Changing Crafts in the Spaces Between States: Formal,Functional, and Decorative Transformations in Fifteenth-Century CE Ceramics at Kirikongo,Burkina Faso (West Africa)

The fifteenth century CE in central West Africa saw the rise and/or expansion of states and empires, major shifts in settlement patterns, and growth of new trading connections between the forest and Sahel. However, very little is known about how these events affected areas not incorporated into states, such as western Burkina Faso, which was likely home to diverse noncentralized societies. Previous archaeological work at the site of Kirikongo, in the Mouhoun Bend, Burkina Faso, examined the histories of these communities from ca. 100 to 1400 CE. This paper introduces the fifteenth-century (Red IV) ceramics from Kirikongo, exploring their form, function, and decoration and assessing their presence at other sites in the region. Based on these distributions, many communities in the Mouhoun Bend decreased in size or were abandoned during Red IV. During Red IV, potters also adopted new ceramic forms and decorations. These may be associated with new economic activities and with increasing entanglements with Mande and/or Dogon communities.