Settlement and economic history during the Iron Age and Early Medieval times in the West African Sahel
Final Report Abstract
This DFG-funded project initially aimed at investigating the settlement and economic history of communities established at the eastern Niger Bend during the Iron Age and early medieval times. Compared to other West African regions between Lake Chad and the Senegalese coast, the eastern Niger Bend evidently played a special role in the history of transcontinental contacts, being early a cultural melting pot that steadily gained new impulses from the outside. The perhaps most unequivocal evidence for this relates to the increasingly growing corpus of archaeological finds indicating the import of goods from across the Sahara prior to the Arab conquest of North Africa as well as trade along the river and its hinterlands. Alongside broadening that kind evidence, a major objective of the project was to understand the cultural and economic context of the indigenous people involved in such long-distance trade/contacts. In this regard, the project focused on carrying out field investigations at a number of known Iron Age and medieval settlement sites in the Gourma region of SW Niger. This region is archaeologically especially interesting, as it is amid the northernmost West African source of a highly demanded trans-Saharan trade item: gold. In view of political unrest and security problems, no fieldwork could be conduct at any of the project sites. As an alternative program, a series of analyses on artefacts from excavations previously conducted at relevant eastern Niger Bend sites were conducted. Overall, the analysis provided significant and unprecedented new evidence of long-distance trade contacts. Amongst those is the earliest direct evidence (5th or 6th century AD) of the local processing of imported brass at the site of Garbey Kourou, located at the gold-bearing Lower Sirba River in SW Niger. The techniques and materials involved indicate a strong link to the likewise brass processing site of Marandet in Central Niger, about 800km away. The latter site possibly acted as a kind of node in a larger trading network across the Sahel and into the Sahara. Within this network, gold from the Sirba region might have got exchanged for brass of North African origin, but such activities remain yet archaeologically unproven. In any case, the Garbey Kourou finds hint at the existence of a hitherto completely unknown and still poorly understood network of communication and trade in this part of the West African Sahel. Alongside the Garbey Kourou analyses, archived grave goods from the famous necropolis of Bura Asinda- Sikka in Southwest Niger, thought to date roughly to between the 3rd and 11th c. AD, were also investigated in the course of the project. They were expected to provide further indication of interregional and long-distance contacts. Indeed, analyses of glass beads and bronze artefacts indicate that at least some of them originate from far south along the river, supporting the hypothesis that the Niger acted as a major trade axis in the first and early second millennium AD. The analyses of Bura finds even brought more to light: fragments of cotton textiles were found preserved on corroded bronze artefacts. Some of those show technical particularities known from Tellem textiles. The Bura fragments are presently the earliest evidence for the use of cotton textiles in SW Niger. Due to enduring travel and fieldwork restrictions in the Republic of Niger, a change in the geographical focus of the project was early decided. The tumuli zone south of the lower Senegal River was selected as alternative, since the thematic content of the original program could be maintained. As settlements sites were unknown, research concentrated on examining the burial monuments and their immediate surroundings. By means of geophysical prospecting and archaeological excavations, a wealth of new information on the monuments and the people who built them could be gained. The excavation of one tumulus revealed the high status burial of a richly appointed individual, interred in the 12th/13th c. AD. The deceased was wearing gold and silver jewellery and was accompanied by an impressive set of decorated weapons and a farming tool. Archaeometric analyses of gold, silver and brass objects indicate that they were very probably imported from North Africa. Beyond grave goods, the high status individual was accompanied by six younger adults who were rather carelessly interred. Preliminary bioarchaeological analyses indicate that their origins and dietary practices differed from those of the high status individual. The investigations furthermore testify that the region was repeatedly occupied during the last 3500 years. Several subsurface archaeological features unrelated to the mounds were examined and provided a first insight into the material culture of the region’s past inhabitants from the Later Stone Age to the time when the tumuli were built.
Publications
- 2013. Initial encounters: Seeking traces of ancient trade connections between West Africa and the wider world. Afriques. Débats, méthodes et terrains d’histoire
Magnavita, S.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.4000/afriques.1145) - 2014. Sahel, Senegal/Niger. Siedlungs- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte in der Eisenzeit und dem Frühmittelalter im Sahel Westafrikas - Die Arbeiten 2012 und 2013. e-Forschungsberichte des DAI 2014 (1), pp. 104-108
Magnavita, S.
- 2015. Der Lanzeneffekt. Ein Grabhügel bei Kael, Senegal. Archäologie Weltweit 1, 32- 33
Magnavita, S.
- 2015. Nouvelles recherches archéologiques dans la zone des tumuli du Sénégal. Nyame Akuma 83, 3-10
Magnavita, S. & Thiaw, I.
- First geophysical exploration in the tumuli zone of Central Senegal: A multidimensional approach. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, Volume 52, 2017 - Issue 1, pp 100-122
Magnavita, S.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2017.1290200) - Track and Trace. Archaeometric Approaches to the Study of Early Trans-Saharan Trade. In: Mattingly, D.J. et al. (Hrsg.), Trade in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond. Trans-Saharan Archaeology [Volume I]. Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp 393-413. 9781107196995
Magnavita, S.
