Cultural Identity and Ceramic Practice in Northern Togo, West Africa
Author(s): Mary Ownby
Year: 2025
Summary
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
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Togo, West Africa, is a unique cultural landscape with a diversity of groups making and utilizing pottery. This is particularly true for the Bassar area of northern Togo where four groups interact, the Lamba, the Kotokoli, the Konkomba, and the Kabiye. Several villages continue to make pottery and likely made it in the past. To clarify production locations, ceramic practices, and their connection to cultural identity, pottery from five sites was examined. These are mostly dated from the 14<sup>th</sup> to the 19<sup>th</sup> century AD. However, they were compared to a few earlier wares and, more significantly, to modern pottery from seven workshops. Petrographic analysis was conducted on 65 samples from seven different ceramic wares. This method was ideal as there is geological variability from east to west in Togo with five major formations having distinct rock complexes. This enabled the raw materials utilized for the pottery to be identified and areas of production suggested. Importantly, these areas were within different territories for the ethnic groups. Thus, both specific cultural ceramic traditions could be clarified along with the movement of vessels related to changing dynamics between groups.
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Cite this Record
Cultural Identity and Ceramic Practice in Northern Togo, West Africa. Mary Ownby. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 509269)
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Abstract Id(s): 50630