Institute of Archaeology
ARCL 3026.
The History, Ethnography, and Archaeology of
African States
2014-2015
Year 2/3 Option, 0.5 unit
Tuesdays 4-6pm, rm. B13
Course Co-ordinator:
Prof. Kevin C. MacDonald
kevin.macdonald@ucl.ac.uk
Teaching Assistant:
Dr Nikolas Gestrich
gestrich@gmail.com
Room 114
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ARCL 3026. The History, Ethnography, and Archaeology of African States
Prof. Kevin C. MacDonald / Dr Nikolas Gestrich
This Seminar Course aims to critically investigate the structure of historical African states.
Conclusions derived from readings and discussions will then be used to assess the validity of
models which have heretofore been used to investigate the historical and prehistoric complex
societies of Africa. This course will require a good deal of independent reading and original
research, and will involve all participants in presentations and/or discussions.
week 1 (30 September, 2014)
1. Introduction to the Course, Theoretical & Archaeological Background, Choice of Research
Topics
2. Lecture: Deep Time Traditions of Complexity: Focusing on ‘Mande’ West Africa to AD
1200
week 2 (7 October)
3. Lecture: Social Evolution and the Understanding of Complex Societies
4. Lecture: Historical and Ethnographic Sources and the ‘Historical Approach’ to the Study of
African States
week 3 (14 October)
5. Lecture: City-centric Approaches to Social Complexity along the Middle Niger
6. Lecture: An Ethnoarchaeology of the Segou (Mali): Slavery and the State
week 4 (21 October)
7-8. Presentations on Initial Readings & Discussion [Gestrich]
week 5 (28 October)
9. Lecture: Mande Political Traditions
10. Lecture: Towards an Archaeology of the Empire of Mali
**reading week**
week 6 (11 November)
11. Lecture: Ethnicity and African States
12. Lecture: Material Culture, Power and Boundaries [Gestrich]
week 7 (18 November)
13-14. Presentations on Further Readings & Discussion [Gestrich]
week 8 (25 November)
15. Lecture: Capitals of the East African Lakes Region (Andrew Reid, Guest Lecturer)
16. Seminar Discussion [Gestrich]
week 9 (2 December)
17-18. Discussion & Practical: What should African States look like archaeologically?
week 10 (9 December)
19-20. Presentations on Final Research Findings
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Notes:
Co-ordinator: Prof. Kevin MacDonald (my office is opposite the lifts, 1st Floor, rm.114).
Teaching Assistant: Dr Nikolas Gestrich (rm. 114)
Class: Tuesdays 4-6pm, rm. B13
General Concepts Behind the Course: This course is a coordinated attempt at group research
on common themes:
• Are archaeological models for African complex societies consistent with known
historical examples?
• How can we best research the plethora of social forms known to have existed
historically in Africa?
• Can we formulate archaeological criteria to detect different types of complex sociopolitical organisation in Africa?
As class members each work on the background to their own chosen ‘state’, the lecturer will
provide a series of lectures on aspects of his own research into Mande civilization (in West
Africa). It is hoped that these lectures will provide a model for the sorts of issues students
should be examining with their own projects.
The class will begin by undertaking assigned readings and writing reports on them. Each
student will then research more complete bibliographies on their study regions and report to
the seminar group on their findings and changing perspectives as we go along. By the end, it
is hoped that we will reach some consensus as to how we should go about investigating
prehistoric and historic African complex societies.
Assignments: All participants are to write two ‘reading reports’ of 1000 words each. Each
reading report will critically evaluate the utility of one major source for informing historical
archaeological research on the participant’s chosen study region. Special attention should be
paid in these reviews to flagging issues of relevance to the aims of the course (e.g. hierarchy
vs. heterarchy, spatial organisation of states, presence or absence of material expressions of
status, slavery, etc…). Relevant text options are given in the reading list. The starred option
should be done in the first instance, unless it is temporarily unavailable. The two reading
reports are to be presented in, the class meetings of 21st October and 18th November, 2014
respectively. They will be due for submission on the Friday of those same weeks: the 24th
October and the 21st November. Combined, they will count for 40% of the final mark.
Final Report: A 3000 word (ca.12 page) final report on the student’s research region will
count for 60% of the final mark. This report will contain an exposition of the economic, spatial
and socio-political organisation of the state chosen, and an evaluation of how the state’s
organisational system might (or might not) be visible archaeologically. Awareness of the
literature on social complexity in Africa (i.e. the lecture reading list) should also be
demonstrated. It is expected that each student will use library resources to significantly
enlarge the brief bibliography for their state presented in this syllabus. The final report is due
by January 16th, 2014.
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Word-length: Strict new regulations with regard to word-length have been introduced UCLwide. Students must adhere to word limits on assessments; they are intended to help ensure
equality of workloads between courses as well as to encourage the useful transferable skills of
clearly structured arguments and succinct writing. UCL regulations impose penalties on
assessed work that exceeds the prescribed word limit, so pay careful attention to the word
limits stipulated for each assessment. For work that exceeds the specified maximum length by
less than 10%, the mark will be reduced by ten percentage marks, but the penalised mark will
not be reduced below the pass mark, assuming the work merits a pass. For work that exceeds
the specified maximum length by 10% or more, a mark of zero will be recorded.
The following should not be included in the word-count: title page, contents pages, lists of
figures and tables, abstract, preface, acknowledgements, bibliography, captions and contents
of tables and figures and appendices.
The Turnitin 'Class ID' is 783231 and the 'Class Enrolment Password' is IoA1415
Further information is on the IoA website at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/administration/students/handbook/turnitin. Turnitin
advisers will be available to help you via email: ioa-turnitin@ucl.ac.uk if needed, and should
reply within 24 hours Monday to Friday in term.
Submission of Coursework: Coursework must be stapled to a completed green coversheet
(available from outside Room 411A) and submitted to Judy Medrington (Rm 411a) by the
deadline set for the essay. Please note that students are required to give word counts on
coursework coversheets. Late submission will be penalized unless permission has been
granted and an Extension Request Form (ERF) completed.
Please note that stringent penalties for late submission have been introduced UCL-wide. Late
submission will be penalized in accordance with these regulations unless permission has been
granted and an Extension Request Form (ERF) completed. Date-stamping will be via
‘Turnitin’ (see below), so in addition to submitting hard copy, students must submit their
work to Turnitin by the midnight on the day of the deadline. Students who encounter
technical problems submitting their work to Turnitin should email the nature of the problem
to ioa-turnitin@ucl.ac.uk in advance of the deadline in order that the Turnitin Advisers can
notify the Course Co-ordinator that it may be appropriate to waive the late submission
penalty. If there is any other unexpected crisis on the submission day, students should e-mail
the Co-ordinator and follow this up with a completed ERF.
Regarding Late Coursework, please note the following UCL-wide regulations:
i) A penalty of 5 percentage marks should be applied to coursework submitted the calendar
day after the deadline (calendar day 1).
ii) A penalty of 15 percentage marks should be applied to coursework submitted on calendar
day 2 after the deadline through to calendar day 7.
iii) A mark of zero should be recorded for coursework submitted on calendar day 8 after the
deadline through to the end of the second week of third term. Nevertheless, the assessment
will be considered to be complete provided the work contains material than can be assessed.
iv) Coursework submitted after the end of the second week of third term will not be marked
and the assessment will be incomplete.
ARCL 3026. History, Ethnography, and Archaeology of African States
4
GENERAL READING LIST
*starred* readings are ‘essential’
Core Text (Everyone should read!)
*McIntosh, S. K. (ed.) 1999. Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa . Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Readings for Week 1 (re. Deep Time Traditions)
Before Tichitt
Brass, M. 2007.Reconsidering the emergence of social complexity in early Saharan pastoral
societies. Sahara 18: 7-22.
*MacDonald, K.C. 2013. Complex societies, urbanism and trade in the Western Sahel, In The
Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology, P. Mitchell and P. Lane (eds.), 829-844. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
MacDonald, K.C. 1998, Before the Empire of Ghana: Pastoralism and the Origins of Cultural
Complexity in the Sahel, In Transformations in Africa: essays on Africa's later past, ed. G.
Connah, 71-103, London: Cassell/Leicester University Press.
Magnavita, C., Breunig, P., Ameje, J., and Posselt, M. 2006, Zilum : a mid-first millennium BC
fortified settlement near Lake Chad, Journal of African Archaeology 4: 153-170.
Raimbault, M. 1995. La Culture Néolithique des « Villages à Enciente » dans le region de
Tessalit, au nord-est du Sahara Malien, In L’Homme Méditerranéen : Mélanges offerts à
Gabriel Camps, Professeur émérite de l’Université de Provence, ed. R. Chenorkian, 113-125,
Aix-en-Provence : Publications de l’Université de Provence.
Tichitt
Amblard, S. 1996. Agricultural Evidence and its Interpretation on the Dhars Tichitt and
Oualata, south-eastern Mauritania. In Aspects of African Archaeology: Papers from the 10th
Congress of the PanAfrican Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, eds. G. Pwiti and
R. Soper, 421-427. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.
Amblard-Pison, S. 2006. Communautés villageoises Néolithiques des Dhars Tichitt et Oulata
(Mauritanie). BAR International Series 1546. Oxford: John and Erica Hedges Ltd.
Holl, A. 1985. Background to the Ghana Empire: archaeological investigations on the
transition to statehood in the Dhar Tichitt region (Mauritania). Journal of Anthropological
Archaeology 4: 73-115.
Holl, A. 1993. Late Neolithic cultural landscape in southeastern Mauritania: an essay in
spatiometrics. In Spatial Boundaries and Social Dynamics: Case Studies from Food-producing
societies, eds. A. Holl and T. E. Levy , 95-133, Ann Arbor: International Monographs in
Prehistory.
MacDonald, K.C. 1996. Tichitt-Walata and the Middle Niger: evidence for cultural contact in
the second millennium BC. In Aspects of African Archaeology: Papers from the 10th
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Congress of the PanAfrican Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, eds. G. Pwiti and
R. Soper, 429-440, Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.
MacDonald, K.C. 2011. Betwixt Tichitt and the IND: the Pottery of the Faïta Facies, Tichitt
Tradition. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 46: 49-69.
MacDonald, K.C. ,R. Vernet, M. Martinon-Torres and D.Q. Fuller. 2009. Dhar Néma: from
early agriculture to metallurgy in southeastern Mauritania, Azania: Archaeological
Research in Africa 44: 3-48.
Munson, P.J. 1980. Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana Empire. Journal of
African History 21: 457-466.
Ghana/Wagadu
Belcher, S. 1999. Epic Traditions of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Berthier, S. 1997. Recherches Archéologiques sur la capitale de l’empire de Ghana. BAR International
Series No.680. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Garrard, T. 1982. ‘Myth and Metrology : the Early Trans-Saharan Gold Trade’, Journal of
African History 23 : 443-61.
Lange, D. 2004. Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa: Africa-centred and Canaanite-Israelite
Perspectives. Dettelbach: Verlag J.H. Röll. Chapter 19 only
Levtzion, N. 1973. Ancient Ghana and Mali. New York: Africana.
Levtzion, N. 1981. The early states of the western Sudan to 1500, In History of West Africa:
Volume I (Third Edition), eds. J.F. Ade Ajayi and M. Crowder, 129-166, Harlow:
Longman.
Levtzion, N. and Hopkins, J. (1981) Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MacDonald, K.C. 2011. A view from the south: Sub-Saharan evidence for contacts between
North Africa, Mauritania and the Niger, 1000 BC - AD 700. A. Dowler, and E.R. Galvin
(eds.) Money, Trade and Trade Routes in Pre-Islamic North Africa. 72-82, London: British
Museum Press. (should be in library, otherwise pdf text available from K. MacDonald).
Mauny, R. 1954. The Question of Ghana. Africa 24: 200-213.
McCall, D. and F.S. Reed 1974. Reconstructing Early Mande Civilizations: Ghana and Mali,
Reconstructing Complex Societies: An Archaeological Colloquium; Bulletin of the
American Schools of Oriental Research, Supplementary Studies, 20: 41-48
Readings for Week 2 (re. Social Evolution, Historical & Ethnographic approaches)
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General
Earle, T. 1997. How Chiefs Come to Power: the Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Earle, T. (ed.) 1991. Chiefdoms: Power, Economy, and Ideology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Fried, Morton H. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology. New
York: Random House.
Friedman, J. and Rowlands, M. 1977. The Evolution of Social Systems. London: Duckworth.
Maisels, C.K. 1990. The Emergence of Civilization. London: Routledge.
Mann, M. 1986. The Sources of Social Power. [Volume 1], Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
*McIntosh, S. K. (ed.) 1999. Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa . Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. (Introductory Chapter)
Pauketat, T.R. 2007. Chiefdoms and other Archaeological Delusions. Lanham: Alta Mira.
Service, E.R. 1980. Origins of the State and Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton.
Trigger, B. 2003. Understanding Early Civilizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yoffee, N. 2005. Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Africa
Fortes, M. and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.) 1940. African Political Systems, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
*Goody, J. 1971. Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Herbst, J. 2000. State and Power in Africa: comparative lessons in authority and control. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
*Horton, R. 1985. ‘Stateless Societies in the History of Africa,’ in J. Ade Ajayi and M. Crowder
(eds.) History of West Africa, Volume One, 3rd Edition . pp.87-128. London: Longmans.
*Kopytoff, I. (ed.) 1987. The African Frontier: the Reproduction of Traditional African Societies.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Middleton, J. and Tait, D. 1958. Tribes Without Rulers: Studies in African Segmentary Systems.
London: Routledge.
Skalnik, Peter 1983. Questioning the Concept of State in Indigenous Africa. Social Dynamics 9
(2): 11-28.
Southall, A. 1988. The Segmentary State in Africa and Asia. Comparative Studies in Society and
History 30 (1): 52-82.
Stevenson, R.F. 1968. Population and Political Systems in Africa: comparative Lessons in Authority
and Control. New York: Columbia.
Tuden, A. and Plotnicov, L. (eds.) 1970. Social Stratification in Africa . New York: Free Press.
7
Vansina, J. 1962 A Comparison of African Kingdoms, Africa 32: 324-35.
Vansina, J. 1990. Paths in the Rainforest: towards a history of political tradition in Equatorial Africa.
London: James Currey.
Vansina, J. 2004. How Societies are Born: Governance in West Central Africa before 1600,
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Vansina, J., R. Mauny and L.V. Thomas (eds.) 1964. The Historian in Tropical Africa, London:
International African Institute and Oxford University Press.
Readings for Week 3 (re. the Middle Niger)
Bedaux, R., K. MacDonald, A. Person, J. Polet, K. Sanogo, A. Schmidt, and S. Sidibé. 2001. The
Dia Archaeological Project: rescuing cultural heritage in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)
Antiquity 75: 837-48.
McIntosh, R.J. 1999. Peoples of the Middle Niger. Oxford: Blackwell
McIntosh, R.J. 2005. Ancient Middle Niger: Urbanism and the Self-Organizing Landscape,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McIntosh, S.K. (ed.) 1995. Excavations at Jenné-Jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger
Delta, Mali), The 1981 Season. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*McIntosh S.K. 1999. Modeling political organization in large-scale settlement clusters: a case
study from the Inland Niger Delta, in S.K. McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to
complexity in Africa, 66-79, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*McIntosh, S.K. and McIntosh, R.J. 1993. Cities Without Citadels: understanding urban
origins along the Middle Niger. in The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns. eds.
Shaw, Sinclair, Andah and Okpoko, 622-41, London: Routledge.
Togola, T. 2008. T. Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West
Africa), Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology no.73, pp. 93-101, Oxford: BAR.
Further Readings for Week 3 (re. Segou and Slavery)
Segou
*Bazin, Jean 1974. War and Servitude in Segou, Economy and Society 3:107-144.
Conrad, David C. [ed.] 1990. A State of Intrigue: the Epic of Bamana Segu according to Tayiru
Banbera. London: The British Academy/ Oxford University Press.
*MacDonald, K.C., and Camara, S. 2012. Segou, Slavery, and Sifinso. in Monroe,J. C.,
Ogundiran,A. (ed.) State and Society in Atlantic West Africa. 169-190, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
*MacDonald, K.C. and Camara, S. 2011. Segou: Warfare and the Origins of a State of Slavery,
in P. Lane and K. MacDonald (eds.) Slavery in Africa: Archaeology and Memory, 25-46,
London: The British Academy/ Oxford University Press. (available from K. MacDonald)
Roberts, Richard L. (1987) Warriors, Merchants, and Slaves: the State and the Economy in the
Middle Niger Valley, 1700-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
8
Slavery
*Lane, PJ. And MacDonald, K.C. (eds.) 2011. Slavery in Africa: Archaeology and Memory.
London: British Academy/ Oxford University Press. (read Introduction)
Lovejoy, P. 1983. Transformations in Slavery: a history of slavery in Africa. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Meillassoux, C. 1991. The Anthropology of Slavery: The Womb of Iron and Gold. London:
Athlone.
Médard, H. and Doyle, S. 2007. Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa, London: James
Currey.
Miers, S. and I. Kopytoff (eds.) 1977. Slavery in Africa. Madison, Wisconsin: University of
Wisconsin Press.
Readings for Week 5 (re. Mande Political Traditions)
Bühnen, S. 1996. Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires: On Jan Jansen's "The Representation of
Status in Mande" History in Africa, 23: 111-120.
Dieterlen, G. 1957. The Mande Creation Myth. Journal of the International African Institute, 27
(2): 124-138.
Frank, B. 1998. Mande Potters & Leatherworkers: art and heritage in West Africa. Washington
DC: Smithsonian.
Jansen, J. 1996. The Younger Brother and the Stranger: In Search of a Status Discourse for
Mande. Cahiers d'Études Africaines, (Cahier 144, Mélanges Maliens) 36: 659-688
*Jansen, J. 1996. Polities and Political Discourse: Was Mande Already a Segmentary Society in
the Middle Ages? History in Africa 23: 121-128.
Johnson, J.W. 1998. The Dichotomy of Power and Authority in Mande Society and in the Epic
of Sunjata, in R. Austen (ed.) In Search of Sunjata: the Mande Oral Epic as History,
Literature, Performance, pp. 9-24, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
*Kesteloot, Lilyan, Thomas A. Hale, Richard Bjornson 1991. Power and Its Portrayals in Royal
Mandé Narratives. Research in African Literatures, 22 (1): 17-26
*McNaughton, P.R. 1988. The Semantics of Jugu: Blacksmiths, Lore and Who's "Bad" in
Mande, Anthropological Linguistics, 30 (2): 150-165.
Tamari, T. 1991. The Development of Caste Systems in West Africa. The Journal of African
History, 32 (2): 221-250.
Further Readings for Week 5 (re. Empire of Mali)
Austen, R. (ed.) 1998. In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature,
Performance. Bloomington: Indiana. Read Chapters 1-7.
Austen, R. and J. Jansen 1996. History, Oral Transmission and Structure in Ibn Khaldun's
Chronology of Mali Rulers. History in Africa 23: 17-28.
*Conrad, David C. 1994. A Town Called Dakalajan: the Sunjata tradition and the question of
Ancient Mali’s Capital, Journal of African History 35: 355-77.
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Filipowiak, W. 1979. Etudes archéologiques sur la capitale médiévale du Mali. Szczecin : Muzeum
Nardowe.
*Hunwick, J.O. 1973. The Mid-Fourteenth Century Capital of Mali. The Journal of African
History, 14(2): 195-206
*MacDonald, K.C., S. Camara, S. Canos Donnay, N. Gestrich and D. Keita 2011. Sorotomo: a
forgotten Malian capital? Archaeology International 13/14: 52-64.
Niane, D.T. 1994 Sundiata : an epic of old Mali (G.D. Pickett translator). Harlow : Longman
Readings for Week 6 (re. Ethnicity)
Lentz, C. 2006. Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. London: Edinburg
University Press.
Lentz, C., Nugent, P. (eds.) 2000. Ethnicity in Ghana: the limits of invention. Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
*Peel, J. D. Y. 1989. The Cultural Work of Yoruba Ethnogenesis. In E. Tonkin, M. McDonald,
M. Chapman (eds), History and Ethnicity. London: Routledge, 198-215.
ANTHROPOLOGY QH 316 LEN
*Shennan, S. 1989.Introduction: archaeological approaches to cultural identity, in S. Shennan
ed., Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity, pp.1-32, London: Unwin Hyman.
Spear, T. 2003. Neo-traditionalism and the limits of invention in British Colonial Africa,
Journal of African History 44: 3-27.
Further Readings for Week 6 (re. Material Culture)
Adams, W.Y. 1979. On the argument from ceramics to history: A challenge based on
evidence from medieval Nubia. Current Anthropology 20 (4): 727-744.
*Blier, Suzanne Preston. 2012. The Royal Arts Of Africa: The Majesty Of Form. London:
Lawrence King.
Coquet, M. 1998. African Royal Court Art. Chicago: U Chcago Press.
*Haour, Anne (2011) Putting pots and people in the Sahelian empires. Azania 46 (1). pp. 36-48.
Mayor, A., E. Huysecom, A. Gallay, M. Rasse and A. Ballouche 2005. Population Dynamics
and Paleoclimate over the past 3000 years in Dogon Country, Mali. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 24: 25-61.
Mayor, A. 2010. Ceramic Traditioins and Ethnicity in the Niger Bend, West Africa,
Ethnoarchaeology: journal of Archaeological, ethnographic and experimental studies 2:
5-48.
Readings for Week 8 (re. Capitals in the Lakes Region)
Posnansky M. 1968. The excavation of an Ankole capital site at Bweyorere. Uganda Journal
32: 165-182.
Reid R.J. 2002. Political power in pre-colonial Buganda. Oxford: James Currey.
10
Richards A.I. 1964. Authority patterns in traditional Buganda. In The King’s Men (ed L.A.
Fallers): 256-93. London.
*Robertshaw, P. 1999. Seeking and keeping power in Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda, in S.K.
McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa, 124-135, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Robertshaw P.T. 1999. Women, labour and state formation in western Uganda. In E. Bacus
and L. Lucero (eds.) Complex Polities in the Ancient Tropical World: 51-65. Archaeological
Papers of the American Anthropological Association 9.
Robertshaw P. 2003. Explaining the origins of the state in East Africa. In C.M. Kusimba and
S.B. Kusimba (eds) East African Archaeology: foragers, potters, smiths and traders: 149-166.
Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Robertshaw P. 2010. Beyond the segmentary state: creative and instrumental power in
Western Uganda. Journal of World Prehistory.
Schoenbrun, D.L. 1998. A Green Place, a Good Place: a Social History of the Great Lakes Region,
Earliest Times to the 15th Century. London.
Schoenbrun, D.L. 1999. The (in)visible roots of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda in the Lakes
region: AD 800-1300, in S.K. McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in
Africa, 136-150, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11
ARCL 3026. History, Ethnography, and Archaeology of African States
REGIONAL OPTIONS:
(One option per student. For reading reports do a starred reading first, then choose an unstarred reading for the second report)
1) Asante
Daaku, K.Y. 1970. Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600-1720. Oxford: Clarendon.
Kea, R.A. 1982. Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast. Baltimore:
John Hopkins.
McCaskie, T.C. 2003. State and society in Pre-Colonial Asante. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
*McLeod, M.D. 1981. The Asante. London: The British Museum.
*Wilks, I. 1975. Asante in the Nineteenth Century: the Structure and Evolution of a Political Order.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilks, I. 1993. Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. Athens [USA]: Ohio
University Press.
2) The Yoruba (Oyo)
Asiwaju, A. and Law, R. 1981. From the Volta to the Niger, c.1600-1800, in J.F. Ade Ajayi and
M. Crowder (eds.) The History of West Africa (Volume I) pp.412-464. Harlow: Longman.
*Law, R. 1977. The Oyo Empire: 1600-1836. Oxford: Clarendon.
Johnson, S. 1921. The History of the Yorubas: from the earliest times to the beginning of the British
Protectorate. London: George Routledge & Sons.
Morton-Williams, P. 1967. ‘The Yoruba Kingdom of Oyo’ in D. Forde and P.M. Kaberry (eds.)
West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century . pp.36-69, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Obayemi, A. 1981. ‘The Yoruba and Edo-speaking Peoples before 1600,’ in J.F. Ade Ajayi and
M. Crowder (eds.) The History of West Africa (Volume I) pp.255-322. Harlow: Longman.
Smith, R.S. 1988. Kingdoms of the Yoruba (3rd Edition) . London: James Currey.
3) Benin
Ben-Amos, P. 1999. Art, Innovation and Politics in Eighteenth Century Benin. Bloomington (In):
Indiana University Press.
*Bradbury, R.E. 1967. The Kingdom of Benin, in D. Forde and P.M. Kaberry (eds.) West African
Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century . pp.1-35, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bradbury, R.E. 1957 The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria.
London: IAI.
Fagg, W. 1978. Divine Kingship in Africa. London: British Museum.
Picton, John 1997. ‘Edo Art, Dynastic Myth, and Intellectual Aporia,’ African Arts (1997): 1825, 91-92.
Ryder, A.F.C. 1969. Benin and the Europeans, 1485-1897. London: Longmans.
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4) Dahomey
*Akinjogbin, I.A. 1967. Dahomey and its Neighbours, 1707-1718. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Asiwaju, A. and Law, R. 1981. From the Volta to the Niger, c.1600-1800, in J.F. Ade Ajayi and
M. Crowder (eds.) The History of West Africa (Volume I) pp.412-464. Harlow: Longman.
Bay, E. 1998. Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey.
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Herskovits, M.J. 1938. Dahomey: an ancient West African Kingdom. New York: JJ Augustin.
Law, R. 2004. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving Port 1727-1892. London: James
Currey.
Polanyi, K. 1966. Dahomey and the Slave Trade: an analysis of an archaic economy. Seattle:
University of Washington Press.
For Dahomey you may also have a look at this Explorer account by Sir Richard Burton (very much ‘of its time’):
Burton, R.F. 1864 [and reprints]. A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome. London.
5) Jukun
*Meek, C.K. 1931. A Sudanese Kingdom: An Ethnographical Study of the Jukun-speaking Peoples of
Nigeria. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.
Ruxton, F.H. 1908. ‘Notes on the Tribes of the Muri Province,’ Journal of the Royal African
Society, 7(28) 374-86.
Webster, J.B. 1984. ‘Through the Palace Gates, Chiefs and chronology: Developing Reliable
Dating Structures,’ History in Africa 11: 331-49.
Young, M.W. 1966. ‘The Divine Kingship of the Jukun: A Re-Evaluation of some Theories,’
Africa 36 (2): 135-153.
6) Nupe (a.k.a. Bida)
Forde, D. 1955. Peoples of the Niger-Benue Confluence. Ethnographic Survey of Africa, Part 10.
London; International African Institute.
Mason, M. 1973. ‘Captive and Client Labour and the Economy of the Bida Emirate: 18571901.’ The Journal of African History 14 (3), 453-71.
Mason, M. 1981. Foundations of the Bida Kingdom. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press.
*Nadel, S.F. 1942. A Black Byzantium: the kingdom of Nupe in Nigeria. London: Oxford
University Press.
Nadel, S.F. 1970 [1954] Nupe Religion. New York: Schoken Books.
7) The Sokoto Caliphate
Hogben. S.J. and A. H. M. Kirk-Greene 1966. The Emirates of Northern Nigeria: a preliminary
survey of their historical traditions.. London: Oxford University Press.
*Last, M. 1967. The Sokoto Caliphate. London: Longmans.
Lovejoy, P.E. 2005. Slavery, Commerce and Production in the Sokoto Caliphate of West Africa.
Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Smaldone, J.P. 1977. Warfare in the Sokoto Caliphate: Historical and Sociological Perspectives.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8) Kongo
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*Balandier, G. 1968. Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth
Century. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Freidman, K.E. 1992. Catastrophe and creation: Transformation of an African Society, London:
Routledge.
Hilton, A. 1985. The Kingdom of Kongo. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
MacGaffey, W. 2000. Kongo Political Culture: the conceptual challenge of the particular.
Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.
Miller, J.C. 2002. ‘Central Africa During the Era of the Slave Trade’ in L. Heywood (ed.)
Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora, pp.21-69,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thornton, J. 1983. The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition 1641-1718. Madison (Wi):
University of Wisconsin Press.
9) Bunyoro
Beattie, J. 1971. The Nyoro State. Oxford: Clarendon.
Beattie, J. 1960. Bunyoro: an African Kingdom. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
*Beattie, J. 1964. ‘Bunyoro: An African Feudality,’ Journal of African History 5(1): 25-36.
Kiwanuka, M. 1968. The Empire of Bunyoro Kitara – myth or reality? Kampala: Longmans.
Robertshaw, P. 1999. Seeking and Keeping Power in Bunyuro-Kitara, Uganda, in S. K.
McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa . pp.124-135,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schoenbrun, D.L. 1999 The (in)visible roots of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda in the Lakes
region: AD 800-1300, in S.K. McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in
Africa . pp.136-150, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10) Zulu - Ndebele [it is possible to split this topic]
*Gluckman, M. 1940. ‘The Kingdom of the Zulu of South Africa’ in M. Fortes and E.E. EvansPritchard (eds.) African Political Systems pp.25-55. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beach, D. 1974. ‘Ndebele Raiders and Shona Power’, Journal of African History 15 (4): 633-51.
Binns, C.T. 1963. The Last Zulu Kings. London: Longmans.
Cobbing, J. 1974. ‘The Evolution of the Ndebele amabutho’ Journal of African History 15: 60731.
Hughes, A.J.B. and van Velsen, J. 1954. The Shona and Ndebele of Southern Rhodesia.
Ethnographic Survey of Africa (D. Forde ed.), Southern Africa, Part IV, London:
International African Institute.
Ritter, E.A. 1955. Shaka Zulu: the Rise of the Zulu Empire. London.
11) The Alur and the ‘Segmentary State’
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*Southall, A. 1956. Alur Society: A Study in Processes and Types of Domination. Cambridge:
Heffer.
Southall, A. 1988. The Segmentary State in Africa and Asia. Comparative Studies in Society and
History 30 (1): 52-82.
Southall, A. 1991. The Segmentary State: from the imaginary to the material means of
production, in H. Claessen and P. van de Velde (eds.) Early State Economics, pp. 75-96,
New Brunswick (USA): Transaction.
*Southall, A. 1999. The Segmentary State and the Ritual Phase in Political Economy, in S. K.
McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa . pp.31-38, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
12) Buganda
Kigongo R.M. and A. Reid 2007. Local communities, politics and the management of the
Kasubi tombs, Uganda. World Archaeology 39(3), 371-384.
Kiwanuka M.S.M. 1971. A history of Buganda. London: Longman.
Reid R.J. 2002. Political power in pre-colonial Buganda. Oxford: James Currey.
*Reid R.J. and H. Medard 2000. Merchants, missions, and the remaking of the urban
environment in Buganda c. 1849-c. 1890. In Africa’s Urban Past (eds D.M. Anderson
and R. Rathbone): 98-108. London: Greenwood Press.
Richards A.I. 1964. Authority patterns in traditional Buganda. In The King’s Men: Leadership
and Status in Buganda (ed L.A. Fallers), 256-93. London: Oxford University Press.
Roscoe J. 1911. The Baganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
For Buganda you may also have a look at the relevant sections in the journals of these early European explorers:
Speke J.H. 1863. Journal of the discovery of the source of the Nile. Edinburgh: Blackwood.
Stanley H.M. 1878. Through the Dark Continent. London.
13) The Kingdoms of Western Cameroon [it is possible to split this topic]
*Asombang, R. 1999. Sacred Centers and Urbanization in West Central Africa, in S. K.
McIntosh (ed.) Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa . pp.31-38, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chilver, E.M. and Kaberry, P.M. 1967. The Kingdom of Kom in West Cameroon, in D. Forde
and P.M. Kaberry (eds.) West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century . pp.123-150,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Engard, R.K. 1988. Myth and Political Economy in Bafut (Cameroon): the structural history of
an African kingdom. Paideuma 34: 21-89.
Kaberry, P.M. 1962. Retainers and Royal Households in the Cameroons Grassfields. Cahiers
d’Etudes Africaines 3: 282-298.
Ritzenthaler, P. 1966. The Fon of Bafut. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
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*Warnier, J-P. 2012. The Grassfields of Ancient Cameroun: Ancient Center or Recent
Periphery? Africa Today 58 (3): 58-72.
*Warnier, J-P. 2012. Cameroon Grassfields Civilization. Bamenda: Langaa. (worth purchasing
this one via Amazon for £20 if you are doing this subject)
14) The Polities of the Niger Coastal Delta (e.g. Efik Calabar &/or Igbo Confederations)
*Jones, G.I. 1963. The Trading States of the Oil Rivers: a study of political development in Eastern
Nigeria. London: International African Institute/ Oxford University Press.
Latham, A.J.H. 1973. Old Calabar 1600-1891: the impact of the international economy upon a
traditional society, Oxford: Clarendon.
Northrup, D. 1972. The Growth of Trade among the Igbo before 1800. The Journal of African
History 13: 217-36.
*Nwauwa, A.O. 1995. The Evolution of the Aro Confederacy in Southeast Nigeria, 1690-1720:
a theoretical synthesis of state formation process in Africa. Anthropos 90: 353-64.
Njaka, E. N. 1974. Igbo Political Culture. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Oriji, J. N. 1989. Sacred Authority in Igbo Society, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions,
68.1: 113-123.
Walker, J.B. 1877. Notes on the Politics, Religion and Commerce of Old Calabar. Journal of the
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 6: 119-124.
15) Mende/ Temne (Sierra Leone)
Abraham, A. 2003. An Introduction to the Pre-Colonial History of the Mende of Sierra Leone.
Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.
Dorjahn, V.R. 1960. The Changing Political Institutions of the Temne, Africa 30: 110-140.
Hill, M.H. 1984. Where to Begin? The Place of the Hunter Founder in Mende Histories.
Anthropos 79: 653-656.
*Little, K. 1967. The Mende Chiefdoms of Sierra Leone, in D. Forde and P.M. Kaberry (eds.)
West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century . pp.239-60, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Wylie, K.C. 1969. Innovation and Change in Mende Chieftancy , The Journal of African History.
2: 295-308.
*Wylie, K.C. 1974. The Influence of the Mande on Temne Political Institutions: aspects of
political acculturation, The International Journal of African Historical Studies 7: 255-71.
If you are a fluent French reader other options are available
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