Human Agency and Theory in West Africa: Understanding Early Forest Agriculture Dynamics during the Neolithic

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite the fact that the need to study early indigenous agricultural systems in Africa has long been recognized and reaffirmed in recent archaeological discussions, African agricultural practices are still being modeled using concepts, terminologies, questions, lines of evidence, and methods derived from research elsewhere in the world. Studies in West African archaeological research, especially within the Neolithic, have provided evidence for developing models for the spread of farming. Yet, theoretical investigations of the emergence of food production systems, particularly in the forest-savanna region, have been limited. Hence, this presentation aims to highlight the possibilities and challenges of modeling forest (forest/savanna) agriculture through diverse theoretical approaches, while emphasizing the role of agency in the development and intensification of early socioeconomic systems within the forest/savanna region. The goal, therefore, is to contribute to the growing wealth of knowledge in West African theoretical and archaeobotanical discussions by creating an insight into understanding the dynamics of forest agriculture in West Africa.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36622.0