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Potter communities and technological tradition in the Lower Tilemsi Valley, Mali
Abstract and Figures
The Tilemsi Valley has long been heralded as a focal region in the development of West African cultural complexity. The Lower Tilemsi Valley Project began in 2005, with the aim of clarifying the archaeological significance of this region and refining its chronology. This paper examines the pottery from these excavations, advocating an integrative approach to analysis in which pottery production is located within an historical and socio-economic context. It does not present a reified ‘type’ of Lower Tilemsi pottery, but instead describes a regional-scale technological tradition, whilst focusing on the local scale of adaptive change and technical innovation. La basse vallée du Tilemsi est reconnue depuis très longtemps comme une pointe focale pour le développement de la complexité culturelle en Afrique de l'Ouest. Le Projet Basse Vallée du Tilemsi a débuté en 2005, avec le but de clarifier l'importance archéologique de cette région et à raffiner sa chronologie. Cet article étudie la poterie issue de ces fouilles, préconisant une approche intégrée à l'analyse, dans laquelle la production céramique est située dans son contexte historique et socio-économique. Cet article ne présente pas un ‘type’ céramique du Tilemsi, mais plutôt décrit une tradition technologique à l’échelle régionale, tout en se concentrant sur l'échelle locale du changement adaptatif et de l'innovation technique.
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... In addition, potsherds can provide information on regional or ethnic differences between their makers, different uses or functions of the vessels themselves, and even social or economic developments in the producing communities (see e.g. David et al. 988;Gosselain 2000;Mayor et al. 2005;Manning 20). ...
... While the rocker comb and dragged comb sherds, as well as the clay knobs, may show some similarity especially to Early Nok pottery, the dominance of fibre roulettes and closed vessels reveals the traditions to have been different. The Tilemsi pottery also features cord-wrapped roulettes, both impressed and rolled, though in some instances the possibility of mat impression rather than impressed cord-wrapped tools is discussed (Manning 2008;Manning 20). ...
... As shown in this chapter, cord implements were commonly used for impressed or rouletted decorations in West African pottery inventories from the third millennium BCE onwards. The beginning of these decorations perhaps as early as 0,000 years ago is debated, though some evidence for their presence in early ceramic assemblages in Africa exists (Livingstone Smith 2007;Manning 20). Clear differentiation between cord-wrapped implements, comb tools and mat impressions is, however, not always possible -the best method to differentiate is to "look for fibre imprints within the individual segments of the impression; if these are not present, then doubt is warranted" (MacDonald & Manning 200: 50). ...
The Central Nigerian Nok Culture has been well known for its elaborate terracotta sculptures and evidence of iron metallurgy since its discovery by British archaeologist Bernard Fagg in the 1940s. With a date in the first millennium BCE, both, sculptures and ironworking, belong to the earliest of their kind in sub-Saharan Africa. After a period of destruction of Nok sites by looting, scientific research resumed in 2006, when a team of archaeologists from Goethe University in Germany started to explore different Nok Culture aspects, one of which focused on chronology. Establishing a chronology for the Nok Culture employed two approaches: a comprehensive pottery analysis based on decoration and form elements and a wealth of radiocarbon dates from a large number of excavated sites. This volume presents the radiocarbon dates and the methods, data and results of the chronological pottery analysis, conducted within the scope of a dissertation project completed in 2015. Combining the two strands of information, a chronology emerges, dividing the Nok Culture into three phases from the middle of the second millennium BCE to the last centuries BCE and defining seven pottery groups that can be arranged to some extent in a chronological order.
... very well. Combdragged and wavy line motifs are very common in Yoruba ceramics from West Africa since at least the 13 th century. And annular wavy-bands, both in singular and multiple registers, have a broader application in the ceramics associated with cultures throughout West Africa (Blier, 2015;Ernst and Hofman, 2019;Ernst and Weaver, in prep.;Manning, 2011). ...
Wheel-made ceramics from early colonial Caribbean sites (1492–1562) have traditionally been labelled as European imports. This paper challenges that assumption, as the intercultural interactions within colonies in the New World have led to the creation of new social identities and changing material culture repertoires. Macro-trace ceramic analysis from the sites of Concepción de la Vega and Cotuí (Hispaniola, present-day Dominican Republic) show that the potter’s wheel was in fact introduced to the Spanish colonies at an early stage. The evidence of RKE (rotative kinetic energy) on sherds and the discovery of parts of a potter’s wheel are the earliest traces of the potter’s wheel found in the Americas. Here we aim to present how the potter’s wheel was introduced within the context of transcultural pottery forming. This paper will show that traditional coiling techniques were supplemented with finishing techniques on the wheel. The transformation processes within ceramic repertoires are assessed through theories of colonialism and learning processes, combined with archaeological and ethnoarchaeological assessment of the ceramic chaîne opératoire. Evidence from ceramic analysis is combined with historical sources to understand social processes surrounding the technological changes behind the introduction of the potter’s wheel to the New World colonies.
... Specifically, the archaeological examination of organic materials used in ceramic pastes during production yields relative porosity results and the charred organic remains absorbed into the walls of pottery objects can also be identified (Tsetlin 2003;Tomber et al. 2011;van Doosselaere et al. 2014). The composition of the pastes and clays used in the construction of ceramic objects can also be studied using different analytical approaches, as has been successfully applied elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa (Gosselain and Livingstone Smith 2005;Ashley 2010;Haour 2011;Manning 2011;Cascadden et al. 2020). Thus, the technological styles documented in southwestern Ethiopia have great potential to assist archaeologists studying past social identities and interactions. ...
This article examines the pottery technological styles of the Oromo, the Yem and the Dawro ethnolinguistic groups in southwestern Ethiopia. It provides a comparative examination of the technological choices each group makes at different stages of pottery production, which, in turn, produce and reproduce their group identities. In southwestern Ethiopia, pottery-making lies within the domain of women, with social restrictions prohibiting male involvement. Potters are marginalised and transmit pottery-making knowledge and skills through learning networks, mainly between immediate family members. Each pottery-making community practises distinct technological traditions and styles, but all communities are now acquiring new technological skills in response to developing socio-economic dynamics. Examination of the incorporation of new elements into pottery-making due to both socio-economic changes at the local level and global phenomena may provide clues about the changing dynamics of the craft in the recent and more distant past.
... 73 Manning 2011. 74 Manning 2011. Nadharif pottery, I mentioned examples from Phase I/II at Jenné-jeno dated to 100 BC-AD 200. ...
... In sub-Saharan African societies, each stage of pottery production is guided by social factors consciously learned as a member of individual communities, but once learned the skills performed become unconscious and routine (David et al., 1988;Gosselain, 2000;Livingstone Smith, 2007;Lyons, 2014;Manning, 2011;Sterner, 1989). However, conscious change or the decision to resist change may result when communities or individuals are confronted with events that affect their daily practice, including environmental change, changes in access to resources or the impact of globalizing markets through the removal of barriers and improved infrastructures (Lyons, 2014, Wayessa, 2016. ...
This paper discusses the decline of traditional pottery making in rural southwestern Ethiopia and its causes and looks at the potters’ responses to socio-economic and cultural shocks that have been instigated by the decline. Pottery making in southwestern Ethiopia forms a distinct female-only occupational identity, and potters are socially marginalized and forced into endogamous social groups. Recent government land policies have limited their already meager access to clay resources, while imported plastic and enamel objects offer comparative advantages over locally made ceramics. However, potters have not passively accepted the shocks brought about by the land policy and the influx of imported objects. Instead, they have devised strategies to obtain clay and have included imported foreign objects into their technology, despite the fact that these new objects are not part of their technological traditions.
... Previous ethnoarchaeological research in Africa and elsewhere has played a pivotal role in understanding relations that possibly existed between pots, their makers, and their users, in prehistory (e.g. David & Henning 1972;Huffman 1980Huffman , 2007Bwerinofa 1990;Gosselain 1992;Collet 1993;Lindahl & Matenga 1995;Ndoro 1996;Dietler & Herbich 2006;Ogundele 2006;Hayashida 2008;Wynne-Jones & Mapunda 2008;Fredriksen 2009;Norman 2009;Ashley 2010;Haour et al. 2011;Manning 2011;Ogundiran & Saunders 2011;Giblin & Kigongo 2012;Pikirayi & Lindahl 2013). From this enlightenment, we now appreciate the life cycle of domestic pottery vessels as largely influenced by the cosmological and physical worldviews of humans (see Ndoro 1996). ...
Most of the ceramic ethnoarchaeological studies that have been undertaken in southern Africa's Iron Age have been biased towards the life cycle of household clay pots. To this end, an increased literature and understanding has been generated about their sociology. This chapter attempts to bridge this divide by providing aspects of consumption and symbolism that possibly influenced the life cycle of ritual vessels in the prehistory of the Nyanga archaeological complex which thrived in the second millennium AD. Using an emic approach, it explores two assemblages of complete and partially broken pots from the archaeological site of Mount Muozi and those produced and consumed by the contemporary Saunyama dynasty which are both situated in northeastern Zimbabwe. The comparison suggests that specific vessels had their functions exclusively embedded in ritual proceedings that ranged from chief's ordination to rain-petitioning and harvesting ceremonies. Furthermore, the study demonstrates symbolism of ritual vessels as dual, since it emanates from both producers and the consumers. Consequently, the Saunyama experience proposes ceramic sociology as probably situational in the archaeological past as it varies with space and time.
During the first millennium BC , West Africa was in the midst of social, political, technological, and environmental change. The Diallowali site system, located along the western edge of the Middle Senegal Valley ( MSV ), is one of the few sites from this period to be intensively investigated and has produced a wealth of data regarding these processes. By considering a variety of artifacts, including stone tools, copper, iron, and worked bone, as well as approximately 5,000 kg of pottery, this paper establishes a detailed cultural chronology for Diallowali – the first of its kind in the Western MSV . Furthermore, these data indicate that the West African world of the first millennium BC was one of expansive interaction, including the trade and exchange of goods and ideas across an area including Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, and beyond.
This article makes the case for the utility of an aesthetic approach to the archaeological record, drawing on the philosophical work of Jacques Rancière on aesthetics and politics. The case of an archaeology of African slavery on Jesuit vineyards in colonial Peru is offered to explore nuances in power and the production of enslaved subjectivities that become visible through a consideration of aesthetic fields. Of particular interest are the aesthetics of administrative policy as materialized in space and the built environment and enslaved responses through aesthetic interventions. Rather than focusing on the specific meaning or hybridity involved in the creation of the material, a Rancièrean aesthetic approach considers how materials were potentially charged with multiple, sometimes contentious meanings through activation and engagement in the aesthetic experience.
This article considers the role of changing contexts of production in the evolution of ceramic material culture in early Greece. Rather than focusing on the aesthetics of ceramics or reading political and social change from patterns in ceramic style and consumption, we consider Early Iron Age (EIA) ceramic style in its context of production. Isolating the idiosyncratic aspects of EIA material culture and evaluating them in dialogue with the ethnographic record, we argue that dynamics of change in EIA ceramic repertoires may be best explained as the result of evolving contexts of production after the Bronze Age collapse that resulted in women having an increased and prominent role in potting and painting vessels. Likewise, stylistic changes occurring in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE may be related to a transition back to a more complex economic structure in which ceramic style was driven by profit-seeking male potters.
This paper discusses the cultivation, harvesting and consumption of
anchote and examines the social and environmental factors that
frame the practice. Anchote, an indigenous tuber crop propagated
by seed, is primarily cultivated for its edible tubers. In addition to
forming part of the dietary staple of the Wallaga Oromo, the tuber
is central to the culture and identity of the people. The tuber is
anthropomorphized and often referred to as a relative of fertile
women. Indeed, the tuber, women and pottery form a nexus of
metaphorical meaning integral to Oromo cosmology. Moreover,
cultivation of the tuber is framed by the daily interaction between
farmers. The perceived agency of farmland is key to
understanding how the Wallaga Oromo struggle to retain, modify
or alter anchote culture in a swiftly changing world. Anchote is
steamed in a clay pot and its processing results in formation of
diagnostic use-alteration. This use-alteration may help to envisage
antiquity of tuber production and consumption in the Wallaga
region of the southwestern Ethiopian highlands.
Domesticated animals played a significant role in the subsistence of the inhabitants of Nabta Playa throughout the Neolithic. During the Late Neolithic cattle performed a role not only in providing a major source of energy (see Gautier, Chapter 23, this volume), but also as a focus for ritual behavior, as evidenced by the several tumuli clustered at the northern end of the Nabta basin (Figure 1.2). In this area, three major geomorphologic zones meet, playa silts, the Younger Dune, and Nubia Sandstone bedrock, and yet the area has one of the lowest densities of artifacts of the entire basin, and of those present, most of the diagnostic pieces are characteristic of the Late Neolithic. Larger hearth mounds, like those found further south at Site E-75-8, are lacking. Instead, smaller hearths are dispersed individually or in small groups across the landscape around the tumuli. The individual tumuli are approximately 3 to 4 m in diameter and consist of piles of unshaped or roughly shaped sandstone blocks. The tumuli represent significant expenditures of both time and energy by the Neolithic inhabitants, and the remains found in most of them indicate that the Late Neolithic population was willing to sacrifice livestock for purposes other than subsistence.
The three settlement mounds of Dia, located at the western edge of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali, are known from oral and written sources to represent one of the oldest urban sites in the region, older even than the much better known cities of Djenne and Timbuktu. Archaeological excavations at the earliest mound Dia-Shoma have confirmed that notion, as radiocarbon dates have established that its occupational history extends back to the 9th century BC. Meanwhile at the neighbouring mound of Dia-Mara, occupation does not begin until the sixth century AD, with the occupation of the Dia mound complex seemingly reaching its peak in the tenth century. However, oral and written sources portray conflicting pasts, as Dia's multiethnic communities support multiple versions of its cultural history and the arrival of Islam. The latter issue is particularly complex, as Dia prides itself on its Islamic traditions, which some claim extend to the fourteenth century. Our archaeological excavations, however, have revealed evidence for relatively recent non-Islamic religious practices, diet, and ritual. As a result, I will argue for an alternative view of Dia, whose occupation until the eighteenth century seems to have been characterised by local religious customs. I also focus on the issue of ethnicity as Dia's occupational history is characterised by the usurpation of local power by a series of 'incoming' groups, including the Soninke, the Malinke, and the Peulh. Although, recent ethnographic studies of contemporary potters of the Inland Niger Delta suggest that ceramics mirror the ethnic identity of the artisans, Dia's material culture record is surprisingly stable, particularly during the last 800 years. This might be explained in the light of conformity to a broader 'state-level' identity during this period. Alternatively, it could be rooted in the stability of female population as reflected in pottery production systems, with strict endogamous castes of female potters being the regional norm both today and historically. It will be shown that the archaeological record constitutes an effective tool in elucidating alternative versions of the past, which would otherwise remain silent by the oral traditions and written sources.
