Understanding Livestock in Political Economies in West Africa: Archaeological Insights Inspired by the Legacy of Richard Redding

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Amongst his many intellectual contributions, Richard Redding was a leading scholar in the use of zooarchaeology, specifically the production, distribution, redistributio,n and consumption of animal products, to understand political economies. Through systemic approaches, Redding was able to explore the daily lives of different segments of society that are often overlooked in the past. In this paper I explore the role of livestock in the political economies of central West Africa, focusing on the Mouhoun Bend of western Burkina Faso. Here, livestock played a central role in the forging of connections among early farming communities, the later development of inequalities, and the subsequent rejections of inequalities and construction of horizontal forms of complexity. The dynamic political histories of different social segments can be reconstructed through systematic analyses of ritualized depositions of animal remains within archaeological tells that yield insights into animal production, distribution, redistribution and consumption.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39292.0