Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:31:26.817Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Archaeology and the prehistoric origins of the Ghana empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Patrick J. Munson
Patrick J. Munson
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Archaeological investigations in southern Mauretania have revealed a wealth of rather spectacular stone masonry villages which were occupied by prehistoric cultivators as early as 1000 B.C. It is argued that the inhabitants of these villages were Negro and very probably Soninke, and that the basic elements of their culture had developed without major influences from outside the area. The apparent sophistication and complexity of this cultural manifestation, combined with the close fit of developments in this area with Carneiro's theory of state formation, suggests that this prehistoric complex represented at least a powerful chiefdom which embodied many of the characteristics of subsequent West African states. The first demonstrable outside influences in the area began about 600 B.C. with the arrival of Libyco-Berbers from North Africa. Rather than causing still further cultural advances, the initial effect of this contact was the collapse of this sociopolitical organization. But with subsequent adjustment, plus the potential from trans-Saharan trade carried out by the North Africans, the basic, pre-existing pattern re-emerged, resulting eventually in a second and much more powerful African political organization in this area – the Ghana Empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 457 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 An earlier, unpublished version of this position was presented at the Conference on Manding Studies, London, 1972.Google Scholar

2 Mauny, Raymond, ‘The question of Ghana’, Africa, xxiv, iii (1954), 200–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davidson, Basil, The Lost Cities of Africa (Boston, 1959)Google Scholar; Levtzion, Nehemia, Ancient Ghana and Mali (London, 1973).Google Scholar

3 Levtzion, , Ancient Ghana and Mali, chap, IIGoogle Scholar; Bathily, Abdoulaye, ‘A discussion of the traditions of Wagadu, with some reference to ancient Ghana’, Bulletin de l'Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire (sér. B), xxxvii, 1 (1975), 1–49.Google Scholar

4 Bonnel, A.Mezières, de, ‘Recherches de l'emplacement de Ghana (fouilles à Koumbi et à Settah)’, Comptes rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, xii (1920), 227–63.Google Scholar

5 Thomassey, P. and Mauny, R., ‘Campagne de fouilles de 1950 à Koumbi Saleh (Ghana?)’, Bulletin de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire (sér. B), xviii, i–ii (1956), 117–40.Google Scholar

6 Levtzion, , Ancient Ghana and Mali, 20.Google Scholar

7 Seligman, C. G., The Races of Africa (London, 1930), 19.Google Scholar

8 Arkell, A. J., ‘The valley of the Nile’, in Oliver, Roland (ed.), The Dawn of African History (London, 1961), 11.Google Scholar

9 Diop, Cheik Anta, Nations nègres et culture (Paris, 1955).Google Scholar

10 Delafosse, M., Haut-Sénégal-Niger, 11 (Paris, 1912), 22–5.Google Scholar

11 Oliver, Roland and Fage, J. D., A Short History of Africa (Baltimore, 1962), 46.Google Scholar

12 Posnansky, Merrick, ‘Kingship, archaeology, and historical myth’, in Collins, Robert O. (ed.), Problems in African History (Englewood Cliffs, 1968), 48.Google Scholar

13 Levtzion, , Ancient Ghana and Mali, 8.Google Scholar

14 Awe, Bolanle, ‘Empires of the Sudan: Ghana, Mali, Songhay’, in Ade Ajayi, J. F. and Espie, Ian (eds.), A Thousand Years of West African History (Ibadan, 1965), 58–9.Google Scholar

15 Murdock, George P., Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History (New York, 1959), 37.Google Scholar

16 Lewis, Herbert S., ‘Ethnology and culture history’, in Gabel, Creighton and Bennett, Norman R. (eds.). Reconstructing African History (Boston, 1967), 30.Google Scholar

17 Murdock, , Africa, 72Google Scholar; Davidson, , Lost Cities, 81Google Scholar; Levtzion, , Ancient Ghana and Mali, 9–11, 14.Google Scholar

18 Munson, Patrick J., ‘The Tichitt Tradition: A Late Prehistoric Occupation of the Southwestern Sahara’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois-Urbana (1971)Google Scholar; ‘Archaeological data on the origins of cultivation in the southwestern Sahara and their implications for West Africa’, in Harlan, Jack R.et al. (eds.), Origins of African Plant Domestication (The Hague, 1976), 187–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hugot, H.-J., ‘Les communautés néolithiques urbaines de Tichitt’, Revue française d'histoire d'Outre-Mer, lix, ccxvi (1972), 506–12.Google Scholar

19 Laforgue, Pierre, ‘Une station préhistorique dans le secteur nomade de Tichitt’, Bulletin de la Société de géographie et d'archéologie d'Oran, xliv, iii–iv (1924), 267–79Google Scholar; Mauny, Raymond, ‘Villages néolithiques de la falaise (dhar) Tichitt-Oualata’, Notes africaines, l (1950), 35–43Google Scholar; ‘Du nouveau sur la préhistoire et l'archéologie de l'Aouker et du Hodh (Mauritanie)’, Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, xlvi, i–ii (1951), 78–83.Google Scholar

20 Macauley, G. C. (translator), The History of Herodotus (London, 1904), 196.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Boyer, G., ‘Une peuple de l'Ouest soudanais: les Diawara’, Mémoire de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire, xxix (1953), fig. 10.Google Scholar

22 Boyer, , ‘Les Diawara’, fig. 25.Google Scholar

23 Monod, Théodore, Méharées: explorations au vrai Sahara (Paris, 1937), 230.Google Scholar

24 Laforgue, Pierre, ‘Notes sur Aoudaghost: ancienne capital de Berbères Lamtouna’, Bulletin de la Société de géographie et d'archéologie d'Oran, lxiv (1943), 30Google Scholar; Toupet, Charles, ‘La vallée de la Tamourt en Nanj. Tagant. Problèmes d'aménagement’, Bulletin de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire (sér. B), xx, i–ii (1958), 77.Google Scholar

25 Carneiro, Robert L., ‘Slash-and-burn cultivation among the Kuikuru and its implications for cultural development in the Amazon basin’, in Wilbert, Johannes (ed.), The Evolution of Horticultural Systems in Native South America: Causes and Consequences (Caracas, 1961), 60–1Google Scholar; ‘A theory of the origin of the state’, Science, clxix (1970), 733–8.Google Scholar

26 Steward, Julian H., ‘Cultural causality and law: a trial formulation of the development of early civilization’, American Anthropologist, li, 1 (1949), 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Mauny, , ‘Villages’, p. 39.Google Scholar

28 Mauny, Raymond, ‘Une route préhistorique à travers le Sahara occidental’, Bulletin de l'Institut français d'Afrique noire, ix, iv (1947), 341–57Google Scholar; Munson, P.J. and Munson, C. A., ‘Nouveaux chars à bœufs rupestres du dhar Tichitt (Mauritanie)’, Notes africaines, cxxii (1969), 62–3.Google Scholar