaeological remains. Yet, notwithstanding the longevity of the latter and the extent of both, this is clearly not a simple occupation site featuring a large population. Rather it is much more effective to understand sites like Ntuusi as focal points in the landscape, which accrue and develop status and significance, both politically and religiously, and hence encourage repeated settlement. Therefore, such sites need to be understood as active locations which provided a perpetual focus for the mobile and transient world around. This emphasis then helps to understand the nature of the site at Bigo, encompassing a vast area, but with a very small population. Both Ntuusi and Bigo remind us that there are other very different settlement trajectories than those conventionally encountered in the classic centers of urban archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• What to Do with "Megasites" in Prehistory? Further Exploring the "Megasite" Conundrum

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15189