Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa)

Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa) PDF Author: Téréba Togola
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 73 Series Editors: John Alexander, Laurence Smith and Timothy Insoll

Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa)

Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa) PDF Author: Téréba Togola
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 73 Series Editors: John Alexander, Laurence Smith and Timothy Insoll

Ancient African Metallurgy

Ancient African Metallurgy PDF Author: Michael S. Bisson
Publisher: AltaMira Press
ISBN: 1461705924
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Gold. Copper. Iron. Metal working in Africa has been the subject of both public lore and extensive archaeological investigation. Here, four of the leading contemporary researchers on this topic attempt to provide a complete synthesis of current debates and understandings: Where, how, and when was metal first introduced to the continent? How were iron and copper tools, implements, and objects used in everyday life, in trade, in political and cultural contexts? What role did metal objects play in the ideological systems of precolonial African peoples? Substantive chapters address the origins of metal working and the technology and the various uses and meanings of copper and iron. An ethnoarchaeological account in the words of a contemporary iron worker enriches the archaeological explanations. This book provides a comprehensive, timely summary of our current knowledge.

Atlas of Mammal Distribution through Africa from the LGM (~18 ka) to Modern Times

Atlas of Mammal Distribution through Africa from the LGM (~18 ka) to Modern Times PDF Author: Hélène Jousse
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784915416
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
This work provides the first overview of mammal species distributions in Africa since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 18 ky) to modern time

Divine Consumption

Divine Consumption PDF Author: Stephen A. Dueppen
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 195044631X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Kirikongo is an archaeological site composed of thirteen remarkably well-preserved discrete mounds occupied continually from the early first to the mid second millennium AD. It spans a dynamic era that saw the growth of large settlement communities and regional socio-political formations, development of economic specializations, intensification in interregional commercial networks, and the effects of the Black Death pandemic. The extraordinary preservation of architectural units, activity areas and industrial zones provides a unique opportunity to discern the cultural practices that created stratified mounds (tells) in this part of West Africa. Building from a new detailed zooarchaeological analysis and refinements in stratigraphic precision, this book argues that repeated ritual activity was a significant factor in the accumulation of stratified archaeological deposits. The book details consistencies in form and content of discrete loci containing animal bones, food remains, and broken and unbroken objects and suggests that these are the remnants of sequential ancestor shrines created when domestic spaces were converted to tombs or dedicated mortuary monuments were constructed. Continuities and transformations in ancestral rituals at Kirikongo inform on earlier West African ritual practices from the second millennium BC as well as political and social transformations at the site. More broadly, this case study provides new insights on anthropogenic mound (tell) formation processes, social zooarchaeology, material culture theory, historical ontology, and the analysis of ritual and religion in the archaeological record.

Facing the Sea of Sand

Facing the Sea of Sand PDF Author: Barry Cunliffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192674757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Northern Africa is dominated by the Sahara Desert, stretching across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. This book is about the people who lived around the edges of the Desert and the different ways in which they responded to its challenges, establishing networks of communication across its expanse. But the Sahara has not always been a desert. From about 9000 BC the region began to enjoy a warm, humid period allowing vegetation to flourish and wild animals to move in. Humans soon followed practising pastoral economies but with the onset of harsher conditions once more around 3000 BC the desert reclaimed its own. Since then fluctuations in climate have continued to affect the lives of people living around the desert fringes. The communities occupying the North African Coast and in the Nile Valley have come under the influence of the states dominating the Near East and the Mediterranean but those living in in the Sahel to the south of the desert have developed their own distinctive cultures. The book tells the story of the growing links between the two worlds, showing that Africa played a crucial part in the development of the Old World before it was drawn into the story of the New World.

The Epic of Sumanguru Kante

The Epic of Sumanguru Kante PDF Author: Stephen Bulman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004349332
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
The Epic of Sumanguru Kante contains the Bamana text and English translation of griot Abdoulaye Sako’s oral narrative of the life of Sumanguru, recorded in 1997 in Koulikoro (Mali), together with explanatory notes, a scholarly introduction, and sections on the Bamana language and musical accompaniment. Sumanguru is a familiar figure within Manding epic oral traditions about ancient Mali. But while these narratives generally focus on Sunjata Keita, Sako’s oral poem is rare in according Sumanguru the central role. In so doing he includes hitherto undocumented episodes relating to Sumanguru’s life and role as the ruler of Soso, the little known state said to have flourished in the western Sudan between the fall of ancient Ghana and rise of ancient Mali.

African Civilizations

African Civilizations PDF Author: Graham Connah
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107011876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
This new revised edition offers expanded coverage, new illustrations and an extended new list of references.

African Dominion

African Dominion PDF Author: Michael A. Gomez
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
In a radically new account of the importance of early Africa in global history, Gomez traces how Islam's growth in West Africa, along with intensifying commerce that included slaves, resulted in a series of political experiments unique to the region, culminating in the rise of empire.

Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna

Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna PDF Author: Stephen A. Dueppen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317543653
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Many West African societies have egalitarian political systems, with non-centralised distributions of power. 'Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna' analyses a wide range of archaeological data to explore the development of such societies. The volume offers a detailed case study of the village settlement of Kirikongo in western Burkina Faso. Over the course of the first millennium, this single homestead extended control over a growing community. The book argues that the decentralization of power in the twelfth century BCE radically transformed this society, changing gender roles, public activities, pottery making and iron-working. 'Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna' will be of interest to students of political science, anthropology, archaeology and the history of West Africa.

Rethinking Global Governance

Rethinking Global Governance PDF Author: Justin Jennings
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000872424
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This book argues that long-ignored, non-western political systems from the distant and more recent past can provide critical insights into improving global governance. These societies show how successful collection action can occur by dividing sovereignty, consensus building, power from below, and other mechanisms. For a better tomorrow, we need to free ourselves of the colonial constraints on our political imagination. A pandemic, war in Europe, and another year of climatic anomalies are among the many indications of the limits of global governance today. To meet these challenges, we must look far beyond the status quo to the thousands of successful mechanisms for collective action that have been cast aside a priori because they do not fit into Western traditions of how people should be organized. Coming from long past or still enduring societies often dismissed as “savages” and “primitives” until well into the twentieth century, the political systems in this book were often seen as too acephalous, compartmentalized, heterarchical, or anarchic to be of use. Yet as globalization makes international relations more chaotic, long-ignored governance alternatives may be better suited to today’s changing realities. Understanding how the Zulu, Trypillian, Alur, and other collectives worked might be humanity’s best hope for survival. This book will be of interest both to those seeking to apply archaeological and ethnographic data to issues of broad contemporary concern and to academics, politicians, policy makers, students, and the general public seeking possible alternatives to conventional thinking in global governance.