Susan Keech McIntosh

• Ph.D.
• Professor at Rice University

Excavations at several archaeological sites in and around Gao have resulted in the recovery of thousands of glass beads presumed to have been acquired from glass bead-producing centers through trade. The bead assemblages cover the period from the eighth to the fourteenth century CE . Here we report on the results of compositional analysis by LA-ICP...

Crucibles to melt glass are very rare in archaeological contexts in sub-Saharan Africa. Recent archaeological excavations at Igbo Olokun, Ile-Ife (Southwest Nigeria) revealed abundant fragments of glass crucibles from 11th-15th century AD deposits, matching the complete and near complete examples earlier reported from Ile-Ife. This paper provides a...

The site of Igbo Olokun on the northern periphery of Ile-Ife has been recognized as a glass-working workshop for over a century. Its glass-encrusted crucibles and beads were viewed as evidence of secondary processing of imported glass until the high lime, high alumina (HLHA) composition of the glass was recognized as unique to the region. Archaeolo...

Recent excavations at the site of Igbo Olokun in the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife, in south-western Nigeria, have shed light on early glass manufacturing techniques in West Africa. The recovery of glass beads and associated production materials has enabled compositional analysis of the artefacts and preliminary dating of the site, which puts the main tim...

From the 9th to the 13th centuries ce, the eastern Niger Bend was dominated by a trading state known to Arab chroniclers as Kawkaw with its royal capital, Gao, strategically located on the Niger River at the mouth of a fossil valley leading north to the Sahara. Through control of distant salt sources and trade routes, Songhai rulers created a far-r...

The site of Igbo Olokun in the city of Ife, in southwestern Nigeria has been identified as a primary glass and glass beads production center dating to the “Classic” period (12th-15th c.), but glass from well-recorded contexts has been rare. Excavations in 2011-2012 produced over twelve thousand drawn glass beads. LA-ICP-MS analysis of 49 glass bead...

At the time of his death, Nehemia Levtzion had initiated a project to revise Ancient Ghana and Mali in the light of new scholarship since its original publication in 1973. He proposed that the question of origins and early development of Sudanic polities such as Ghana should be thoroughly reconsidered with regard to findings from research in archae...

Along with Ghana, Gawgaw (Gao) was an important regional trading polity mentioned by Arab chroniclers in the later first millennium CE. In the later tenth century, al-Muhallabi wrote of the dual towns of Gawgaw, one the residence of the king and the other a market and trading town called Sarneh. The large settlement mound of Gao Saney, located seve...

This study presents 17 archeointensity estimates from Senegal and Mali, two neighboring countries in West Africa, for the period 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. The archeological artifacts used in this study were collected during the course of two separate projects, together spanning 22 years and across 8 separate excavations. A primary objective of this stud...

Technological advances are making genetic data collection and analysis feasible on a scale unimaginable only a few years ago. Early genetic research using mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome provided important insights for macroscale modeling of regional and continent-wide population movements, but the capacity to study the entire genome now ope...

The 67-ha site of Sincu Bara was discovered and extensively excavated in the 1970s. Three primary aspects of its archaeological interest were its vast size, its location in the Middle Senegal Valley, where some of the earliest regional polities in West Africa arose, and the extensive and diverse assortment of copper-based metal artifacts it produce...

African Pottery Roulette Past and Present: Techniques, Identification and Distribution considers ethnographic, museological and archaeological approaches to pottery-decorating tools called roulettes, that is to say short lengths of fibre or wood that are rolled over the surface of a vessel for decoration. This book sets out, for the first time, a s...

In West Africa during the later Holocene, villages occupied by multiple family or lineage-based groups appeared, enabled by new subsistence technologies, including agriculture, that increased output and supported a larger number and density of people. Greater sedentism, either seasonally or year round, is reflected by labor investment in durable co...

Excavation of the five hectare site of Walaldé revealed an occupation by iron-using agropastoralists that began [800-550] cal BC, and continued until [400-200] cal BC. The earliest occupation phase appears to document a period of transitional iron use, with some worked stone in evidence. Smelting and forging slags and tuyeres are present in conside...

Holl Augustin F.C. The land of Houlouf: genesis of a Chadic polity, 1900 BC – AD 1800 (Memoirs of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology No. 38). 272 pages, illustrations. 2002. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology; 0-915703-52-1 paperback $30. - Volume 79 Issue 304 - Susan Keech McIntosh

A total of 101 cattle teeth and bones from 13 archaeological sites between 1000 to 9000 years old were assessed for the presence of verifiable mitochondrial sequences. It was possible to reproducibly amplify and sequence mitochondrial control region DNA extracted from twelve of the samples. The results were compared with published extant data by co...

Tobacco pipes are among the most frequently recorded artifacts from historic period sites in West Africa, and can be used to both establish tight chronologies and address issues of social and economic change. This paper is a discussion of the 300-year sequence of tobacco pipes recovered from excavations at Jenne, Mali in 1999. The assemblage, which...

ABSOLUTE TIME PERIOD: Varies by region. In the Sahel and northern savanna: 4000–2000 B.P. Chronology for beginning of food production involving yams in the savanna-forest zone is unknown. Neolithic may continue until 1000 B.P. in some areas, particularly the southwest.

ABSOLUTE TIME PERIOD: At least 13,000–4000 B.P. Microlithic assemblages are present in Central Africa from 40,000 B.P. and may prove to be earlier than 13,000 B.P. in West Africa. Areas with stone-using hunter-gatherers may persist well after 4000 B.P. in some areas, particularly the southwest. The transition to the Neolithic, marked by the inclusi...

CAPITAL OF ANCIENT GHANA Recherches archéologiques sur la capitale de l'empire de Ghana: Etude d'un secteur d'habitat à Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie. Campagnes II–III–IV–V, 1975–76 – 1980–81. By SOPHIE BERTHIER. (Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology, 41). Oxford: Archaeopress, 1997. Pp. 143. £33 (ISBN 0-86054-868-6). - - Volume 41 Issue 2 - S...

Over the past decade, sub-Saharan Africa has virtually disappeared from the screen of archaeologists engaged in broadly comparative, theoretical discussions on the emer-gence of complex society. Prior to the 1980s, the sub-continent was represented with some regularity at important archaeological conferences and discussions on these issues (e.g., C...

Le bon collectionneur d'art africain (dont les caracteristiques sont decrites) doit se rejouir de l'accord americano-malien de 1993 imposant une interdiction sur les importations des antiquites de la vallee du Niger. La politique culturelle malienne se tourne davantage vers l'acces a, et la protection de, la propriete culturelle plutot qu'a la rest...

Archaeological Survey - Archéologie africaine. By CornevinMarianne. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1993. Pp. 268. FF 128, paperback (ISBN 2-7068-1095-5). - Volume 36 Issue 1 - Susan McIntosh

Archaeological research since 1988 in West Africa has focused almost exclusively on the period since 10,000 B.P. Significant advances have been made in our understanding of the Late Stone Age in the Sahara and Savanna zones, the advent of metallurgy and subsequent changes in metal technology, and the comparative trajectories of complex societies in...

Thousands of earthen mounds of varying sizes, presumed to be funerary monuments, occur throughout a 32,000 km2 area of western Senegal. Previous inventory work and extremely limited excavation have not adequately addressed basic questions such as the relation of tumulus sites to habitation sites, the relative chronology and cultural affinities of t...

Occupations at Tegdaoust - Tegdaoust V: une concession médiévale à Tegdaoust: implantation, évolution d'une unité d'habitation. Par Robert-ChaleixDenise. (Mémoire No. 82.) Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1989. Pp. 287. FF 246. - Volume 34 Issue 2 - Susan Keech Mcintosh

Archaeological Heritage Management in West Africa is hampered by lack of adequately trained personnel, lack of funds, and lack of appropriate equipment such as computers. It is suggested that organizations such as the World Bank should consider supporting training programs for Third World archaeologists, with internships at U.S. universities with a...

Until recently, the presence of sponge spicules in ancient ceramics has only been reported from South America. Current technological studies of Neolithic pottery from Sudan and Iron Age pottery from Mali provide evidence that sponge spicules are also a distinctive inclusion of some African ceramics. In this study, new data concerning the presence a...

In a period of little over a decade, excavations have transformed our characterization of Middle Niger prehistory from hidden and humble to one of the world's most original theatres of change. After situating the Middle Niger evidence for geomorphology, domestication, organization of society and production, and belief systems against a backdrop of...

Earlier views saw West Africa as culturally stagnant through much of the Holocene until stimulus or intervention from north of the Sahara transformed Iron Age societies. Evidence accumulating over the past 15 years suggests that stone-using societies from 10,000 to 3000 B.P. were far more diverse than previously thought. Against an increasingly det...

This article reports over 250 new radiocarbon dates relevant to recent archaeological research in West Africa. Thanks to the continuing trend towards series of dates from either single sites or groups of related sites, some major blanks on the archaeological map of West Africa have been replaced by well-dated regional sequences. An example is the M...

The first systematic archaeological survey in the hinterland of Timbuktu and downstream on the Niger Bend demonstrates radical shifts in environment and settlement distributions during the past two millennia. The survey directly challenges conventional wisdom that urbanism did not arise along the Niger Bend until the 14th and 15th century AD when t...

Volta Gold - L'or de la Volta Noire: archéologie et histoire de l'exploitation traditionelle (Région de Poura, Haute-Volta). By KiéthégaJean-Baptiste. Paris: Editions Karthala, 1983. Pp. 247. 150 F. - Volume 26 Issue 4 - Susan Keech Mcintosh

The dominating paradigm of urbanism in West Africa is steadily shifting from the city-centric to the dynamic consideration of the city's function within a wider settlement hierarchy. The authors appraise these theoretical positions and discuss the methodologies appropriate to each. Following the thematic framework developed in the theory and method...

There is a general consensus among West African historians that the Island of Gold, known to Arab geographers as Wangara and to European cartographers as Palolus, refers to the Bambuk/Bure goldfields. This article examines the evidence for an alternative identification of the Island of Gold with the Inland Niger Delta, where the place name Wangara...

The dates and circumstances of early references to Jenne have led historians to conclude that the city originated relatively late in time. It is widely believed that the city developed simultaneously with Timbuktu in the mid-thirteenth century as an artifact of trans-Saharan trade. Persistent oral traditions of the foundation of Jenne in the eighth...

Identifies some important themes which appear to dominate the archaeological record in W. Africa, focusing on the significance of climatic change for late Stone Age adaptations and the documentation of indigenous economic and social evolution during the Iron Age. Concludes that much of the area's rapid development after Arab penetration can be expl...

Information is presented about changes in subsistence resources and utilization from the beginning of permanent occupation to the present in the Inland Niger Delta of West Africa, a region long believed to be a centre of plant domestication. Excavations in 1977 at the western Delta site of Jenne‐jeno provided the first direct archaeological evidenc...