Remarks on Early Iron Age Burial Sites from Southern Cameroon

For the first time, graves dating to the Early Iron Age between 2000 BP and 1700 BP have been discovered in the southern Cameroonian rain forest. The features in question, from the sites of Akonétye and Campo, were almost identically furnished with iron objects and ceramic pots. Other features with more or less corresponding finds have been discovered at Mouanko–Lobethal, Mouanko–Epolo, Kribi–Mpoengu, and Yaoundé–Obobogo. The spatial distribution of these sites and their near synchronous dating suggest that a particular burial rite was practiced over a considerable area of southern Cameroon during the Early Iron Age.     

State Formation in Southern Africa: A Reply to Kim and Kusimba

Kim and Kusimba misunderstand the archaeological data pertaining to K2, Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe because they rely on secondary sources. Before these capitals can be categorized according to definitions of early states elsewhere, they need to be interpreted in their own terms. Ultimately, Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe are no less complex because they differ from early states in Asia or Middle America.     

Towards a Socialised Archaeology of Ceramics in Great Lakes Africa

This paper presents results of recent research in Kenya and Uganda on ceramics from the first and early to mid second millennia ad. Whereas previous research has tended to emphasise the role of ceramics as chronological tools, or as an index of past ethno-linguistic identity, this paper will emphasise the role of ceramics as functioning tools. Combining archive and published data with new results from fieldwork, the evidence presented here demonstrates continuity of settlement in the Victoria Nyanza region between first millennium Urewe users and second millennium Transitional Urewe and Entebbe ceramics, and the emergence of specialist lacustrine communities. The changing nature of ceramics over this time span is compared with evidence from historical linguistics to suggest a shift in social authority from the family home to the wider community in the second millennium, and the growing influence of economic wealth or individual leadership.     

Postcolonial Archaeologies in Africa: Breaking the Silence

Postcolonial archaeologies in Africa are engaged in a variety of agendas including the decolonization of everyday practices in the field and in the classroom. Postcolonial theory, concerned with issues of power and the Other, is increasingly being invoked to examine how archaeologists conduct their field research and how archaeology is used to dismantle essentialized histories—the metanarratives that arose in the colonial as well as the postcolonial era. Easily misunderstood, however, is the passion expressed by some African archaeologists who are voicing their own views while simultaneously trying to free themselves from dominating “expert” voices. These occurrences create tensions in archaeological discourse that are a natural part of decolonizing archaeology, joining other forms of disenchantment, particularly the disenchantments arising in contemporary African communities about social services, civil society, and human rights. Archaeologists are also implicated in disenchantments as they conduct investigations in the midst of people who may be without water or are suffering from HIV/AIDS—conditions that starkly contrast with their own comfortable lives. We may also need to reconsider how to deal with states that see archaeological research as contrary to nation building. This essay responds to some current misunderstandings that have arisen over these and related issues.     

The Hammers of Mawu: Ironworking Traditions in the Togo Hills,Ghana

This paper examines ironworking practices and traditions among the Mawu (Akpafu) and Lolobi communities of the northern Volta Region of Ghana. It compares them with other accounts gathered from published sources and observations made during fieldwork conducted in the 1970s. It describes the processes of mining, smelting, and tool manufacturing from reconstructions and oral histories and delineates the transformations that have been worked on the content of the tradition in the past 100 years. The narratives of the migrations of the Mawu, gleaned from their own elders, from ground surface evidence, and from written reports are considered in the context of archaeological and historical evidence from other parts of southern Ghana. The conventional picture of the movement of the Mawu/Lolobi communities is one of displacement by incoming groups, but the conclusion that they have been pushed within the past 150 years into the very district containing the greatest concentration of iron-rich deposits in this whole mountain area is given critical examination. It is likely that the Togo hills have been the site of ironworking for several centuries. It is, therefore, suggested that these communities may represent the distillation of a formerly more widespread set of such communities which existed wherever iron ore was to be found in southeast Ghana.     

Rituals of Consumption and the Politics of Feasting on the Eastern African Coast,AD 700–1500

Historically, the Swahili of the eastern African coast have performed feasts through which they negotiated and contested social power. Feasts draw on tradition and practice, but create the space for, and conditions of, imbalance and social debt. Drawing on this historical frame, I examine the archaeology of feasting in the more distant Swahili past, AD 700–1500, in particular looking at how feasts can domesticate distant power—the power drawn from objects and practices from elsewhere. By charting changing assemblages of imported and local ceramics alongside settlement and food preferences, I examine developments in feasting patterns and the way feasts provided a social context within which local and distant power could be translated into authority.