INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
ARCLG225
Archaeologies of African Political Traditions
2010-2011
MA Option, 1.0 course unit
Course Co-ordinators:
Dr. Kevin C. MacDonald
room 114
tel. 0207679-1534
e-mail: Kcmacdonald7@aol.com or
kevin.macdonald@ucl.ac.uk
Dr. Andrew Reid
Room 111
tel. 0207679-1531
e-mail: a.reid@ucl.ac.uk
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ARCLG225
Archaeologies of African Political Traditions
Introduction
This course takes as its inception social complexity in Africa and sets out to provide a survey of the
diversity of African political traditions from an archaeological perspective. Each session will take a
detailed look at a particular society or area, and as a result students will gain a broad understanding
of the nature of political traditions across the continent. It is recognized that defining social
organization is one of the key goals of archaeological work but that there are significant limitations
posed by existing frameworks for exploring social organization in the past. In particular we will
explore the relevance of general archaeological theory for understanding past African societies and
indeed will consider the significance of these African examples for generating new theoretical
perspectives. We have avoided the word “state” in discussion of this course because it is a term
loaded with evolutionary preconceptions that we wish to avoid. It will be argued that each African
political tradition has unique aspects that cannot be simply or neatly typologised.
Aims
The essential aims of the course are to:
-Familiarise students with current developments in the archaeology and history of African political
traditions (states) and their implications for the archaeology of social complexity beyond Africa.
-Make students aware of the basic framework of the later prehistory and history of Sub-Saharan
Africa
-Put the interpretation of African later prehistory and historic archaeology in the context of wider
theoretical debates within the discipline
-Understand the opportunities and limitations posed by archaeological data for studying ancient
settlement landscapes and socio-political systems, including variants ranging from stateless and
heterarchical social structures, to systems of warfare and enslavement.
Outcomes
The students will as a result be able to:
-critically assess interpretations of African complex societies and put them into a wider context
-have a general understanding of the Sub-Saharan polities of the Western Sahel, Middle Niger, Great
Lakes region, Zimbabwe plateau and the southern Highveld from the second millennium BC up to
the colonial era.
-participate in general discussions on African socio-political traditions, their attributes and their
archaeological study.
-develop a basic knowledge of the relevant material culture and important sites
Themes that will be explored through the course will include:
- Critical re-assessment of social evolutionary categories
- Archaeological Recognition of Heterarchy versus Hierarchy
- Attribute-based analyses of historical African political, ideological and economic systems
- Archaeologies of slavery/ enslavement
- the economic role of long distance trade and agro-pastoral systems
Class Times: 2-4pm Mondays in Room B13
Classes: Each class will involve either two lectures or a lecture followed by a seminar. The seminars
are intended to provide a forum for discussion of issues drawn from preceding lectures.
Individual readings will be assigned one week in advance for each seminar.
Core Texts: Students may wish to purchase the core text for this course:
Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa (New Directions in Archaeology, Cambridge
University Press) edited by Susan Keech McIntosh, available from Amazon for c.£24
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Readings & Library Resources: Readings for this course should occupy on average four hours of the
students time each week. Reading lists and essay titles will be given out on the first day of class.
Readings are held at the Institute Library, the Science Library (DMS Watson) and the Main UCL
Library. A few sources are at the University of London Senate House library or SOAS.
Assessment: Students are to write one essay counting for 40% of the final mark (ca. 2000 words,
approximately 8 typewritten double-spaced A4 pages excluding references) and one project paper
counting for 60% of their final mark (ca. 3000 words, approximately 12 typewritten double-spaced
A4 pages excluding references). Essay titles are provided at the end of this syllabus as well as initial
guidance for project papers.
Retaining Copies of Written Work: Remember that all marked essays must be returned to the
lecturer within one week of receipt so that they may be available to the external examiner. Please note
that it is an Institute requirement that you retain a copy (this can be electronic) of all coursework
submitted.
Word-length: Strict new regulations with regard to word-length have been introduced UCL-wide
with effect from the 2010-11 session. If your work is found to be between 10% and 20% longer than
the official limit you mark will be reduced by 10%, subject to a minimum mark of a minimum pass,
assuming that the work merited a pass. If your work is more than 20% over-length, a mark of zero
will be recorded. The following should not be included in the word-count: bibliography, appendices,
and tables, graphs and illustrations and their captions.
Turnitin Codes: The Turnitin 'Class ID' is 202685 and the 'Class Enrolment Password' is IoA1011
Further information is given on the IoA website. Turnitin advisors will be available to help you via
email: ioa-turnitin@ucl.ac.uk if needed.
Workload: There will be 13 hours of lectures and 7 hours of seminars for this course. Students will be
expected to undertake around 100 hours of reading for the course, plus 80 hours preparing for, and
producing, the assessed work. This adds up to a total workload of some 200 hours for the course.
Library Resources: In addition to the Library of the Institute of Archaeology, other libraries in the
University of London with holdings of particular relevance to this course are the DMS Watson
Library (UCL) and the SOAS library.
NEW UCL-WIDE PENALTIES FOR LATE SUBMISSION OF COURSEWORK:
· The full allocated mark should be reduced by 5 percentage points for the first working day after the deadline for
the submission of the coursework or dissertation.
· The mark will be reduced by a further 10 percentage points if the coursework or dissertation is submitted
during the following six calendar days.
· Providing the coursework is submitted before the end of the first week of term 3 for undergraduate courses or
by a date during term 3 defined in advance by the relevant Master’s Board of Examiners for postgraduate
taught programmes, but had not been submitted within seven days of the deadline for the submission of the
coursework, it will be recorded as zero but the assessment would be considered to be complete.
· Where there are extenuating circumstances that have been recognised by the Board of Examiners or its
representative, these penalties will not apply until the agreed extension period has been exceeded.
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Submission procedures (coversheets and Turnitin, including Class ID and password): Students are
required to submit hard copy of all coursework to the course co-ordinators pigeon hole via the Red
Essay Box at Reception by the appropriate deadline. The coursework must be stapled to a completed
coversheet (available from the web, from outside Room 411A or from the library) Please note that
new, stringent penalties for late submission have been introduced UCL-wide from 2010-11. 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 also 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 telephone or (preferably) e-mail the Course Co-ordinator, and
follow this up with a completed ERF. Please see the Coursework Guidelines on the IoA website
(or your Degree Handbook) for further details of penalties.
Timescale for return of marked coursework to students: You can expect to receive your marked
work within four calendar weeks of the official submission deadline. If you do not receive your work
within this period, or a written explanation from the marker, you should notify the IoA’s Academic
Administrator, Judy Medrington.
Citing of sources: Coursework should be expressed in a student’s own words giving the exact source
of any ideas, information, diagrams etc. that are taken from the work of others. Any direct quotations
from the work of others must be indicated as such by being placed between inverted commas.
Plagiarism is regarded as a very serious irregularity which can carry very heavy penalties. It is your
responsibility to read and abide by the requirements for presentation, referencing and avoidance of
plagiarism to be found in the IoA ‘Coursework Guidelines’ on the IoA website.
Dyslexia: If you have dyslexia or any other disability, please make your lecturers aware of this.
Please discuss with your lecturers whether there is any way in which they can help you. Students
with dyslexia are reminded to indicate this on each piece of coursework.
Feedback: In trying to make this course as effective as possible, we welcome feedback from students.
All students are asked to give their views on the course in an anonymous questionnaire which will be
circulated at one of the last sessions of the course. These questionnaires are taken seriously and help
the Course Co-ordinator to develop the course. The summarised responses are considered by the
Institute's Staff-Student Consultative Committee, Teaching Committee, and by the Faculty Teaching
Committee. If students are concerned about any aspect of this course we hope they will feel able to
talk to the Course Co-ordinator, but if they feel this is not appropriate, they should consult their
Personal Tutor, the Academic Administrator (Judy Medrington), or the Chair of Teaching Committee
(Dr. Mark Lake).
Attendance: A minimum of 70% attendance is required at both lectures and seminars. An attendance
sheet will be passed around at each class meeting. If you are unable to attend a class, please notify the
lecturer by email. Departments are required to report each student’s attendance to UCL Registry at
frequent intervals throughout each term.
Information for intercollegiate and interdepartmental students: Students enrolled in Departments
outside the Institute should collect hard copy of the Institute’s coursework guidelines from Judy
Medrington’s office.
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ARCLG225
Archaeologies of African Political Traditions
Syllabus
Lectures/ Seminars
Note: MacDonald will lecture weeks 1-6, Reid will lecture in weeks 7-10
10/1 Introduction to the Course
African Political Traditions
17/1 Beginnings: From Tumuli and Enclosures through the Tichitt Tradition
Mande Political Tradition
24/1 Middle Niger Urbanism: a self-organising landscape?
Seminar: Interpreting Compounds and Settlement Clusters
31/1 What, if anything, was the Empire of Ghana?
Seminar: Written History, Oral Tradition and Archaeology
7/2
Towards an Archaeology of the Empire of Mali
Seminar: Sunjata as King Arthur?
**Reading Week**
21/2 Segou, Slavery and Historical Archaeology
Seminar: The Archaeology of Slavery
28/2 research contexts in eastern and southern Africa
7/3
Cattle and Power: in Southern Africa
10/3 The Zimbabwe Tradition
17/3 Nkore, Buganda and the Great Lakes Region
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Reading List (Starred Readings are especially recommended)
Introduction to African Political Traditions
Crumley, Carole J. 1995. Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies. In
Ehrenreich, Crumley, and Levy (eds.) Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex
Societies.pp.1-5. Archaeological papers of the American Anthropological
Association Number 6.
Earle, T. 1997. How Chiefs Come to Power: the Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Fortes, M. and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.) 1940. African Political Systems, Oxford:
Oxford 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.
*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.
*McIntosh, S. K. (ed.) 1999. Beyond Chiefdoms: pathways to complexity in Africa .
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Middleton, J. and Tait, D. 1958. Tribes Without Rulers: Studies in African Segmentary
Systems. London: Routledge.
Pauketat, T.R. 2007. Chiefdoms and other Archaeological Delusions. Lanham (MD):
Altamira Press.
Service, E.R. 1980. Origins of the State and Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton.
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.
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., R. Mauny and L.V. Thomas (eds.) 1964. The Historian in Tropical Africa,
London: International African Institute and Oxford University Press.
Yoffee, N. 2005. Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and
Civilizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Beginnings: From Tumuli and Enclosures through the Tichitt Tradition
Tumuli and Enclosures
*Brass, M. 2007.Reconsidering the emergence of social complexity in early Saharan
pastoral societies. Sahara 18: 7-22.
di Lernia, S. 2006. Building monuments, creating identity: Cattle cult as a social
response to rapid environmental changes in the Holocene Sahara. Quaternary
International 151: 50-62.
Gaussen, J. and Gaussen, M. 1998. Vestiges Préhistoriques dans le sud Tanezrouft.
Paléo 1: 7-71.
Gaussen, M. 1990. Petits instruments en pierre polie du Sahara Méridional (Oued
Tilemsi et ses abords). l’Anthropologie 94 : 559-68.
*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.
Paris, F. 2000. African livestock remains from Saharan mortuary contexts. In The
Origins and Development of African Livestock: Archaeology, Genetics, Linguistics and
Ethnography, eds. R. M. Blench and K. C. MacDonald, 111-126, London: UCL
Press.
Paris, F. 2006. Les Sépultures du Sahara Nigérien du Néolithique à l’Islamisation (2
volumes). Paris : ORSTOM.
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.
Tauveron, M., K. Heinz, and N. Ferhat 2009. Neolithic Domestication and
Pastoralism in central Sahara : the cattle necropolis of Mankhor (Tadart
Algérienne). Palaeoecology of Africa 29: 179-186.
The Tichitt Tradition
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.
7
*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 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 (text available from
K. MacDonald)
*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.
Munson, P.J. 1989. About: “Economie et société Néolithique du Dhar Tichitt
(Mauritanie)”, Sahara 2: 106-108
Mande Political Tradition
*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.
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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 (2): 255-271.
Middle Niger Urbanism: a self-organising landscape?
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.
Other ways of looking at clustering:
Saul, M. and P. Royer 2001. West African Challenge to Empire: culture and history
in the Volta-Bani War. London/ Athens (OH): James Currey/ Ohio University
Press. Read chapter 1
Kopytoff, I. (ed.) 1987. The African Frontier: the Reproduction of Traditional African
Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Read chapter 1
What, if anything, was the Empire of Ghana?
Berthier, S. 1997. Recherches Archéologiques sur la capitale de l’empire de Ghana.
BAR International Series No.680. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Dieterlen, G. and Sylla, D. 1992. L’Empire de Ghana: le Wagadu et les traditions de
Yéréré. Paris: Karthala-Arsan.
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 CanaaniteIsraelite Perspectives. Dettelbach: Verlag J.H. Röll. Chapter 19 only
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. Dowler, A. (ed.)
in press. Money, Trade and Trade Routes in Pre-Islamic North Africa. London:
British Museum Press. (text available from K. MacDonald).
9
*Mauny, R. 1954. The Question of Ghana. Africa 24: 200-213.
Raimbault, M. and K. Sanogo (eds.) 1991. Recherches Archéologiques au Mali. Paris:
ACCT-Karthala.
Togola, T. 2008. T. Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema
Region, Mali (West Africa), pp. 93-101, Oxford: BAR.
Sources relevant to both Ghana and Mali:
Belcher, S.1999. Epic Traditions of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Conrad, D. C. 1984. Oral Sources on Links between Great States: Sumanguru,
Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga. History in Africa 11: 35-55.
Delafosee, M. [1912] 1972. Haut-Sénégal-Niger. Paris : G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose.
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.
Masonen, P. 2000. The Negroland Revisited: Discovery and Invention of the Sudanese
Middle Ages. Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
*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
Nixon, S. 2009. Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali): new archaeological
investigations of early trans-Saharan trade, Azania: Archaeological Research in
Africa 44: 217-55.
Additional source on oral history:
Vansina, J. 1985. Oral Tradition as History. London: James Currey.
Towards an Archaeology of the 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.
Filipowiak, W. 1979. Etudes archéologiques sur la capitale médiévale du Mali. Szczecin :
Muzeum Nardowe.
Bell, N.M. 1972. The Age of Mansa Musa of Mali: Problems in Succession and
Chronology. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 5(2): 221-234
*Hunwick, J.O. 1973. The Mid-Fourteenth Century Capital of Mali. The Journal of
African History, 14(2): 195-206
Jamsen, J. 1996. The Representation of Status in Mande: Did the Mali Empire Still
Exist in the NineteenthCentury? History in Africa, 23: 87-109.
10
*Jansen, J. 2000. Masking Sunjata: A Hermeneutical Critique, History in Africa 27:
131-141.
Massing, A.W. 1985. The Mane, the Decline of Mali, and Mandinka Expansion
Towards the South Windward Coast. Cahiers d'Études Africaines, 25 : 21-55.
Mauny, R. 1980. Review : Filipowiak, W. Etudes archéologiques sur la capitale du
Mali. Journal des Africanistes 50(2) : 265 – 266
*Niane, D.T. 1994 Sundiata : an epic of old Mali (G.D. Pickett translator). Harlow :
Longman
Segou, Slavery and Historical Archaeology
*Bazin, Jean (1974) War and Servitude in Segou, Economy and Society 3:107-144.
Lovejoy, P. 1983. Transformations in Slavery: a history of slavery in Africa. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
*MacDonald, K.C., Camara, S., Sow, M. (in press). Segou, Slavery, and Sifinso. in
Monroe,J. C., Ogundiran,A. (ed.) Landscapes of Power in Atlantic West Africa.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (in Institute teaching collection)
Meillassoux, C. 1991. The Anthropology of Slavery: The Womb of Iron and Gold.
London: Athlone.
Miers, S. and I. Kopytoff (eds.) 1977. Slavery in Africa. Madison, Wisconsin:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Roberts, Richard L. (1987) Warriors, Merchants, and Slaves: the State and the Economy
in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Robertshaw, P. and Duncan, W.L. 2008. African Slavery: Archaeology and
Decentralized Societies, In Catherine M. Cameron (ed.) Invisible Citizens: Captives
and Their Consequences, pp. 57-79, Utah: University of Utah Press.
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Essay Titles
Essays are due 2nd March to K.C. MacDonald or Andrew Reid:
1. Using at least three case studies, explore the interface of history and archaeology in
interpreting African political traditions. In what ways might this interface be improved?
2. Evaluate the comparative utility of new approaches to social complexity in Africa (e.g.
McIntosh 1999) versus the social evolutionary perspective (e.g. Earle 1997). Use specific
examples from historic/ archaeological cases.
3. Archaeologists have used spatial evidence to interpret ‘power’ in the African intra- and
inter-site landscape since the 1970s? How reliable do you believe such social reconstructions
to be?
4. Consider what is meant by the term ‘segmentary’ in the Anthropological literature. To
what extent are lineages and age-sets prime arbiters of political power in Africa?
About the Project Paper
In relatively few instances has a critical mass of archaeological literature built up on trying to
explain the socio-political characteristics of African polities. We present below five
examples, with key readings. Students will pick one of these options and fully digest the
associated key readings, before writing a critical assessment of the viability of these models
based upon their learning in this course.
1. R.J. & S.K. McIntosh The Inland Niger Delta
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. 1999. Modelling 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.
2. Augustin Holl et al. Dhar Tichitt
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
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4. Thomas Huffman ‘Central Cattle Pattern’
5. Thomas Huffman ‘Zimbabwe Culture Pattern’
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