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Mema in the History of West Africa:
Economic Bases of Ancient Ghana and Mali
Shoichiro TAKEZAWA
National Museum of Ethnology
Mamadou CISSE
Institute for Protection of the Cultural Patrimony, Mali
Hirotaka ODA
Center for Chronological Research , Nagoya University
Mema is the area between Kumbi Saleh that is
considered as one of the capitals of ancient Ghana, and
the middle Niger River where many kingdoms existed
in the medieval times. Actually, Mema is in the dry
savanna where agriculture is almost impossible. But, in
ancient times, it was rich in water, because there ran a
confluent of the Niger River. The prosperity of this
region is attested by the existence of over one hundred
archaeological sites.
This study is one of the first fruits of the excavations
that we have carried out in Mali since 1998. The
purpose of our archaeological research is: 1) To
determine the time and the ecological conditions of the
domestication of crops such as glaberrima rice and
fonio; 2) To measure the economic development in
Mema realized by agriculture, stock farming and iron
production; 3) To understand the contribution of the
Mema region to the formation of ancient West Ghana
and Mali.
To fulfill above objectives, our field excavation was
done in 1998 and 1999 in the archeological complex
called Kolima in which Late Stone Age sites and Iron
Age sites coexist. From a site of BC 850 to 800, we
could find a quantity of fonio that was used as offerings
to the divinities with a small domesticated ox. This can
be a proof of the domestication of fonio from BC 850,
one of the oldest cereals that have been found by the
archeological excavations in West Africa. We could
find also so many remains of iron furnaces that can be
qualified as "industrial scale". It should be these
economic developments in Mema that had contributed
to the formation of the ancient West African Kingdoms
such as Ghana and Mali.