Background to the Ghana empire: Archaeological investigations on the transition to statehood in the Dhar Tichitt region (mauritania)

In this paper, an attempt is made to fit together various kinds of data related to the process of the formation of the Ghana empire, the earliest West African state. An overview of research on this topic outlines some of the major problems concerning state formation in this region. This is followed by a discussion of the key politicoeconomic features and their dynamic relations in the process of social differentiation. The use of this theoretical framework helps to make sense of the Dhar Tichitt archaeological record. After careful examination of the prehistoric data, it seems that, before the advent of the Ghana empire, trends towards state formation were already in motion in the Dhar Tichitt region