Engaging Materiality: Archaeology of Craft Production in Igbo Ukwu (Ninth–Twelfth Century CE)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Crafting Archaeological Practice in Africa and Beyond: Celebrating the Contributions of Ann B. Stahl to Global Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of craft production in antiquity. It combines theoretical and methodological toolkits from archaeology, material science, studies of craft production, and ancient economies to investigate the organization of the Igbo Ukwu pottery industry (ninth–twelfth century CE). Igbo Ukwu is situated in present day Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria. The storied material corpus from Igbo Ukwu recovered from two excavation seasons between 1959 and 1960 include about 75 kg of copper objects, 21,000 ceramics, 165,000 glass beads, some textiles, stones, and other organic items. This project focuses on the study of the ceramic materials from this legacy excavation. It explores the materiality of the ceramic assemblage as markers to investigate the socioeconomic structures of the ancient Igbo Ukwu polity. It examines how technological choices are embedded in the pottery products that are then distributed and deposited in varying contexts of usage in the archaeological record. Findings from this project puts into conversation fundamental discourses on the interaction between crafts production and socioeconomics in ancient societies. It advances models of integration of craft production into studies of ancient economies as means to further understanding of the mosaic nature of sociopolitical and economic structures in antiquity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Crafting Archaeological Practice in Africa and Beyond: Celebrating the Contributions of Ann B. Stahl to Global Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39003.0