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Early States of the Western Sudan (African Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2. From the late 8th century to 1500 CE, a series of major polities emerged in the Sudanic zone between the Niger River and the Atlantic. All drew significant resources from long-distance and trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves, according to contemporaneous chroniclers writing in Arabic. Both Ghana (or Wagadu, as the Soninke remember their ancient state) and Gawgaw (Gao) are mentioned between the late 8th to the 10th centuries, with considerable detail—especially for Ghana—provided by al-Bakri in the 11th century. Al-Bakri also furnishes the earliest mention of Takrur, located on the Senegal River. As the power of Ghana waned, smaller successor states emerged. In the 13th century, all these areas were consolidated within the hegemony of the Empireof Mali, known to us from Ibn Battuta’s eyewitness account, among others, and from versions of the riveting Epic of Sunjata. In the 15th century, as Mali declined, Songhay reasserted power from its capital at Gao. The antiquity both of trans-Saharan trade and these trade-based polities has been the subject of considerable discussion (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article on Trans-Saharan Trade). Was there a trade route from Libya to the Niger Bend in the mid-1st millennium BCE? Was the Ghana Empire founded as early as 400 CE, as one often reads? Archaeology is essential to evaluating these issues. Imports of copper and glass in sites just south of the Sahara increase during the period 400–800 CE. The latter half of this time period coincides with the initial Arab advance into North Africa, and the establishment of trading centers at Tahert and Sijilmasa in the Magreb. Large-scale desert transport of heavy commodities such as salt and metals was made possible by the spread of the camel as a desert pack animal in the 1st millennium CE. With the spread of Islam and literacy, more-expansive trade networks carrying far more goods were in place by 1000 CE. In the 11th century, a desert confederation of Sanhaja Berbers established the powerful Almoravid Empire, which provided a unified political field for trade from the Senegal River to Spain. The apogee of trans-Saharan trade extended from the 11th to 15th centuries, at which point European traders began to divert the gold traffic to the coast, and the states of the western Sudan subsequently declined.
  3. General Overviews
  4. General overviews of the history of the early states of the western Sudan are constructed around three major axes: political relations, trade, and Islam. Levtzion 1973 is a key source focused primarily on Ghana and Mali. Topical overview essays, some also by Levtzion, are gathered in Ajayi and Crowder 1985, Fage 1978, Oliver 1977, and Hrbek 1992. Mauny 1961 presents a compendium of archaeological, historical, and geographic information relevant to the “medieval” period of the early states of the western Sudan. Kea 2004 considers a time frame similar to Mauny’s and views the archaeological and historical data for the western Sudan through the lens of world systems theory. Connah 2001 presents an overview chapter primarily grounded in archaeology of the development of civilization in the West African savanna.
  5. Ajayi, J. F. A., and Michael Crowder, eds. History of West Africa. Vol. 1. 3d ed. London: Longman, 1985.
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  7. A still-useful collection of essays on precolonial West African regions. Unusual at the time, in that eleven of the fifteen distinguished Africanist contributors were professors at West African universities. See especially chapter 4 by Nehemia Levtzion, “The Early States of the Western Sudan to 1500” (pp. 129–166), and chapter 6 by John Hunwick, “Songhay, Bornu and Hausaland in the Sixteenth Century” (pp. 205–242). Originally published in 1971.
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  9. Connah, Graham. African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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  11. Geographically organized, primarily archaeological overview of the civilizations of tropical Africa. See chapter 4, on the West African savanna (pp. 108–143).
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  13. Fage, J. D., ed. The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 2, From c. 500 B.C. to A.D. 1050. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  15. Of particular interest in this volume are “Trans-Saharan Contacts and the Iron Age in West Africa” by Raymond Mauny (pp. 272–341), and “The Sahara and the Sudan from the Arab Conquest of the Maghrib to the Rise of the Almoravids” (pp. 637–684) and “The Hegemony of Songhay” (pp. 415–462), both by Nehemia Levtzion.
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  17. Hrbek, Ivan, ed. General History of Africa. Vol. 3, Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. London: James Currey, 1992.
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  19. Several chapters are still useful, especially 11 (on the role of the Sahara in North-South relations, pp. 146–162), 13 (on the Almoravids, pp. 176–189), and 14 (on trade routes in West Africa, pp. 190–215).
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  21. Kea, Ray A. “Expansions and Contractions: World-Historical Change and the Western Sudan World-System (1200/1000 B.C.–1200/1250 A.D.).” Journal of World-Systems Research 10.3 (2004): 723–816.
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  23. A five-part overview of archaeological and historical evidence contributing to an understanding of the development and chronology of urbanization, social systems, and trade networks in sub-Saharan West Africa and their relationship to worldwide historical change. Draws some conclusions and connections that exceed the quality of the archaeological data on which they are based.
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  25. Levtzion, Nehemia. Ancient Ghana and Mali. Studies in African History 7. London: Methuen, 1973.
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  27. In the decades since its publication, this remains the definitive study of the medieval states of West Africa.
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  29. Mauny, Raymond. Tableau géographique de l’Ouest africain au Moyen Age. Mémoires de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire 61. Dakar, Senegal: IFAN, 1961.
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  31. This important source pulled together all the colonial-period reports on archaeology and history in the French colonies in West Africa, as well as the relevant Arabic texts. Encyclopedic and erudite, it remains a key resource.
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  33. Oliver, Roland, ed. The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 3, From c. 1050 to c. 1600. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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  35. In this volume, see especially “The Western Maghrib and Sudan” by Nehemia Levtzion (pp. 331–462). The chapter by J. D. Fage on “Upper and Lower Guinea” (pp. 463–518) contains an important section on developments before the arrival of Europeans on the Atlantic coast, describing trade relations with the interior, including Ghana/Wagadu and Mali.
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  37. Reference Works
  38. For a comprehensive encyclopedia of Africa, Middleton and Miller 2008 is the standard reference, although for early West African states, Shillington 2004, a historical encyclopedia, is more relevant. Both Silberman 2012 and Vogel 1997 provide archaeological information. As a general reference on North African Islamic states, the online Qantara Mediterranean Heritage resource has maps and historical summaries. Ajayi and Crowder 1985 and Freeman-Grenville 1991 are historical atlases.
  39. Ajayi, J. F. Ade, and Michael Crowder. Historical Atlas of Africa. London: Longman, 1985.
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  41. The standard reference atlas for African history. Oversized, with color maps with trans-Saharan trade (map 32), Arab settlement and spread of Islam (map 22), and West Africa before 1400 (map 24) of particular relevance.
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  43. Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. The New Atlas of African History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
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  45. Not as sumptuous as Ajayi and Crowder 1985, but with smaller, more-detailed maps, and with interesting inclusions such as a map of North Africa according to Herodotus (pp. 18–19) and al-Idrisi’s 1154 map of Europe and Africa (pp. 48–49).
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  47. Middleton, John, and Joseph C. Miller, eds. New Encyclopedia of Africa. 5 vols. Detroit: Thomson/Gale, 2008.
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  49. Updates and expands the classic Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. It has some useful articles for the early western Sudan (e.g., on individual sites such as Gao, Jenne-jeno, and Kumbi Saleh) but is oriented primarily toward more-recent time periods. Information on ancient Ghana, Mali, and Songhay is scattered in different articles and can best be located by using the index in Vol. 5.
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  51. Qantara Mediterranean Heritage: Islam.
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  53. This outstanding online reference resource (funded by the European Union) has useful maps and short articles on the shifting constellations of dynastic caliphates, emirates, and other polities established in North Africa and the Sahara from the 7th century onward. Idrisids, Rustamids, Fatimids, and Almoravids are of particular relevance to the development of trans-Saharan trade networks.
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  55. Silberman, Neal Asher, ed. Oxford Companion to Archaeology. 2d ed. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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  57. Contains overview articles on “West African Savanna Kingdoms” (pp. 369–372) and “The Sahara, Caravan Trade, and Islam” (pp. 372–375) but is otherwise thin on West Africa in comparison with coverage for East Africa.
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  59. Shillington, Kevin, ed. Encyclopedia of African History. 3 vols. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004.
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  61. Topics of interest include Sahara, Ghana Empire, Mali Empire, and Songhay Empire, each with two or more related articles. The thematic index in Vol. 1 is well laid out and easy to use. For earlier periods, the archaeology of West Africa is weakly represented, compared to the coverage for eastern and southern Africa.
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  63. Vogel, Joseph O., ed. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa: Archaeology, History, Languages, Cultures, and Environments. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 1997.
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  65. A useful compendium of articles on all aspects of African prehistory. See especially entries for West African states (pp. 489–496), West African and Western Saharan trade—now somewhat dated (pp. 529–531); and salt production and the salt trade (pp. 535–539).
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  67. Anthologies
  68. These are all collections of primary Arabic sources in translation. Levtzion and Spaulding 2003 presents unannotated excerpts from the major sources. Both Levtzion and Hopkins 1981 and Cuoq 1975 are authoritative, scholarly works with extensive interpretive and critical annotations.
  69. Cuoq, Joseph M. Recueil des sources arabes concernant l’Afrique occidentale du VIIIe au XVIe siécle: Bilād al-Sūdān. Source d’Histoire Médiévale. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975.
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  71. Provides a wider range of sources than does Levtzion and Hopkins 1981.
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  73. Levtzion, Nehemia, and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds. Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Translated by J. F. P. Hopkins. Fontes Historiae Africanae, Series Arabica 4. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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  75. Exemplary collection of translated and extensively annotated texts on West Africa, written in Arabic between the 8th and 15th centuries.
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  77. Levtzion, Nehemia, and Jay Spaulding, eds. Medieval West Africa: Views from Arab Scholars and Merchants. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2003.
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  79. Useful compilation of extracts from Levtzion and Hopkins 1981 on West African topics.
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  81. Journals
  82. A number of scholarly journals publish articles on West African precolonial history. The Journal of African History and International Journal of African Historical Studies provide coverage of current research in African history, which in recent years has infrequently included the precolonial period in the western Sudan. Some are designed for more-specific parameters; for example, cultural in the case of Mande Studies and methodological for History in Africa. African Archaeological Review and Journal of African Archaeology focus on current research in archaeology.
  83. African Archaeological Review. 1983–.
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  85. The first journal devoted to the archaeology of the entire continent.
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  87. History in Africa. 1974–.
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  89. Published annually, accepts articles on all African periods and places but emphasizes methodological studies dealing with problems in revealing the history of nonliterate and precolonial cultures; includes archival reports.
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  91. International Journal of African Historical Studies. 1971–.
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  93. A leading journal of all periods of African history. Coverage of the precolonial period is somewhat thin but includes several key articles relevant to the early states of the western Sudan. Previously known as African Historical Studies (1968–1971).
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  95. Journal of African Archaeology. 2003–.
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  97. High production values, including color photos, characterize this relatively new journal, in which West Africa is well represented.
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  99. Journal of African History. 1960–.
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  101. The premier journal of current research on African history. There has been diminishing coverage of the precolonial period in recent years, however.
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  103. Mande Studies. 1999–.
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  105. Official journal of the Mande Studies Association (MANSA); publishes articles on all aspects of the history, peoples, and cultures of the vast West African Mande culture zone.
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  107. Trans-Saharan Trade and the Early States
  108. Trade in valued commodities—primarily gold, salt, and slaves—was the economic engine of the early Sudanic states. Rulers extracted levies on goods passing through their territories and used the proceeds to maintain control of trade routes, either through military action or by cementing alliances with other leaders. Bovill 1968 provides a classic and highly readable overview that is worthwhile even if inevitably outdated in certain areas. Austen 2010 is an up-to-date source with a primary emphasis on historical documents; Mitchell 2005 focuses mainly on archaeological evidence. McDougall 1985 views the development of trade during the medieval period, through the lens of a single Saharan entrepôt. In contrast to the Saharan focus of these works, Brooks 1993 looks south to explore the shifting networks of trade in the larger sub-Saharan sphere. The emergence of the early polities of Ghana, Takrur, and Kawkaw is potentially linked to the development of long-distance trade, the chronology of which is crucial. The long-running debate on the antiquity of the trans-Saharan trade, represented in earlier decades by R. C. C. Law’s classic article on “The Garamantes and Trans-Saharan Enterprise in Classical Times” (Journal of African History 8.2 [1967]: 181–200), John T. Swanson’s article on “The Myth of Trans-Saharan Trade during the Roman Era” (International Journal of African Historical Studies 8.4 [1975]: 582–600), Mario Liverani’s article on “The Libyan Caravan Road in Herodotus IV.181–185” (Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 43.4 [2000]: 496–520), and Garrard 1982 (cited under Gold), has taken on new aspects in the light of massive amounts of new archaeological data on the Garamantean heartland, summarized in Mattingly 2011. Wilson 2012 surveys both the archaeological and historical evidence and offers a new, Saharan-based (rather than Roman-based) interpretation of the trade.
  109. Austen, Ralph A. Trans-Saharan Africa in World History. New Oxford World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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  111. Highly accessible and recommended work covering the evidence for and effects of trans-Saharan commerce from Antiquity through the colonial period. The chapter on “Islamicate Culture” (pp. 98–117), referring to the cultural transformations of African societies through the constant dialogue with Islam sustained by trans-Saharan trade, is unique among these general works.
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  113. Bovill, E. W. The Golden Trade of the Moors. 2d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
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  115. A dated but still-interesting and useful study of relations of Berber groups of North Africa and the Sahara with their black sub-Saharan trading partners, via the ancient caravan routes linking sub-Saharan West Africa with Mediterranean North Africa. Revised with additional material by Robin Hallett.
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  117. Brooks, George E. Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630. African States and Societies in History. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993.
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  119. An influential work that considers the historical development of trade, in the context of climate shifts that favored the development of particular trade routes at various times and provided an ecological impetus for the southward movement of Mande traders and Mandekan-speaking horse warriors.
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  121. Lydon, Ghislaine. On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Western Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  122. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511575457Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  123. Extremely useful study of a network of caravan traders from Wad Nun, Morocco, who circulated throughout Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali. Chapters on “Trans-Saharan Trade in the Longue Durée (pp. 49–106) and “The Organization of Caravan Trade” (pp. 206–273) are exceptional.
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  125. Mattingly, David J. “The Garamantes of Fazzan: An Early Libyan State with Trans-Saharan Connections.” Paper presented at a conference held in the Department of Coins and Medals, the British Museum, London, in 2008. In Money, Trade and Trade Routes in Pre-Islamic North Africa. Edited by Amelia Dowler and Elizabeth R. Galvin, 49–58. British Museum Research Publication 176. London: British Museum, 2011.
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  127. Excellent overview of the new evidence for trade and political organization in the 1st millennium BCEand CE that has emerged from an extensive archaeological project in Libya’s Fezzan, the heartland of the Garamantes.
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  129. McDougall, E. Ann. “The View from Awdaghust: War, Trade and Social Change in the Southwestern Sahara, from the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century.” Journal of African History 26.1 (1985): 1–31.
  130. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700023069Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  131. An essential study tracing social and economic change in the desert oasis, which became a regional center of agriculture and trade as well as an international caravan terminus for trade between West and North Africa. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  133. Mitchell, Peter. African Connections: An Archaeological Perspective on Africa and the Wider World. African Archaeology 7. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2005.
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  135. General work on the “globalizing” theme of African interactions with other continents and non-African populations. Very useful overview chapter (“The Sahara and Its Shores,” pp. 135–171) on Saharan and trans-Saharan trade.
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  137. Wilson, Andrew. “Saharan Trade in the Roman Period: Short-, Medium- and Long-Distance Trade Networks.” Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 47.4 (2012): 409–449.
  138. DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2012.727614Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  139. A detailed consideration of the abundant new evidence for Roman imports into the Fezzan, on which Wilson builds an argument for a trade system in Antiquity composed of networks of interdependent subsystems of trade that reached across the Sahara but were not trans-Saharan in nature. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  141. Salt
  142. Salt is likely among the earliest goods to move in bulk from Saharan sources south to sub-Saharan regions, where it was in demand. The introduction of the camel made large-scale transport across waterless stretches of desert possible, and early state power depended on access to and control of the salt trade. Alexander 1993 and Lovejoy 1986 describe production techniques, with Lovejoy documenting the extensive saltworks of the central Sudan. McDougall 1983 and McDougall 1990 are definitive sources on the early historical trade in the western Sudan, and Vikør 1999 narrows the focus to a location in Niger, describing both production and trade.
  143. Alexander, John. “The Salt Industries of West Africa: A Preliminary Study.” In The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals, and Towns. Edited by Thurstan Shaw, Paul Sinclair, Bassey Andah, and Alex Okpoko, 652–657. One World Archaeology 20. London: Routledge, 1993.
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  145. Brief overview of techniques of salt production and their likely chronology in West Africa, by using comparative data from Europe.
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  147. Lovejoy, Paul E. Salt of the Desert Sun: A History of Salt Production and Trade in the Central Sudan. African Studies 46. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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  149. This detailed study of historical production and regional trade in salt and natron from different sources in the central Sudan provides insights relevant to the western Sudan.
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  151. McDougall, E. Ann. “The Sahara Reconsidered: Pastoralism, Politics and Salt from the Ninth through the Twelfth Centuries.” In Special Issue: Business Empires in Equatorial Africa. African Economic History 12 (1983): 263–286.
  152. DOI: 10.2307/3601328Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  153. Focuses on the emergence of a distinctive desert-edge political economy in the late 1st millennium that revolved around the control of the salt trade, which lay at the heart of the early Sudanic states. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  155. McDougall, E. Ann. “Salts of the Western Sahara: Myths, Mysteries, and Historical Significance.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 23.2 (1990): 231–257.
  156. DOI: 10.2307/219336Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  157. Overview of historical information on salt sources, production, trade, and implications for the political economy of the western Sahara throughout the 2nd millennium. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  159. Vikør, Knut S. The Oasis of Salt: The History of Kawar, a Saharan Centre of Salt Production. Bergen Studies of the Middle East and Africa 3. Bergen, Norway: Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1999.
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  161. Detailed historical study of the Kawar oasis in northeastern Niger, the extraction of salt in evaporation basins, and the nature of the salt trade.
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  163. Gold
  164. Gold from the forest regions of West Africa was the most important sub-Saharan raw material sought by North African traders. The date by which regular gold trade from West African sources was established is the subject of debate. Relevant studies on gold artifacts include an early study of Almoravid gold (Messier 1974); Garrard 1982, a classic study of gold coinage from North African mints; chemical fingerprinting of North African gold coins and West African gold sources (Gondonneau and Guerra 2002); and the recent discovery of gold coin molds at Tadmekka/Es-Souk, an important Saharan trade entrepôt (Nixon, et al. 2011).
  165. Garrard, Timothy F. “Myth and Metrology: The Early Trans-Saharan Gold Trade.” Journal of African History 23.4 (1982): 443–461.
  166. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700021290Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  167. Influential, carefully reasoned study of North African mint strikes of gold coinage, arguing for West African gold trade from the late 3rd century CE while rejecting claims for earlier trans-Saharan trade. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  169. Gondonneau, A. and Maria F. Guerra. “The Circulation of Precious Metals in the Arab Empire: The Case of the Near and the Middle East.” Archaeometry 44.4 (2002): 573–599.
  170. DOI: 10.1111/1475-4754.00087Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171. Application of techniques to detect trace elements in gold coins from various North African mints shows a novel “fingerprint” appearing c. 750 CE, corresponding to West African gold. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  173. Messier, Ronald A. “The Almoravids: West African Gold and the Gold Currency of the Mediterranean Basin.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17.1 (1974): 31–47.
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  175. Study of the purity of gold dinars minted across North Africa and Spain, demonstrating the high quality of Almoravid gold coinage, which accounted for its prestige. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  177. Nixon, Sam, Thilo Rehren, and Maria Filomena Guerra. “New Light on the Early Islamic West African Gold Trade: Coin Moulds from Tadmekka, Mali.” Antiquity 85.330 (2011): 1353–1368.
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  179. Describes evidence from excavations for gold coin molds used to melt gold dust or nuggets and fashion coin blanks in the 9th–10th centuries CE; earliest direct evidence for gold trade along the eastern Niger route. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  181. Copper and Copper Alloys
  182. The high value placed on copper and brass in the Bilad al-Sudan was noted by numerous Arab chroniclers, beginning with al-Husayn’s note in the 10th century that people there prefer brass to gold (see Levtzion and Hopkins 1981, cited under Anthologies, p. 39). Herbert 1984 follows this theme in a classic historical study of the prominent role of copper in African ritual, social, and political systems. By the 11th century, copper currencies were in use, and al-Bakri mentions copper exports to the South from the Igli mines in Morocco. The magnitude of the copper trade was demonstrated by the discovery of a lost caravan load of brass, described in Monod 1969. Compositional and metallurgical analyses of copper-based objects from early-2nd-millennium CE archaeological sites in Senegal (Garenne-Marot, et al. 1994) and Mali (Garenne-Marot and Mille 2007) assess technologies and trade networks. Lead-isotope analysis has been undertaken on copper-based artifacts from Igbo Ukwu and Ife (Willett and Sayre 2006) and the Kissi cemetery in northeastern Burkina Faso (Fenn, et al. 2009) to elucidate source areas of the ores used. Details on African copper production, both primary and secondary, are provided in several articles in Echard 1983 that deal with sites in Mauritania and Niger.
  183. Echard, Nicole, ed. Métallurgies africaines: Nouvelle contributions. Mémoires de la Société des Africanistes 9. Paris: Société des Africanistes, 1983.
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  185. This volume has several useful articles on copper exploitation and metallurgy in the western Sudan. Of particular relevance are Claudette Vanacker’s discussion of the copper-based artifacts and workshop activity at the southern Saharan site of Tegdaoust (pp. 89–107), and Suzanne Bernus’s chapter on archaeological research on copper production around Azelik (pp. 154–171), identified as Takedda by Arab authors.
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  187. Fenn, Thomas R., David J. Killick, John Chesley, Sonja Magnavita, and Joaquin Ruiz. “Contacts between West Africa and Roman North Africa: Archaeometallurgical Results from Kissi, Northeastern Burkina Faso.” In Crossroads / Carrefour Sahel: Cultural and Technological Developments in First Millennium BC/AD West Africa. Edited by Sonja Magnavita, Lassina Koté, Peter Breunig, and Oumarou A. Idé, 119–146. Journal of African Archaeology Monograph 2. Frankfurt: Africa Magna Verlag, 2009.
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  189. Reports on lead isotope analyses on ten copper-based artifacts from graves dated to the 3rd–7th centuries CE, which are compared with analyses on various copper orefields in North Africa, Mediterranean Europe, and Nigeria. Possible source areas include Spain, Tunisia, and Great Britain, but lack of information on West African ore sources in Niger precludes definitive conclusions.
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  191. Garenne-Marot, Laurence, Michael L. Wayman, and Vincent C. Pigott. “Early Copper and Brass in Senegal.” In Society, Culture, and Technology in Africa. Edited by S. Terry Childs, 45–62. MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology 11. Philadelphia: MASCA, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1994.
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  193. Describes compositional and metallurgical analyses on objects from 10th- to 13th-century sites in northern and western Senegal. Objects from the site of Sincu Bara (see McIntosh and Bocoum 2000 and Thilmans and Ravisé 1980, cited under Takrur) have compositions similar to the Ma’den Ijafen brasses.
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  195. Garenne-Marot, Laurence, and Benoît Mille. “Copper-Based Metal in the Inland Niger Delta: Metal and Technology at the Time of the Empire of Mali.” Paper presented at “Metallurgy: A Touchstone for Cross-Cultural Interaction,” held at the British Museum, 28–30 April 2005. In Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeometallurgy. Edited by Susan La Niece, Duncan R. Hook, and Paul T. Craddock, 159–169. London: Archetype, 2007.
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  197. Results of compositional analyses of copper-based objects excavated from early-2nd-millennium tumuli in the northern Inland Niger delta indicates a high-zinc brass imported from North Africa that was worked locally by lost-wax casting. The authors suggest a preference for this alloy because it has the color of gold, with the protective qualities ascribed to copper.
  198. Find this resource:
  199. Herbert, Eugenia W. Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
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  201. Magisterial historical study of copper trade, metallurgy, and consumption in Africa, also covering the topic of the ritual, social, and political significance of copper.
  202. Find this resource:
  203. Monod, Théodore. “Le ‘Macden Ijâfen’: Une épave caravanière ancienne dans le Majâbat al-Koubrâ.” In Actes du premier Colloque International d’archéologie africaine: Fort-Lamy, République du Tchad, 11–16 décembre 1966. Edited by Institut National Tchadien pour les Sciences Humaines, 286–320. Etudes et Documents Tchadiens, Mémoires 1. Fort-Lamy, Chad: Institut National Tchadien pour les Sciences Humaines, 1969.
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  205. Describes the 1964 discovery, in the dunes of the Mauritanian desert, of a caravan load of 2,085 brass bars weighing approximately a pound each. Rope around the bars was radiocarbon dated to the 11th–13th centuries. This may have been a caravan load that was buried in a raid and was never recovered.
  206. Find this resource:
  207. Willett, Frank, and Edward V. Sayre. “Lead Isotopes in West African Copper Alloys.” Journal of African Archaeology 4.1 (2006): 55–90.
  208. DOI: 10.3213/1612-1651-10063Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  209. Of particular interests are analyses of several dozen objects from the 10th- to 15th-century Nigerian sites of Igbo Ukwu and Ife, suggesting copper trade to the former from source areas in Nigeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and to the latter from northwest Europe. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  210. Find this resource:
  211. Slaves
  212. Slaves from sub-Saharan regions were transported north through the Sudanic states. Significant numbers were pressed into service in trade entrepôts and oases; those who reached North Africa alive were sold into domestic or military service. Wright 2007 provides a good historical overview, and Austen 1979 and Austen 1992 furnish detailed documentation of the sources underpinning their author’s estimates of the number of slaves transported across the Sahara, covering the 7th to 19th centuries.
  213. Austen, Ralph A. “The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade: A Tentative Census.” Paper presented at a conference held at Colby College on 20–22 August 1975. In Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Edited by Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn, 23–76. Studies in Social Discontinuity. New York: Academic Press, 1979.
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  215. An initial attempt to gather published historical documentation and to provide improved estimates of the scale of the slave traffic north across the Sahara.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Austen, Ralph A. “The Mediterranean Islamic Slave Trade out of Africa: A Tentative Census.” In The Human Commodity: Perspectives on the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade. Edited by Elizabeth Savage, 214–248. London: Frank Cass, 1992.
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  219. Presents new sources beyond those included in the census in Austen 1979.
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  221. Renault, François, and Serge Daget. Les traites négrières en Afrique. Hommes et Sociétés. Paris: Editions Karthala, 1985.
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  223. Provides a useful summary of the slave trade, organized chronologically (pp. 8–66 cover the period up to the 17th century) and geographically (Sudanic empires and the central Sudan—pp. 23–39).
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Savage, Elizabeth. “Berbers and Blacks: Ibāḍī Slave Traffic in Eighth-Century North Africa.” In Special Issue: Slavery, Religion and Colour in the History of North Africa. Journal of African History 33.3 (1992): 351–368.
  226. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700032527Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  227. Describes how indigenous Berbers were the first slaves taken as booty during the Arab conquest of North Africa but nevertheless adopted Islam and, by the 8th century, were themselves trading in slaves from black sub-Saharan populations. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Wright, John. The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade. History and Society in the Islamic World. London: Routledge, 2007.
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  231. Chapter 3 (“The Medieval Saharan Slave Trade,” pp. 18–40) provides an excellent overview of the routes and conditions of Saharan slave transport, and the roles for slave labor during the period of the early Sudanic states.
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  233. Islam and the Early States
  234. By the 8th century, most of North Africa was occupied by the Arab invasion and Islam was well established, but it took considerably longer for the Arabs to impose their authority on the nomadic Berber tribes of the desert. By the 10th century, however, Berber traders, sometimes accompanied by Muslim clerics, were following their ancient trade routes southward into the Bilad al-Sudan (Arabic = “land of the blacks”), bringing Islam with them. Trimingham 1962, a study of the history of Islamic penetration into West Africa, established a narrative framework on which subsequent authors built. Triaud 1973 ventures a bold theory about the nature of commercial relations between traders from the North and sub-Saharan West Africans. Levtzion 1971 describes the development, through commercial relationships, of a syncretic religious system comprised of Islam and traditional belief systems, observing that prominent traders and religious clerics communicated mainly with rulers and their immediate entourages, so these elite groups tended to be the earliest converts to Islam—at least in a nominal sense—because it facilitated profitable business relations, while the majority of the populace retained their ancestral spiritual practices. An additional perspective is supplied in Brett 1983, which acknowledges that early Muslim communities in the Bilad al-Sudan were indeed established through consent of the local ruler, but subsequently, the newcomers’ settlement was overseen—and thereby protected—by an Islamic legal authority in residence. Early in the 11th century, Manding-speaking traders who were nominal Muslims but, like many of their neighbors, had not abandoned their traditional beliefs were establishing a vast trade diaspora that would eventually extend from the Atlantic in the West to beyond the Niger Bend in the East. In a general overview of Islamic influence from its 10th-century arrival south of the Sahara to the religious revivals of the 19th-century jihads, Levtzion 2000 explains that while it was merchants who opened trade routes and exposed isolated societies to external influences, the propagation of Islam was left to Muslim clerics. Miller 2001 discusses the shifting landscape of Islam and trade from the 8th to 14th centuries at the important Moroccan trade town of Sijilmasa. Insoll 2003 reviews the archaeological evidence for the establishment and development of Islam in Africa.
  235. Brett, Michael. “Islam and Trade in the Bilād al-Sūdān, Tenth–Eleventh Century A.D.” Journal of African History 24.4 (1983): 431–440.
  236. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700027985Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  237. A study of two legal opinions c. 1000 CE, illustrating how Islamic law provided the universal rules that allowed Muslim merchants to live and function in a variety of West African cultural systems. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  238. Find this resource:
  239. Insoll, Timothy. The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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  241. Unique in its focus on the material manifestations of Islam in Africa south of the Sahara, this volume has useful chapters on the western Sahel and the West African Sudan and forest.
  242. Find this resource:
  243. Levtzion, Nehemia. “Patterns of Islamization in West Africa.” In Aspects of West African Islam. Edited by Daniel F. McCall and Norman R. Bennett, 31–39. Boston University Papers on Africa 5. Boston: African Studies Center, Boston University, 1971.
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  245. A very informative discussion of the question of “Africanization” of Islam and the overlapping relationship of Islam with indigenous West African religion. Reprinted in Conversion to Islam, edited by Nehemia Levtzion (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979), pp. 207–216; and in N. Levtzion, Islam in West Africa: Religion, Society, and Politics to 1800 (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994).
  246. Find this resource:
  247. Levtzion, Nehemia. “Islam in the Bilad al-Sudan to 1800.” In The History of Islam in Africa. Edited by Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels, 63–91. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000.
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  249. A concise overview beginning with the 7th- and 8th-century Arab penetration of the Sahara Desert and tracing the development of Islamic influence through the period of medieval western Sudanic kingdoms to the 19th-century jihads.
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  251. Miller, James. “Trading through Islam: The Interconnections of Sijilmasa, Ghana and the Almoravid Movement.” Journal of North African Studies 6.1 (2001): 29–58.
  252. DOI: 10.1080/13629380108718420Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  253. An outstanding and concise review of what is currently known of the historical development of the important Moroccan trade town of Sijilmasa, from its founding by Kharejites in the 8th century, through conquest by Sunnite Almoravids in the mid-11th century, to initial abandonment in the late 14th century. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  254. Find this resource:
  255. Triaud, Jean-Louis. Islam et sociétés soudanaises au moyen-age: Étude historique. Recherches Voltaïques 16. Paris: Collège de France, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, 1973.
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  257. Argues that the relationship between Islamic North Africa and black sub-Saharan West Africa was colonial in nature, with aristocratic elites of the western Sudan serving as intermediaries, making it possible for North African scholars and merchants to gain economic, political, religious, and cultural control.
  258. Find this resource:
  259. Trimingham, J. Spencer. A History of Islam in West Africa. University of Glasgow Publications. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
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  261. Now outdated by more-recent scholarship, nevertheless still useful as a classic, early postcolonial study of the arrival of Islam in West Africa, written as a sequel to the author’s late colonial-era Islam in West Africa (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959).
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  263. Almoravids
  264. The Almoravids were members of an Islamic reform movement among the Sanhaja, a mostly nomadic Berber people of the western Sahara. In 1042 the religious cleric ʿAbd Allah ibn Yasin formed an alliance with the Lamtuna Berbers that coalesced into a formidable military force known as the murabitun (Almoravids) or “people of the ribat.” They launched campaigns to take over the trans-Saharan trade, gaining control of key locations, including the entrepôts of Awdaghust in the South (in present-day Mauritania) and Sijilmasa in the North (in present-day Morocco), as well as the Sahelian territories of the Soninke of Wagadu/Ghana (Levtzion 1994a; in Levtzion and Hopkins 1981, see works by al-Bakri, Ibn Abi Zar’, and Ibn Khaldun). Moraes Farias 1967 reflects ongoing scholarly interest in details of the Almoravids and their relations with the black Soninke state. The discussion turns controversial when Conrad and Fisher 1982 and Conrad and Fisher 1983 scrutinize the Arabic and oral sources, finding no evidence for an actual “conquest” of Ghana. Burkhalter 1992 vigorously objects to Conrad and Fisher’s methodology, while Levtzion 1994b remains unconvinced on the basis of its author’s own reading of the Arabic literature, and Lange 1996, an interpretation of the collective sources, leads that author to an altogether different conclusion. Masonen and Fisher 1996 traces the history of perceptions about an Almoravid “conquest” of Ghana from the 16th century to recent times. Regardless of methods employed, the Almoravids gained control of southern Morocco and founded Marrakesh in 1070, and they continued their expansion northward into Morocco and Spain, while quashing rebellion in the desert homeland to the south. Thanks to their establishment of political hegemony throughout the Maghrib and, at the apogee of the empire, present-day Mauritania, western Sahara, Morocco, western Algeria, and southern Spain, trans-Saharan trade flourished. In the early 12th century, Almoravid hegemony was dissipated by the forces of Christianity, expansion of the Muslim Almohad movement, and internal dissension.
  265. Burkhalter, Sheryl L. “Listening for Silences in Almoravid History: Another Reading of ‘The Conquest That Never Was.’” History in Africa 19 (1992): 103–131.
  266. DOI: 10.2307/3171996Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  267. A methodological study strongly criticizing the Conrad and Fisher argument that there was no Almoravid conquest of Ghana, on the grounds that they ignore the contexts in which the Almoravids and Ghana are mentioned in the Arabic sources. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Conrad, David C., and Humphrey Fisher. “The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076, I; The External Arabic Sources.” History in Africa 9 (1982): 21–59.
  270. DOI: 10.2307/3171598Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. Closely scrutinizes available Arabic sources on Almoravid contact with Wagadu/Ghana and concludes that none of the Arabic sources explicitly state that the Soninke state was conquered by the Sanhaja. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Conrad, David C., and Humphrey J. Fisher. “The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. II; The Local Oral Sources.” History in Africa 10 (1983): 53–78.
  274. DOI: 10.2307/3171690Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. A study and interpretation of the Soninke oral tradition of Wagadu, finding possible historicity in the relationship between rainfall and gold production in the legend of Bida, but no reference, metaphorical or otherwise, to an Almoravid conquest. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Lange, Dierk. “The Almoravid Expansion and the Downfall of Ghana.” Der Islam 73.2 (1996): 313–351.
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  279. An exhaustive review of oral and written sources, attempting to identify evidence common to both and concluding that the ultimate cause of Ghana’s destruction was the collapse of institutions related to divine kingship. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Levtzion, Nehemia. “ʿAbd Allāh b. Yasīn and the Almoravids.” In Islam in West Africa: Religion, Society and Politics to 1800. By Nehemia Levtzion, 78–112. Collected Studies CS462. London: Variorum, 1994a.
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  283. A study of the religious and political background of the western Sahara regions that would be affected by the Almoravids, including a brief history of that movement.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Levtzion, Nehemia. “Berber Nomads and Sudanese States: The Historiography of the Desert-Sahel Interface.” In Islam in West Africa: Religion, Society and Politics to 1800. By Nehemia Levtzion. Collected Studies CS462. London: Variorum, 1994b.
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  287. Presents the author’s reasons for remaining unconvinced by the Conrad and Fisher arguments against Almoravid conquest of Ghana, reconsidering his own earlier statements about the Arabic sources in light of later studies emphasizing the interdependence and complementary roles of desert-edge pastoralists and cultivators.
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  289. Levtzion, Nehemia, and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds. Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Translated by J. F. P. Hopkins. Fontes Historiae Africanae, Series Arabica 4. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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  291. Relevant authors: the geographer al-Bakri (d. 1094), who collected information from travelers and a now-lost work by al-Warraq (b. –d. 973) (pp. 69–85); Ibn Abi Zar’ (d. 1315) of Fez, who based his writings partly on al-Bakri (pp. 235–248); and Ibn Khaldun (b. 1332–d. 1406), who was born in Tunis but lived in a half-dozen cities in Spain and North Africa (pp. 324–332).
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Masonen, Pekka, and Humphrey J. Fisher. “Not Quite Venus from the Waves: The Almoravid Conquest of Ghana in the Modern Historiography of Western Africa.” History in Africa 23 (1996): 197–232.
  294. DOI: 10.2307/3171941Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. Supports Conrad and Fisher’s earlier arguments of no evidence for a conquest of Ghana, by finding the earliest notion of a conquest written in Italian by Leo Africanus, published in 1550 and translated into a half-dozen European languages. The course of the “conquest hypothesis” is traced through subsequent centuries of academic literature to the present. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Moraes Farias, Paulo F. D. “The Almoravids: Some Questions concerning the Character of the Movement during Its Period of Closest Contact with the Western Sudan.” Bulletin de l’IFAN, ser. B 29.3–4 (1967): 794–878.
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  299. An erudite study of the foundations of the Almoravid Empire, including discussion of the dates of the career of Abu Bakr, the movement’s founder.
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  301. Gawgaw / Kawkaw / Early Songhay
  302. Gawgaw (Gao) is one of the earliest polities in the western Sudan mentioned by Arab chroniclers, but written sources are frustratingly short on detail. Archaeological research is an essential source for knowledge of the polity centered on Gao that is historically attested from the 9th to 12th centuries CE. Gao ultimately came under the hegemony of Mali in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th century, Sonyi Ali Beeri emerged as a powerful warrior ruler who reclaimed Gao’s independence and expanded the power of Songhay, a process that continued under the Askia dynasty (see Songhay Empire).
  303. Historical Sources
  304. Translations of relevant passages (al-Ya’qubi, al-Muhallabi, al-Bakri, al-Idrisi, Ibn Khaldun) are gathered in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003 and Levtzion and Hopkins 1981 (see Anthologies). Prior to the landmark publication of Moraes Farias 2003, a series of articles debated and discussed key issues regarding the origins and early development of Gawgaw, as it was called in the local Tamashak language. The main primary sources are oral traditions (Rouch 1953), the 17th-century Songhay chronicles—Tarikh al-Sudan (Hunwick 2003) and Tarikh el-Fettash (Ibn al-Mukhtar; see Songhay Empire)—and engraved funerary stele from royal and commoner tombs (Moraes Farias 2003). The author of Hunwick 1980 and Hunwick 1994 and the author of Lange 1991 and Lange 1994 differ in their interpretation of historical sources regarding the ethnicity (Songhay-speaking vs. Mande-speaking, respectively) of the early (8th to 11th-century) Zuwa (Za/Dia) dynasty. A further disagreement involves the tribal affiliation of Berber rulers at Gao Sané in the 12th century; were they local upstarts or newly arrived Sanhaja Almoravids? A significant part of this argument revolves around the interpretation of several early-12th-century royal grave stele from the cemetery near Gao-Sané and provides an excellent example of conflicting views of historical methodology. Chapter 5 (pp. 3–56) of Moraes Farias 2003 provides a detailed, carefully argued discussion of these stele, introducing the possibility of multiple dynastic power centers in early Gao.
  305. Hunwick, John O. “Gao and the Almoravids: A Hypothesis.” Paper presented at the Ninth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, held in Chicago in 1973. In West African Culture Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives. Edited by B. K. Swartz and Raymond E. Dumett, 413–430. World Anthropology. The Hague: Mouton, 1980.
  306. DOI: 10.1515/9783110800685Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Discusses the possible significance of royal tombstones dating from the 11th century for interpreting the history of early Gao and neighboring regions, with emphasis, among other things, on the influence of Sanhaja nomad traders who the author believes were either absorbed into local communities or moved on to the east.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Hunwick, John O. “Gao and the Almoravids Revisited: Ethnicity, Political Change and the Limits of Interpretation.” Journal of African History 35.2 (1994): 251–273.
  310. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700026426Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. Hunwick’s response to Lange 1991, commenting on, and disagreeing with, Lange’s interpretations of the tombstone evidence and of the ethnic and political history of the Middle Niger before 1100. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  313. Hunwick, John O., ed. and trans. Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa’dī’s Ta’rīkh al-Sūdān down to 1613, and Other Contemporary Documents. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
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  315. The definitive English translation, with extensive notes and annotations, of thirty chapters of this key history of Timbuktu, Jenne, and the Songhay Empire, written in Timbuktu in the 17th century. The first chapter deals with the early Zuwa (Za) dynasty. An outstanding interpretive essay contextualizes Songhay history within the broader history of the western Sudan. Originally published in 1999.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Lange, Dierk. “Les rois de Gao-Sané et les Almoravides.” In Special Issue: Pre-colonial Institutions in Western Sudanic Africa. Journal of African History 32.2 (1991): 251–275.
  318. DOI: 10.1017/S002185370002572XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. Presents an interpretation of the Gao-Sané tombstones that sharply contrasts with Hunwick’s article a decade earlier (Hunwick 1980), in which the author argues, among other things, that early Gao was part of an easterly extension of the Mande world. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Lange, Dierk. “From Mande to Songhay: Towards a Political and Ethnic History of Medieval Gao.” Journal of African History 35.2 (1994): 275–301.
  322. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700026438Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. Lange’s rebuttal of the critique in Hunwick 1994, defending his position point by point and concluding that his critic’s rigorous scholarly standards and unwillingness to flesh out the bare bones of the available evidence through more-daring interpretation are impediments to achieving a better understanding of history. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Moraes Farias, Paulo F. D. Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles and Songhay-Tuāreg History. Fontes Historiae Africanae 4. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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  327. A monumental, definitive study of 11th- to 15th-century inscriptions from five archaeological sites, introducing a heretofore mostly overlooked body of evidence crucial to the history of the western Sudan. Reveals the existence of previously unknown Songhay ruling dynasties and offers new interpretations of Tuareg and Songhay oral traditions.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Rouch, Jean. Contribution à l’histoire des Songhay. Mémoire de l’Institute Français de l’Afrique Noire 29. Dakar, Senegal: Institute Français de l’Afrique Noire, 1953.
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  331. Seen as flawed, for claiming Islam was responsible for the collapse of indigenous political structures, and somewhat dated, but still useful on the basis of oral tradition and the Timbuktu chronicles; especially valuable on Fula and Tuareg incursions into Songhay territory. Includes a series of maps and thirty-six plates exhibiting otherwise-lost images of landscape, architecture, and Songhay cultural details. Republished in 1968 (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger).
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Gao Archaeology, 600–1200 CE
  334. Archaeological excavations in Gao have revealed extensive stone and fired-brick buildings, some of which date to the 10th century or earlier and may correspond to the “royal town” described by al’Muhallabi in the late 10th century. Cissé 2011, a documentation of the early occupation chronology, solidified the sequence from excavations reported in Insoll 1996, Insoll 1997, and Insoll 2000. Insoll’s excavations document the extensive trade connections of Gao in the late 1st and early 2nd millennium. Gao’s strategic position, on the eastern Niger Bend at the mouth of a fossil valley leading north, assured its long-term function as a powerhouse involved in both desert-side and river-based trade. Nixon 2009, which reports on excavations at Es-Souk (medieval Tadmekka), sheds light on the development of trade along this valley, including the gold trade (see Nixon 2011, cited under Gold). Kawkaw also had a market town, Sarneh, according to al-Muhallabi. Cissé 2011 reports on excavations at the extensive mound of Sané, several kilometers outside Gao, and on the evidence supporting its identification as Sarneh. The concluding chapter gives an excellent summary.
  335. Cissé, Mamadou. “Archaeological Investigations of Early Trade and Urbanism at Gao Saney (Mali).” PhD diss., Rice University, 2011.
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  337. Reports on excavations at the large occupation mound presumed to be the historical trade town of Sarneh. Over six meters of domestic as well as glass and copper workshop deposits accumulated between 700–1100 CE.
  338. Find this resource:
  339. Insoll, Timothy. Islam, Archaeology and History: Gao Region (Mali) ca. AD 900–1250. Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 39. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum, 1996.
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  341. A very useful presentation of the results of excavations at “old Gao” (Gao Ancien) and survey of nearby sites, well contextualized with reference to previous excavations and other data on trade and manufacture, Islam, and architecture.
  342. Find this resource:
  343. Insoll, Timothy. “Iron Age Gao: An Archaeological Contribution.” Journal of African History 38.1 (1997): 1–30.
  344. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853796006822Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  345. Presents highlights of the excavation results described in Insoll 1996. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  346. Find this resource:
  347. Insoll, Timothy. Urbanism, Archaeology and Trade: Further Observations on the Gao Region (Mali); The 1996 Fieldseason Results. Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2000.
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  349. Primarily a specialist report on the finds from two further excavation units at Gao Ancien and one at nearby Gadei. A brief concluding chapter (pp. 150–152) summarizes and presents the larger picture.
  350. Find this resource:
  351. Nixon, Sam. “Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali): New Archaeological Investigations of Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Trade.” Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 44.2 (2009): 217–255.
  352. DOI: 10.1080/00671990903047595Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  353. Reports on the results of excavations at the Berber trade capital of Es-Souk, known to Arab chroniclers as Tadmekka, which was a historical trade partner with Gao. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  354. Find this resource:
  355. Songhay Empire
  356. Songhay was the last of the early historical empires recognized in the western Sudan. Under Sii Ali Beeri (r. 1464–1492), the kingdom of Gao emerged from the control of the declining Mali Empireand gradually established authority in the Niger Bend. Wars of conquest brought Timbuktu, Djenné, and the Hausa state of Kebbi under its control. Linguistic and other evidence suggests the likelihood that the rulers known as Sii, or Sonyi, originated as a Mande warrior group that moved in from Mali. After Sii Ali’s death, one of his generals, Muhammed Turé, seized power and established the Askiya dynasty. Under Askiya Muhammed (r. 1493–1528), imperial Songhay expanded its reach, capturing the salt-producing center of Teghaza and adding tributary states to the east and west. The Songhay Empire prospered under the Askiya’s administrative innovations and reassertion of Islam as a powerful force for empire consolidation and trade. Throughout the reign of the Askiyas, Timbuktu enjoyed peak prosperity as a center of Islamic learning and scholarship. The invasion of a Moroccan force in 1591 brought the dynasty and the empire to an end.
  357. Historical Sources
  358. Muslim scholars of Soninke descent in 17th-century Timbuktu recalled the glories of the Songhay Empire: in 1665 Ibn al-Mukhtar finished Ta’rīkh al-Fattāsh (“Chronicle of the Searcher”), begun generations earlier by his grandfather, and about 1656 ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sacdi produced a history of Timbuktu and the Middle Niger called Ta’rīkh al-Sūdān (“Chronicle of the Sudan”), which has been translated into English in Hunwick 2003 (cited under Gawgaw / Kawkaw / Early Songhay: Historical Sources). Similarly important primary sources are tombstone inscriptions from c. 1013 CE, collected and translated in Moraes Farias 2003 (cited under Gawgaw / Kawkaw / Early Songhay: Historical Sources).
  359. Oral and Written Primary Sources
  360. Literary discussions address Songhay written and oral literature (Hale 1990) and the Timbuktu chronicles as a previously unrecognized genre (Moraes Farias 2008), with Ibn al-Mukhtar 1964 exemplifying the 17th-century narrative style discussed by Moraes Farias.
  361. Hale, Thomas A. Scribe, Griot, and Novelist: Narrative Interpreters of the Songhay Empire. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990.
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  363. Analytical study of Songhay history and culture as represented both in its written and oral literature, including an interpretation of the novel Le Devoir de violence by Yambo Ouologuem, and a translation of an epic narrative about Askiya Muhammad I performed by the bard Nouhou Malio.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Ibn al-Mukhtar. Ta’rīkh al-Fattāsh ou Chronique du chercheur. Translated by Octave Houdas and Maurice Delafosse. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1964.
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  367. Originally written in 1665. Begun by the Soninke writer Mahmud Ka’ti of Timbuktu in 1519 and finished by family members of two succeeding generations; mainly a history of the Askiya dynasty, but including brief accounts of medieval Wagadu/Ghana, Kaniaga, and Mali.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Moraes Farias, Paulo F. D. “Intellectual Innovation and Reinvention of the Sahel: The Seventeenth-Century Timbuktu Chronicles.” In The Meanings of Timbuktu. Edited by Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, 95–107. Cape Town, South Africa: Human Sciences Research Council Press, 2008.
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  371. Expands and develops the pathbreaking discovery first revealed in Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), that the Soninke chroniclers of Timbuktu produced a new literary genre when they constructed the tarikhs on ideological grounds that catered to needs resulting from the Moroccan invasion’s destruction of the Songhay Empire.
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  373. Secondary Sources
  374. Where religion was concerned, the Songhay state and its culture were deeply affected by the dynamics of Islamic influence on the one hand (Hunwick 1966, Blum and Fisher 1993) and ancient spiritual practices on the other (Boulnois and Hama 1954, Pardo 1971). After the empire’s defeat by an invading Moroccan army in 1591, the cities of Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne succumbed to foreign administration, which proved untenable for Morocco after some twenty years of occupation (Kaba 1981). General overviews focus on events of the dynastic periods (e.g., Cissoko 1984), while there is particularly extensive literature on the internal problems of Songhay government and circumstances surrounding the Moroccan conquest (Singleton 2004).
  375. Blum, Charlotte, and Humphrey Fisher. “Love for Three Oranges, or, the Askiya’s Dilemma: The Askiya, al-Maghīlī and Timbuktu, c. 1500 A.D.” In Special Issue: Problems of the Medieval Sudan. Journal of African History 34.1 (1993): 65–91.
  376. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700033004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  377. Highlights the complexity of Islamic practices in the Niger Bend region c. 1500, while examining religious evidence of the first ten years in the reign (1493–1521) of Askiya Muhammad Touré and hypothesizing that the Askiya experimented with three successive, irreconcilable Islamic options and eventually fell into line with the intellectual establishment of Timbuktu. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  378. Find this resource:
  379. Boulnois, Jean, and Boubou Hama. L’empire de Gao: Histoire, coutumes et magie des Sonrai. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1954.
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  381. Authored by a French physician and a local Songhay fonctionnaire in the 1940s, this commences with a review of the colonial literature available at the time, but it mostly consists of an interesting and useful study of the Songhay system of belief, with detailed descriptions of occult practices.
  382. Find this resource:
  383. Cissoko, Sékéné Mody. “The Songhay from the 12th to the 16th Century.” In General History of Africa. Vol. 4, Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Edited by Djibril T. Niane, 187–210. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
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  385. A still-useful historical summary, with brief accounts of dynastic periods balanced with explanations of political organization, economics, society, and religion.
  386. Find this resource:
  387. Hunwick, John O. “Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464–1591.” In Islam in Tropical Africa: Studies Presented and Discussed at the Fifth International African Seminar, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, January 1964. Edited by I. M. Lewis, 296–317. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.
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  389. An engaging discussion providing interesting details of the Islamic practices, or lack of them, among prominent characters in the history of Gao and the Songhay Empire.
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  391. Kaba, Lansiné. “Archers, Musketeers, and Mosquitoes: The Moroccan Invasion of the Sudan and the Songhay Resistance (1591–1612).” Journal of African History 22.4 (1981): 457–475.
  392. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700019861Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  393. From a basically West African perspective, examines the period of Songhay resistance following the Moroccan invasion of 1591 and explains what led to the Moroccan administration’s ultimate failure to maintain control of their conquered territory. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  394. Find this resource:
  395. Pardo, Anne W. “The Songhay Empire under Sonni Ali and Askia Muhammad: A Study in Comparisons and Contrasts.” In Aspects of West African Islam. Edited by Daniel F. McCall and Norman R. Bennett, 41–59. Boston University Papers on Africa 5. Boston: African Studies Center, Boston University, 1971.
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  397. Although understandably dated in some respects, a well-researched and interesting discussion of the relationship and comparative religious attitudes and practices of the two most prominent men in Gao and Songhay history, when Sonni Ali still commanded the army and Muhammad Touré was one of his officers.
  398. Find this resource:
  399. Singleton, Brent. “Rulers, Scholars, and Invaders: A Select Bibliography of the Songhay Empire.” History in Africa 31 (2004): 357–368.
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  401. Definitive up to the time of its publication, listing 130 titles divided into twenty categories, including “General History,” “Trade and Economics,” “Society and Culture,” “Slavery,” and the longest, “Moroccan Dispute and Invasion,” with sections for individual historical figures, including the 17th-century scholar Ahmed Baba. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  403. Ghana/Wagadu
  404. The Soninke called their country “Wagadu,” but Arabic-speaking travelers called it “Ghana,” possibly because they misunderstood the title “Maghan” (King) (not to be confused with the modern country of Ghana). One of the earliest of the medieval Sahelian kingdoms, Ghana came into existence sometime after 500 CE and was in decline by the second half of the 11th century. Wagadu/Ghana’s advantageous location in the Sahel enabled its Soninke people to function as middlemen controlling commerce from the savannah and forest zones in the South, and the Sahara and Maghrib in the North. The black sub-Saharan rulers of Wagadu/Ghana accepted the presence of North African Muslim (Berber and Arab) traders in designated quarters of their cities, and, for local black Soninke merchants, participation in the vast Sahelian commercial network became dependant on at least nominal conversion to Islam. Some relatively ephemeral kingdoms of the period were, for a time, client states or provinces of Wagadu/Ghana. These chiefdoms or smaller states were generally slower to adopt Islam, in most cases incorporating Muslim elements into traditional belief systems that constituted the indispensable underpinnings of power and authority for local rulers. The most powerful state in the interim between the decline of Wagadu/Ghana and the rise of Mali was the Kingdom of Soso, whose imperial ambitions ended in the first half of the 13th century, with the alliance of rival Mande chiefdoms that conquered Soso and established the foundations of the Mali Empire.
  405. Arabic Texts and Oral Tradition
  406. For primary historical information on Wagadu/Ghana, the writings of Arabic scholars in North Africa and Spain are central. All the sources referenced are available in English translation (Levtzion and Hopkins 1981). The best of these is al-Bakri, who apparently never left his native Spain but collected his information from travelers who had visited the places he wrote about. However, al-Ya’qubi, Ibn Hawqal, and Yaqut are also useful sources (Levtzion and Hopkins 1981, pp. 21, 49, 69–85, 172). The Soninke people’s own ideas about their history are expressed in the “Legend of Wagadu,” an oral tradition told by many generations of gεsεrε, professional oral historians and musicians of the Soninke. There is a relatively rich body of variants, widely dispersed in articles and books from the late 19th century and spanning the colonial era. Details vary from one version to the next, but they generally describe the origins and early deeds of different Soninke clans. A selection (by no means comprehensive) of variants preserved by curious French colonials was conveniently reprinted in the appendices of Dieterlen and Sylla 1992. The most-comprehensive and informative texts were acquired directly from oral informants by Charles Monteil in 1898 (Monteil 1953) and by Robert Arnaud c. 1906 (Arnaud 1912). The authors of Lanrezac 1907 and Adam 1903–1904 collected their variants c. 1898–1901 and 1900–1903, respectively, and the variant translated in Delafosse 1913 was acquired in 1910.
  407. Adam, M. G. “Légendes historiques du pays de Nioro.” Revue Coloniale 87 (1903–1904): 486–496.
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  409. The informant who provided this narrative was a young Soninke marabout (traditional holy man practicing a combination of traditional religion and Islam). This and the following items comprise a selection of variants of an oral tradition recounting the Soninke people’s perception of their ancestors and events involved in the founding of Wagadu/Ghana.
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  411. Arnaud, Robert. “La singulière légende des Soninkés.” In L’Islam et la politique musulmane française en Afrique Occidentale Française. By Robert Arnaud, 144–159. Paris: Publication du Comité de l’Afrique française, 1912.
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  413. Arnaud does not name his informant, but this is an excellent example of oral tradition claiming that a West African ancestor came from the Middle East, in this case Yemen.
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  415. Delafosse, Maurice. “Traditions historiques et légendaires du Soudan occidental traduits d’un manuscrit arabe.” Bulletin du Comité de l’Afrique française: Renseignements coloniaux (1913): 293–306, 325–329, 355–368.
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  417. Not recorded from the original narrator, this text was translated by the colonial administrator Delafosse from an Arabic manuscript, the original of which is thought to have been transcribed by a Muslim judge in the city of Nioro, Mali.
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  419. Dieterlen, Germaine, and Diarra Sylla. L’empire de Ghana: Le Wagadou et les traditions de Yéreré. Hommes et Sociétés. Paris: Khartala-Arsan, 1992.
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  421. Essential for the study of the Wagadu/Ghana tradition, a French translation of a Soninke bard’s performance, with a comprehensive study by an eminent French scholar and extensive appendices including an interlinear Soninke-French text and reprints of selected variants collected during the colonial era between 1895 and 1953.
  422. Find this resource:
  423. Lanrezac, H. C. “Au Soudan: La légende historique.” La Revue Indigene 292.97 (1907): 380–386.
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  425. Possibly from another manuscript rather than an oral informant, because Lieutenant Lanrezac collected this variant from a scribe in Nioro who wrote in Arabic.
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  427. Levtzion, Nehemia, and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds. Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Translated by J. F. P. Hopkins. Fontes Historiae Africanae, Series Arabica 4. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
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  429. Relevant authors are al-Bakri (wrote 1067–1068), who interviewed travelers to Ghana; al-Ya’qubi, the best source prior to al-Bakri; Ibn Hawqal (wrote 988), who interviewed travelers in Sijilmasa and other commercial centers of the Maghrib; and Yaqut (b. 1179–d. 1229), who was educated in Baghdad, traveled widely to visit libraries, and wrote in 1212–1224.
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  431. Monteil, Charles. “La légend du Ouagadou et l’origine des Soninké.” In Mélanges ethnologiques. By Paul Delmond, Paul Dublé, Jean-Claude Froelich, et al., 359–408. Mémoires de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire 23. Dakar, Senegal: IFAN, 1953.
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  433. Collected in 1898 from a Soninke bard, by one of the best of the colonial writers, who includes a chart comparing the version he collected with those published by Delafoss, Adam, and Arnaud.
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  435. Tautain, Louis. “Légende et traditions des Soninké relatives à l’empire de Ghanata, d’après les notes recueilles pendant une tournée de Bamako à Sokolo, Gumbu, etc., en 1887.” Bulletin de Géographie historique et descriptive 10 (1895): 472–480.
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  437. A fragment of the legend of Wagadu collected by this French colonial administrator, who made notes of what he heard during a tour from Bamako to Sokolo, Gumbu, and other towns in 1887.
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  439. Secondary Accounts
  440. The standard source for a general but thoroughly researched (though now dated in some respects) history of Ghana/Wagadu continues to be Levtzion 1973 (Ancient Ghana and Mali). The ongoing scholarly search for historical and cultural detail about Wagadu/Ghana is problematic, owing to the relative scarcity of sources, but examples of different approaches can be seen for Arabic sources (Levtzion 1972), archaeology (Robert, et al. 1970, McIntosh 2008), and oral tradition (Conrad 1984; see also Conrad and Fisher 1983, cited under Almoravids).
  441. Conrad, David C. “Oral Sources on Links between Great States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga.” History in Africa 11 (1984): 35–55.
  442. DOI: 10.2307/3171626Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. A study of six versions of the oral tradition from Nioro and Gumbu in Mali, addressing the period between the decline of Wagadu/Ghana and the rise of Mali, arguing that this “era of Soninke dispersion” (p. 39) was characterized by fragmentation of some earlier social orders and introduction of supplementary ones, with some servile groups finding opportunities to reestablish their freedom. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Levtzion, Nehemia. “Was Royal Succession in Ancient Ghana Matrilineal?” International Journal of African Historical Studies 5.1 (1972): 91–93.
  446. DOI: 10.2307/216803Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. Grapples with the problem of contradictory evidence from an Arabic source clearly indicating a case of matrilineal succession, and oral tradition that just as clearly indicates succession through the male line. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Levtzion, Nehemia. Ancient Ghana and Mali. Studies in African History 7. London: Methuen, 1973.
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  451. This is a comprehensive study using all sources (archaeological, Arabic, and oral) that were available at the time of writing, and in the decades since its publication it remains the definitive study of the medieval states of West Africa.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. McIntosh, Susan Keech. “Reconceptualizing Early Ghana.” In Special Issue: Engaging with a Legacy: Nehemia Levtzion (1935–2003). Canadian Journal of African Studies 42.2–3 (2008): 347–373.
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  455. Reexamines several key elements of the account of Ghana in Levtzion 1973 in the light of subsequent research, offering alternative ways to think about early Sahelian political consolidation in the 1st millennium CE. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  457. Robert, Denise, Serge Robert, and Jean Devisse. Tegdaoust I: Recherches sur Aoudaghost. Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1970.
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  459. This introductory volume to archaeological excavations at Tegdaoust provides an overview of available historical sources on Awdaghust and a useful interpretive historical essay (pp. 109–156).
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  461. Archaeological Sources
  462. The search for archaeological sites related to Ghana has focused on the Awkar region (southeast Mauritania) mentioned by al-Bakri. The stone-built sites of the Tichitt escarpment north of the Awkar dunes have attracted attention; some are very extensive. Munson 1980 and Holl 1985 find in these sites a demonstration of emerging sociopolitical complexity in the 1st and 2nd millennia BCE that provides a developmental backdrop for the later emergence of Ghana; the authors’ implicit evolutionary framework was common in the 1970s and 1980s. Berthier 1997 is the only detailed report on some of the excavations conducted between 1914 and 1981 in the extensive stone ruins at Kumbi Saleh, the putative capital of Ghana. Five volumes report on large-scale excavations conducted at Tegdaoust between 1960 and 1976, which focused on a dozen stone-built residences (Devisse, et al. 1983; Polet 1985; Robert-Chaleix 1989—Holl 2006 provides a useful compilation in English of the architectural sequences reported in these three volumes) and an artisans’ quarter located 100 m south (Vanacker 1979). This is the presumed site of Awdaghust, first mentioned in the 9th century by al-Yakubi as a town on the trans-Saharan route from Sijilmasa. Awdaghust was a thriving trade town with connections to Ghana in the 10th and 11th centuries, thanks to its control of an important salt source. It declined in importance after occupation by the Almoravids in 1054–1055 and the development of a new salt source and trade route that favored Ghana. Although no direct evidence surfaced identifying the site as Awdaghust, the prevalence of dated, 10th-century artifacts supports the presumption that it was.
  463. Berthier, Sophie. Recherches archéologiques sur la capitale de l’empire de Ghana: Étude d’un secteur d’habitat à Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie; Campagnes II–III–IV–V (1975–1976)–(1980–1981). Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 41. Oxford: Archaeopress, 1997.
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  465. Reports on excavations in a single residence at the putative capital of Ghana, recognizing a major urban architectural phase between the 11th and 14th centuries. Architecture is the main focus, so insights into daily life and trade are slim.
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  467. Devisse, Jean, Denise Robert, and Serge Robert. Tegdaoust III, recherches sur Aoudaghost: Campagnes 1960–1965. Recherche sur les Civilisations 25. Paris: Editions Recherches sur les Civilisations, 1983.
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  469. Reports on the first excavations of six houses, with a heavy emphasis on architecture. There is a limited report on flora and faunal analyses and descriptions of certain categories of finds (oil lamps, glass vessels, coins/dinars, glass weights/denerals, spindle whorls, pottery) from all excavations through 1976. Archaeologists will be frustrated by the lack of provenience for most finds.
  470. Find this resource:
  471. Holl, Augustin. “Background to the Ghana Empire: Archaeological Investigations on the Transition to Statehood in the Dhar Tichitt Region (Mauritania).” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 4.2 (1985): 73–115.
  472. DOI: 10.1016/0278-4165(85)90005-4Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  473. An attempt to model the sociopolitical organization of the stone-built Tichitt sites, recognizing in the proposed site hierarchy the emergence of a chiefdom. Given the chronological gap between Tichitt and Ghana, the author warns against making a direct link between the two. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  474. Find this resource:
  475. Holl, Augustin. West African Early Towns: Archaeology of Households in Urban Landscapes. Anthropological Papers 95. Ann Arbor, MI: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 2006.
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  477. Despite its title, all but 25 pages of this book describe the findings from the French excavations in a sector of stone-built houses on the ‘acropolis’ at Tegdaoust, presumed site of historical Awdaghust. Conclusions about functional and chronological relationships among architectural features are couched in appropriately tentative terms, given the frequent lack of detail on context and artifacts in the original monographs.
  478. Find this resource:
  479. Munson, Patrick J. “Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana Empire.” Journal of African History 21.4 (1980): 457–466.
  480. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700018685Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  481. Pioneering effort to seek the emergence of Ghana from an earlier, indigenous culture in the region: the Tichitt tradition. The hiatus between the end of the Tichitt tradition c. 500 BCE and the proposed date for the emergence of Ghana c. 500 CE poses problems for connecting the two, however. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  482. Find this resource:
  483. Polet, Jean. Tegdaoust IV, fouille d’un quartier de Tegdaoust (Mauritanie Orientale): Urbanisation, architecture, utilisation de l’espace construit. Recherche sur les Civilisations 54. Paris: Editions Recherches sur les Civilisations, 1985.
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  485. A report mainly on the architecture and building phases of a set of six houses in a stone-built quartier. The concluding chapter contains a helpful summary (pp. 231–243).
  486. Find this resource:
  487. Robert-Chaleix, Denise. Tegdaoust V, recherches sur Aoudaghost: Une concession médiévale à Tegdaoust; Implantation, évolution d’une unité d’habitation. Recherche sur les Civilisations 82. Paris: Editions Recherches sur les Civilisations, 1989.
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  489. Reports on another set of houses in the stone-built quartier, with details on finds from different contexts. The synthetic table (pp. 188–202) of information from all the excavations is extremely useful.
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  491. Vanacker, Claudette. Tegdaoust II, recherches sur Aoudaghost: Fouille d’un quartier artisinal. Mémoires de l’Institut Mauritanien de la Recherche Scientifique 2. Nouakchott, Mauritania: Institute Mauritanien de la Recherche Scientifique, 1979.
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  493. The most archaeologically informative of all the Tegdaoust volumes, with details on all finds and their provenience usefully displayed.
  494. Find this resource:
  495. Mali
  496. Mali, second of the great empires of the medieval era in the western Sudan, was established following a period of political turmoil in the first half of the 13th century. An alliance of Manding chiefdoms in the region of the Upper Niger and its tributaries defeated the expansionist efforts of the Kingdom of Soso, as described in the Sunjata epic tradition. The Manding chiefdoms unified under a supreme ruler (mansa) into what would become an empire that attained its apogee in the 14th century and was in decline by the mid-15th century. In addition to oral tradition, in which the historicity of events described is usually impossible to confirm by independent evidence, principal sources include eyewitness descriptions by travelers interviewed by North African geographer/historians who recorded their tales in Arabic. Traders had been crossing the Sahara for centuries, but by the mid-14th century, when Mali was at its highest point of imperial dominance under Mansa Musa (r. 1312–1337) and Mansa Sulayman (r. 1341–1360), the trans-Saharan trade had greatly increased in volume. Owing to Mansa Musa’s extravagant pilgrimage (1324–1325) and the resulting publicity when he distributed so much gold in Cairo that it depressed the international market for many months, Mali became better known in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Al-‘Umari (b. 1301–d. 1349), a Syrian writer of Damascus, collected detailed information from people who were acquainted with Mansa Musa and spoke with him during his sojourn in Cairo. Ibn Battuta (b. 1304–d. 1368) was an intrepid Moroccan traveler who visited Mali in 1352–1353 and later provided a colorful description of the court of Mansa Sulayman with its troupes of musicians, councilors, armed attendants, and ritual procedures. The Arabic writings of the Tunisian geographer Ibn Khaldun (b. 1332–d. 1406) support some of the claims made in oral tradition, including the fact that the greatest king of Mali, who overcame the Soso and conquered their country, was named Mari Jata, which is one of the praise names still used for Sunjata. All these accounts are available in English translation in Levtzion and Hopkins 1981, cited under Anthologies.
  497. Sunjata
  498. By the end of the 12th century the Mande chiefdoms had fallen under the domination of the Soso, who were ruled by a powerful king named Sumaworo Kanté. According to oral tradition, the Mande people’s greatest hero was Sunjata Keita. In the mid-13th century he unified the Mande chiefdoms, led them in a war that freed them from Soso domination, and established the foundations of the Mali Empire, which would flourish until the late 14th century. One of the most impressive bodies of oral tradition in sub-Saharan Africa is the epic of Sunjata, which emerged from the vast West African Mande cultural complex, including the Bamana of Mali, the Maninka of northeastern Guinea, the Mandinka of Senegambia, and related peoples of neighboring countries. The Sunjata epic comprises a series of episodes, some of which form the core of the narrative and are the most frequently performed. These are more or less familiar to most people of traditional Manding societies, and the basic storyline and characters have become known to the outside world both through popular and scholarly publications. Youssouf Tata Cissé is a Malian scholar trained at the Sorbonne who collaborated with Wa Kamissoko, one of the most knowledgeable Mande bards of the postcolonial era (b. 1925–d. 1976). At two colloquiums held in Mali, Wa Kamissoko responded to questions from an international group of researchers, the proceedings of which were published as Actes du premiere colloque de Bamako de 1975, followed by a volume for 1976–1977, and those provided the material revised and edited by Y. T. Cissé (Cissé and Kamissoko 1988–1991). One of the two English translations listed for the Sunjata epic is excerpted from an exceptionally long, detailed Guinean variant recorded in 1994 (Conrad 2004). Selected from a large corpus of known versions (see Bulman 1997), the other English translation (Johnson 1986) and the two French variants (Diabaté 1975; Ly-Tall, et al. 1987) provide interesting counterpart texts from Mali. A pioneering reconstructed prose variant available both in French and English was published as a novelette, introducing the epic to Western readers (Niane 2009, originally published in 1960). Of the many secondary studies available, the collection in Austen 1999 provides a representative sampling.
  499. Austen, Ralph A., ed. In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature, and Performance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
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  501. A collection of essays from a wide variety of perspectives by fourteen West Africa specialists.
  502. Find this resource:
  503. Bulman, Stephen P. D. “A Checklist of Published Versions of the Sunjata Epic.” History in Africa 24 (1997): 71–94.
  504. DOI: 10.2307/3172019Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  505. Exhaustive when published, it could now be updated but remains essential as a guide to obscure, difficult-to-find variants. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  506. Find this resource:
  507. Cissé, Youssouf Tata, and Wa Kamissoko. La grande geste du Mali. Paris: Karthala-Arsan, 1988–1991.
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  509. A two-volume study (the second is titled Soundjata la gloire du Mali) of the Sunjata epic and related oral traditions, with all narratives recounted by Wa Kamissoko (d. 1976), one of a handful of the most knowledgeable master bards (jeli ngaraw) ever to perform the traditions of Mande culture.
  510. Find this resource:
  511. Conrad, David C., ed. and trans. Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2004.
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  513. A northern Guinea variant from one of the most knowledgeable of bardic families, tracing the adventures and achievements of charismatic Mande ancestors credited with.
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  515. Diabaté, Massa Makan. L’aigle et l’épervier: Ou la geste de Sunjata. Poésie/Prose Africaine 13. Paris: Éditions Pierre Jean Oswald, 1975.
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  517. A French-language variant narrated in 1966 by one of the greatest griots of his time, Kele Monson Diabaté of Kita, Mali.
  518. Find this resource:
  519. Johnson, John W. The Epic of Son-jara: A West African Tradition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
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  521. English translation of a variant narrated by Fa-Digi Sissoko from the Kita region of Mali.
  522. Find this resource:
  523. Ly-Tall, Madina, Seydou Camara, and Bouna Diouara, eds. and trans. L’histoire du Mandé: D’après Jeli Kanku Madi Jabaté de Kéla. 2 vols. Paris: Association SCOA, 1987.
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  525. One of the best French-language variants, well annotated and including the original Maninka-language text.
  526. Find this resource:
  527. Niane, Djibril Tamsir. Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali. Rev. ed. Translated by G. D. Pickett. New material by David W. Chappell and James A. Jones. Longman African Writers. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2009.
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  529. A variant from northern Guinea rendered in prose, historically significant in the overall corpus because it first presented the Sunjata epic in a popular format appropriate for broad distribution in the non–West African world. Originally published in French as Soundjata ou l’épopée mandingue (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1960) and in English in 1965 (London: Longmans).
  530. Find this resource:
  531. Secondary Accounts
  532. At the beginning of the 20th century, French colonial writers began speculating on the identity and location of ancient Mali’s seat of government, and that discussion has continued into recent times (Hunwick 1973, Green 1991, Conrad 1994). Similarly, historians from colonial times forward have grappled with the problem of identifying the locations of early Mande chiefdoms by comparing archival, oral, and geographic evidence (Bühnen 1994, Conrad 2008). The relatively sparse information available about rulers other than a famous few indicates that Mali had major leadership problems at various times, evidently suffering the fatal flaw of never establishing an effective standard of royal succession. Levtzion 1963 and Bell 1972 examine the Arabic sources in this regard, and Levtzion later expanded on this and other themes in his Ancient Ghana and Mali (Levtzion 1973, cited under General Overviews). Though now dated, this remains an essential starting point for study of the Mali Empire, as does Monteil’s 1929 work (Monteil 1968).
  533. Bell, Nawal Morcos. “The Age of Mansa Musa of Mali: Problems in Succession and Chronology.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 5.2 (1972): 221–234.
  534. DOI: 10.2307/217515Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. An erudite updating of the discussion of royal succession in Mali, begun in Levtzion 1963, reexamining the relevant Arabic sources but advocating the comparative study of collected variants of the Sunjata epic for additional insights. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Bühnen, Stephan. “In Quest of Susu.” History in Africa 21 (1994): 1–47.
  538. DOI: 10.2307/3171880Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. Speculates on the location of the Kingdom of Soso, on the basis of research limited to archival and oral sources. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Conrad, David C. “A Town Called Dakajalan: The Sunjata Tradition and the Question of Ancient Mali’s Capital.” Journal of African History 35.3 (1994): 355–377.
  542. DOI: 10.1017/S002185370002675XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. Argues that evidence from oral tradition, Arabic texts, and archaeological sites indicates that ancient Mali’s seat of government changed to various locations during its imperial period from the 12th to the 16th centuries. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Conrad, David C. “From the Banan Tree of Kouroussa: Mapping the Landscape in Mande Traditional History.” In Special Issue: Engaging with a Legacy: Nehemia Levtzion (1935–2003). Canadian Journal of African Studies 42.2–3 (2008): 384–408.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. Argues that in some cases, iconic landscape references can be used to test the accuracy of Mande epic texts. Comparison of Mande topographical references to examples from Native American folklore demonstrates a universal concern for relating the past and present spatially in oral tradition. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Green, Kathryn L. “‘Mande Kaba,’ the Capital of Mali: A Recent Invention?” History in Africa 18 (1991): 127–135.
  550. DOI: 10.2307/3172058Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. A discussion of the historic Malian village of Kangaba, in the context of legitimizing claims by Mandekan speakers of peripheral areas that their ancestors came from Kangaba, and the accompanying claim that it was the capital of the Mali Empire. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Hunwick, John O. “The Mid-fourteenth Century Capital of Mali.” Journal of African History 14.2 (1973): 195–206.
  554. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700012512Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. Reviews earlier writers’ efforts to establish the location of Mali’s capital and makes an alternative suggestion based on the route traveled by Ibn Battuta in 1352. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Levtzion, Nehemia. “The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Kings of Mali.” Journal of African History 4.3 (1963): 341–353.
  558. DOI: 10.1017/S002185370000428XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. A pioneering postcolonial study of the most-essential Arabic sources on this subject: al-‘Umari, Ibn-Battuta, and Ibn-Khaldun. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Monteil, Charles. Les empires du Mali étude d’histoire et de sociologie soudanaises. Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1968.
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  563. Originally published in the Bulletin du Comité d’Études historiques et scientifiques de l’Afrique Occidentale française 12.3–4 (1929), pp. 291–417, this is a comparative historical and anthropological study of the foundations of the Mali Empire, consulting oral tradition, the Arabic sources, and other available evidence of the time, by one of the best of the colonial-era scholars.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Archaeological Sources
  566. The only archaeological excavations at a site claimed to be an administrative center or capital of Mali were undertaken at Niani, in northeastern Guinea Conakry, in 1968 and 1973. Prior to the 1960s, there was considerable debate on the capital’s possibly shifting location during the historical development of the polity (see Conrad 1994, cited under Secondary Accounts for a more recent argument in this vein). D. T. Niane identified Niani as the permanent, imperial capital from the 13th to the 16th centuries, as had several French colonial commentators earlier. Other scholars disagreed. The excavations at Niani, described in Filopowiak 1979, uncovered the remains of buildings claimed to be the Audience Hall, Palace, and Mosque of the “Royal Quarter,” occupied during and after the reign of the great Mansa Musa in the 14th century. An “Arab Quarter” some 700 m away was also excavated. The debate appeared to be settled. But in neither area did the radiocarbon dates document an occupation during the 13th–14th centuries. No notable exotic or luxury goods were recovered, beyond the glass beads and copper-alloy bangles common at many West African sites. In the “Royal Quarter,” tobacco pipes and radiocarbon dates ranging from 300–390 BP (uncalibrated) suggest an occupation in the 17th–18th centuries. McIntosh 2008 outlines these points. Despite the lack of confirming evidence, Niani’s identification as the imperial capital has become firmly entrenched in the literature. Fauvelle-Aymar 2012 attempts to marshal all the evidence against this identification.
  567. Fauvelle-Aymar, François-Xavier. “Niani redux. En finir avec l’identification du site de Niani (Guinée-Conakry) à la capitale du royaume du Mali.” Palethnologie 4 (2012): 237-254.
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  569. A pioneering postcolonial study of the most-essential Arabic sources on this subject: al-‘Umari, Ibn-Battuta, and Ibn-Khaldun. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  570. Find this resource:
  571. Filopowiak, Wladyslaw. Etudes archéologiques sur la capitale médiévale du Mali. Translated by Zofia Slawska. Szczecin, Poland: Muzeum Narodowe Szczecinie, 1979.
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  573. Summarizes results of the Polish excavations at Niani and survey in the surrounding area. Provides excellent information on Iron Age settlement in the region. The claim that Niani was Mansa Musa’s capital is not convincingly supported by the evidence reported, however.
  574. Find this resource:
  575. McIntosh, Susan Keech. “Niani.” In New Encyclopedia of Africa. Vol. 4. Edited by John Middleton and Joseph C. Miller, 28-29. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2008.
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  577. Provides a brief summary of the archaeological evidence from Niani that is inconsistent with an identification as the capital of Mali.
  578. Find this resource:
  579. Middle Niger Archaeological Sites
  580. Archaeology is the primary source of detailed information on early polity development in the Sahel prior to the 11th century. Sites along the Middle Niger reflect changes associated with the increased trade and exchange networks implicated in the emergence of Ghana and Kawkaw and increased riverine transport. McIntosh 1998 provides a useful overview. Detailed, archaeologically based accounts of site growth, trade connections, local resource exploitation, and the development of a distinctive form of urban clustering during the 1st millennium CE are available for the Inland Niger Delta at the classic site of Jenne-jeno (McIntosh and McIntosh 1981, McIntosh 1995, and McIntosh 1998), antecedent of the occupied urban site of Djenné and similarly advantageously positioned for production of staple goods (such as rice) and for river transport of imported commodities, including salt and metals. Bedaux, et al. 2005 describes some of the findings from extensive excavations at Dia, whence the early settlers at Jenne-jeno are said to have originated. The Mema region figures importantly in Manden traditions as the place of Sunjata’s exile and in the legend of Wagadu as a focal area for the movements of Dinga, mythical ancestor of the Soninke. Togola 2008 describes the first systematic survey and excavations in this formerly active interior floodplain basin located west-northwest of the current Inland Niger Delta. Less detailed and regionally focused archaeological information is also available for the Lakes region also known as Gimbala/Guimbala (Raimbault and Sanogo 1991). Located in the downriver sector of the Inland Niger Delta north of Lake Debo, this region is dominated by marshland, braided riverbeds, and fringing lakes. Occupation mounds and funerary tumuli created during the last two millennia occur near the lakes and on the riverbanks. Additional work will be needed to specify the nature of interactions of these sites with Ghana/Wagadu. Farther downriver at the northern Niger Bend, the area around Timbuktu also has evidence of a significant number of large mound sites and urban growth in the 1st millennium (McIntosh and McIntosh 1986, Park 2010). Located at the junction of the Sahara and the Niger River, Timbuktu has been a crucial trade transshipment point and center of Islamic culture since its founding in the 12th century CE. The surrounding region has numerous large occupation mounds that predate the city’s traditional founding date of 1100 CE.
  581. Bedaux, Rogier, Jean Polet, Kléna Sanogo, and Annette Schmidt. eds. Recherches archéologiques à Dia dans le Delta intérieur du Niger (Mali): Bilan des saisons de fouilles, 1998–2003. Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde 33. Leiden, The Netherlands: CNWS Publications, 2005.
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  583. Report on excavations at the mound sites of Dia-Shoma and Dia-Mara and survey in the immediate region. According to oral tradition, settlers from Dia were among the first occupants of Jenne-jeno.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. McIntosh, Roderick J. The Peoples of the Middle Niger: The Island of Gold. Peoples of Africa. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
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  587. A useful overview of evidence for occupation within the Middle Niger basins from the early Holocene to the present. Includes a detailed description of clustered urbanism, and discussion of several concepts that have introduced new dimensions to the study of early states and complex societies in West Africa (e.g., heterarchy and synoecism). Brief, speculative discussions of Ghana and Mali.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. McIntosh, Roderick J., and Susan Keech McIntosh. “The Inland Niger Delta before the Empire of Mali: Evidence from Jenne-jeno.” Journal of African History 22.1 (1981): 1–22.
  590. DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700018983Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. Contrasts historical information on trade and towns in the western Sudan, and Jenne in particular, with evidence from the first excavations at Jenne-jeno, and suggests a very different, considerably earlier history for these developments. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. McIntosh, Susan Keech, ed. Excavations at Jenne-jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali): The 1981 Season. University of California Publications in Anthropology 20. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
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  595. The most recent account of the excavations that established the classic mound site of Jenne-jeno as an early urban settlement, occupied from c. 200 BCE to 1400 CE. The concluding chapter summarizes the sequence of deposits, situates occupation in the context of changing climate, and summarizes the evidence for production, trade relations, and the changing organization of society. Includes extensive discussion of other Inland Niger Delta archaeological sites.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. McIntosh, Susan Keech, and Roderick J. McIntosh. “Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Region of Timbuktu, Mali.” National Geographic Research 2.3 (1986): 302–319.
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  599. Report on the first systematic archaeological survey around Timbuktu, which revealed numerous sites, among them large occupation mounds.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Park, Douglas Post. “Prehistoric Timbuktu and Its Hinterland.” Antiquity 84.326 (2010): 1076–1088.
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  603. Excavations at the large (40 ha) occupation mound of Tombouze found evidence of long-term occupation throughout much of the 1st millennium CE. Pottery styles indicate connections both with the Lakes region and Gao. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Raimbault, Michel, and Kléna Sanogo, eds. Recherches archéologiques au Mali: Prospections et inventaire, fouilles et études analytiques en zone lacustre. Archéologie Africaines. Paris: Karthala, 1991.
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  607. Summarizes the results of regional survey and excavations at two 10-m-high occupation mounds dating to the 1st millennium CE.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Togola, Téréba . Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa). Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 73. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2008.
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  611. Presents results of the first integrated program of survey and excavation in the Mema, which identified over one hundred Iron Age archaeological sites, many of them occupation mounds ranging in size from 10 to 80 hectares.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Takrur
  614. Located along the midsection of the Senegal River, Takrur was first mentioned by al-Bakri (in Levtzion and Hopkins 1981, cited under Anthologies) in the 11th century as a lesser polity compared to the vast, neighboring kingdom of Silla. Takrur’s fortunes changed by the next century, when al-Idrisi (in Levtzion and Hopkins 1981) reported that Silla was subordinate to Takrur. Major exports were slaves and gold from the Bambuk goldfields farther upriver along the Falemé tributary of the Senegal River. Takrur’s alliance with the Almoravids likely contributed to its expanded influence, which became significant enough that, from the 14th century on, sources referred to the western Sudan generally as Takrur. Al-Naqar 1969 provides an interesting historical analysis of this phenomenon. Subsequent historical sources from the 12th to 14th centuries offer few new details on the physical setting of Takrur or its relations with neighboring polities such as Ghana and Mali. There is no tradition of locally written histories (tarikh) in Arabic, as there is for the Middle Niger. Oral traditions gathered by French colonial administrators and their local agents focus on the origins and histories of successive dynasties along the Senegal River. Delafosse’s translation of traditions recorded by Siré-Abbas Soh (Delafosse 1913) is the main published source and also includes a tradition recorded by Yoro Dyao. Information from these traditions plus two other unpublished manuscripts is discussed in Thilmans and Ravisé 1980, pp. 175–189, revealing the irreconcilable and conflicting claims in the four sources. Bâ 2002 also discusses these documents in a volume that brought together the available sources—written, traditional, archaeological—as of the early 1980s, when this thesis was completed. The paucity of historical documentation makes archaeology a vital source of information for the emergence and development of Takrur. While archaeology along the Middle Senegal valley is still in an early stage of development, four significant projects at sites from the relevant time period (1st millennium to early 2nd millennium CE) have been published: Chavane 1985; McIntosh and Bocoum 2000; McIntosh, et al. 2013; and Thilmans and Ravisé 1980.
  615. al-Naqar, ‘Umar. “Takrūr: The History of a Name.” Journal of African History 10.3 (1969): 365–374.
  616. DOI: 10.1017/S002185370003632XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  617. Documents the use of Takrur as a name for Mali and the western Sudan more generally by chroniclers from al-‘Umari through to the 17th-century Timbuktu tarikhs, suggesting that this usage began and spread via the pilgrimage to Mecca. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  618. Find this resource:
  619. Bâ, Abdourhamane. Le Takrur: Des origines à la conquête par le Mali (VIe–XIIIe siècles). Dakar, Senegal: CRIAA Université de Nouakchott, IFAN/UCAD, 2002.
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  621. A good resource that pulls together all available sources, versions, and claims for the history of the Middle Senegal valley, including early Takrur, without subjecting them to a great deal of critical analysis. The archaeology, current in 1984 when the dissertation was defended, is now outdated, however.
  622. Find this resource:
  623. Chavane, Bruno A. Villages de l’ancien Tekrour: Recherches archéologiques dans la moyenne vallée du fleuve Sénégal. Archéologies Africaines 2. Paris: Editions Karthala, 1985.
  624. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  625. Summarizes the finding from archaeological excavations at the site of Ogo, on the eastern side of the Middle Senegal, in an area that may correspond to the general location of the Silla of al-Bakri’s account. Ogo’s material culture closely resembles that at Sincu Bara.
  626. Find this resource:
  627. Delafosse, Maurice, ed. and trans. Chroniques de Fouta sénégalais de Siré-Abbâs-Soh. Paris: E. Leroux, 1913.
  628. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  629. This French translation includes dynastic histories of the ruling lineages of the Futa Toro (Middle Senegal valley) that were collected at the beginning of the 20th century and recorded in Arabic by Soh, a native of the region. Delafosse also included a short manuscript by Yoro Dyao on the same subject.
  630. Find this resource:
  631. McIntosh, Roderick J., Susan Keech McIntosh, and Hamady Bocoum, eds. Seeking the Origins of Takrur: Archaeological Excavations and Survey in the Middle Senegal Valley. New Haven, CT: Yale University Publications in Anthropology, 2013.
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  633. Lengthy monograph presenting results from a multiyear program of survey and excavation in the western sector of the Middle Senegal valley. Eleven excavated sites produced no evidence for trade in durable goods or site growth prior to the 9th century. The emergence of Takrur likely involved rapid cultural and economic transformation in the 10th–11th centuries.
  634. Find this resource:
  635. McIntosh, Susan Keech, and Hamady Bocoum. “New Perspectives on Sincu Bara, a First Millennium Site in the Senegal Valley.” African Archaeological Review 17.1 (2000): 1–43.
  636. DOI: 10.1023/A:1006694511823Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  637. Summarizes the results of new excavations at this large site, which define the occupation sequence and describe cultural change from the early 1st millennium CE through the early 2nd millennium CE. Previous work at the site failed to recognize badly mixed deposits and so concluded that the cultural sequence remained static throughout this period. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  638. Find this resource:
  639. Thilmans, Guy, and Annie Ravisé. Protohistoire du Sénégal: Recherches archéologiques. Vol. 2, Sintiou-Bara et les sites du fleuve. Mémoires de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire 91. Dakar, Senegal: IFAN, 1980.
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  641. Useful summary of some of the splendid artifacts recovered from early 2nd millennium CE contexts at this site, claimed by its excavators to be the 11th- to 12th-century town of Silla. The archaeology itself was muddled due to mixed deposits, resulting in confusing radiocarbon dates and interpretations, subsequently clarified by later excavations (see McIntosh and Bocoum 2000).
  642. Find this resource:
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