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New light on the Tichitt Tradition: a preliminary report on survey and excavation at Dhar Nema

January 2003

Authors:

Robert Vernet

Dorian Q Fuller

University College London

Content uploaded by Robert Vernet

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       

       





       



   

      



 

       

       



   

      

       

     





      

    

    



      

        



  

         

       

 



          

       

          



         I)).





     

        

 



       

       

         



 

    

      

    



        

      

       

    

     

  



    

       

  

 

  

   

    

        

      



       

        

        

    

   

         

 

          

  

   

    



        



      

 

          

     



       

       

  

  

 

     

     

  

      

       

     

     

        

   



       



     

 

         

  

 

      

   

 



    

 

Seed Dispersal and Crop Domestication: Shattering, Germination and Seasonality in Evolution Under Cultivation

Chapter

Apr 2018

The transition between wild plant forms and domesticated species can be considered an evolutionary adaptation by plants in response to a human driven ecology. Evidence from archaeobotany and genetics is providing deeper insight into this evolutionary process in terms of its scale, mechanism and parallelism between species. The evidence indicates that the timescale of this evolution was considerably longer than previously supposed, raising questions about the mode of human mediated selection pressure and increasing the importance of the role of pre‐domestication cultivation. Different selection pressures were chronologically separated into at least three stages, each important at different points of the evolutionary process affecting different traits. Early selection pressures were ultimately driven by the pre‐domestication sowing activities affecting the polygenically controlled germination and seed size traits. Later, in the second stage, release of natural selection pressures of dispersal requirements led to modification of architecture such as awns loss of awns and increase in dispersal unit size. The loss of dispersal requirement combined with positive pressure through harvesting practice led to the typically monogenically controlled non‐shattering phenotypes. At the tertiary stage new selection pressures were imposed with changing climate caused by movement of the crops into different latitudes, resulting in typically monogenically controlled aseasonal phenotypes. The genetic evidence shows in most cases that genetically similar mechanisms have been affected in different plant species implying an evolutionary convergence in response to adaptation to human ecology. These adaptations can be considered various types of heterochrony; a mechanism of major importance generally in plant evolution.

The Malian Lakes Region redefined: Archaeological survey of the Gorbi Valley

Article

Apr 2017

Peter Reid Coutros

The Malian Lakes Region of West Africa has long been overlooked in favour of better-known basins of the Niger River. New archaeological survey of this region, however, shows a history far more complex than had previously been thought, with settlement mounds and multiple phases of migration and eventual abandonment in a landscape of shifting power structures between the first millennium BC and second millennium AD. With the establishment of a relative chronology, the archaeology of this region now holds great potential for a better understanding of the broader cultural history of the Ghana Empire.

Seed dispersal and crop domestication: shattering, germination and seasonality in evolution under cultivation

Article

Jan 2010

Exploitation des ressources organiques dans les productions céramiques à Koumbi Saleh (sud-est mauritanien, VIIe -XVIIe siècles)

Article

Jan 2007

Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2007

Dorian Q Fuller

New Archaeobotanical Information on Plant Domestication from Macro-Remains: Tracking the Evolution of Domestication Syndrome Traits

Article

Feb 2012

Dorian Q Fuller

The introduction of plant and animal agriculture represents one of the most important milestones in human evolution. It contributed to the development of cities, alphabets, new technologies, and ultimately to civilizations, but it has also presented a threat to both human health and the environment. Bringing together research from a range of fields including anthropology, archaeology, ecology, economics, entomology, ethnobiology, genetics and geography, this book addresses key questions relating to agriculture. Why did agriculture develop and where did it originate? What are the patterns of domestication for plants and animals? How did agroecosystems originate and spread from their locations of origin? Exploring the cultural aspects of the development of agricultural ecosystems, the book also highlights how these topics can be applied to our understanding of contemporary agriculture, its long-term sustainability, the co-existence of agriculture and the environment, and the development of new crops and varieties.

Reconnecting the Forest, Savanna, and Sahel in West Africa: The Sociopolitical Implications of a Long-Networked Past

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2024
J Archaeol Res

Stephen A. Dueppen

Despite major advances in archaeological coverage of West Africa over the past several decades, interpretations remain hampered by the analytical bifurcation of the region’s past into northern (active) and southern (reactive) economic and political trajectories. Building on the expanding corpus of scholarship, I argue that northern origins models centering the arid zones have limited our ability to see broader economic and political processes. The region has been intricately interconnected for millennia, and a dispersed network of culturally diverse farmers (and larger nodes) is visible by the second millennium BC. The network shaped the development of diverse cities, influenced statecraft and governance in regional polities, and supported a centrally located autonomous region. I integrate data from West Africa with emerging archaeological research foci on diverse forms of urbanism and the agencies of nonelite and local settings within kingdoms and empires. I highlight the distinctive contributions of the complex historical autonomies found along the central Mouhoun/Black Volta commercial corridor. An egalitarian ethos had a transformative effect in societies in this region, and communities may have viewed inequalities as an impediment to exchange systems for critically important goods.

The topography of the site

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2005

Cristiano Putzolu

The internal layout of Aghram Nadharif was the focus of two different digital surveys. While the first (1999) was fairly interpretative, the second (2001) recorded waste and rubble as well, and attempted to analyse the topography of the site using simple GIS techniques. Features were surveyed and coded from 1 to 5 according to their state of preservation and readability. The next step was the creation of a plan in the ESRI ArcGIS environment, assigning a different weight to the structures according to their code. This allowed us to recognize rooms and streets, clustering the first according to their orientation in different sectors. The interpretative process is described in the text, allowing readers to verify each reconstruction and propose different hypotheses. The final picture of the site suggests four gateways, three on the wadi side (the northern and the central having been excavated) and one on the oasis side, buildings oriented according to the city wall and streets following its internal perimeter and reaching the central part of the citadel.

“Elephants for Want of Towns”: Archaeological Perspectives on West African Cities and Their Hinterlands

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2018
J Archaeol Res

J. Cameron Monroe

Sub-Saharan Africa has long been seen as lacking the potential for autochthonous urban development, and Near Eastern and European contact provided ready explanations for the emergence of precolonial cities across the continent. In the past few decades, the pace of archaeological work on African cities has accelerated, and archaeologists have increasingly deployed a functional model of the city, in which cities are defined in relation to broader hinterlands rather than particular traits. As a result, deeply rooted urban traditions have been identified in all corners of the continent. Despite the antiquity of urban traditions across Africa, however, long-distance forces clearly had wide-reaching impacts on urban developmental trajectories, and proponents of the functional model have yet to explain the specific role of long-distance forces in the process of urbanization. This review examines how multiscalar forces shaped urban trajectories in West Africa, specifically. I examine how local political entrepreneurs took advantage of the opportunities provided by local, interregional, and global forces, resulting in a heterogeneous set of urban traditions across West Africa, ranging from trading entrepôts to regional capitals. Throughout I emphasize how local agency articulated with multiscalar social and economic forces, transforming the nature of regional integration, economic specialization, and the materialization of social difference, defining qualities of urban life.

« Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’il y ait l’ivraie » : les constituants d’origine organique de la céramique de Koumbi Saleh (Mauritanie, VIe-XVIIe siècles AD), témoins de l’exploitation de sous-produits agricoles

Article

Nov 2014

Organic-derived materials used during clay preparation prior to pottery shaping are frequently collected by potters in areas related to their day-to-day activities, such as farming lands, herding areas or places devoted to food processing. Porosity of organic origin in ceramic pastes may thus provide invaluable paleoeconomic information, especially where archaebotanical or archaeozoological data are lacking, as is the case for Koumbi Saleh. Koumbi Saleh (Mauritania, 5e-17e centuries AD) is one of the most ancient and important historical urban sites excavated in Western Africa and has yielded ceramics wih an abundant porosity of organic origin. In order to characterize these organic structures and determine their nature, a microanalytic approach combining stereoscopic and optical transmission microscopy was used, together with a preliminary analysis of the bioclast found in pottery sampless. An experimental reference study was also performed, allowing to strengthen the diagnostic. The results of this work indicate that pottery producers at Koumbi Saleh preferentially selected secondary products related to animal as well as crop exploitation.

The Exploitation of Wild and Domesticated Food Plants at Settlement Mounds in North-East Nigeria (1800 cal BC to Today)

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 1999

Settlement mounds in the Chad basin of north-east Nigeria provide excellent archaeobotanical evidence for the use of wild and domesticated grasses over the last 4000 years. Plant impressions in potsherds were investigated from Gajiganna. Casts of these well-preserved impressions revealed Paniceae and wild rice together with the earliest domesticated Pennisetum americanum in the area, dating to 1200–1000 cal BC. The occupation of Gajiganna ended when the occupation at Kursakata and Mege began, around 1000–800 cal BC. The macroremains of these two mounds indicate two different patterns of plant use. In Kursakata, one of the oldest domesticated Pennisetum americanum in West Africa was found charred together with wild grasses, mostly of the tribe Paniceae. In contrast to this mixed agriculture and hunter-gatherer economy, subsistence at Mege was probably based on wild grasses.

Late Neolithic Cultural Landscape in Southeastem Mauritania: An Essay in Spatiometrics

Book

Full-text available

Jan 1993

Augustin F.-C. Holl

The paper examine the differents facets of the construction and dynamics of Late Stone Age agro-pastoralists cultural landscape during the Late Holocene in southwestern Sahara

Archaeobotanical evidence for pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) in Sub-Saharan West Africa

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2015

Examines the association of domesticated pearl millet recovered at the archaeological site of Birimi in northern Ghana with the Kintampo cultural complex. Description of the Birimi site; Identifications of the Birimi pearl millet specimens; Features of the Birimi pearl millet.

The Dia archaeological project: rescuing cultural heritage in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2001

Mali is a country with a rich history and diverse cultures. Its cultural heritage is, however, threatened by both the pillage of archaeological sites and illicit trade (ICOM 1995; Bedaux & Rowlands, this volunle). Looting has dramatically increased in recent years, especially in the Inland Delta of the Niger, and has obliged Malian authorities to take measures to counteract this destruction. Within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage programme, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden recently initiated large-scale excavations in the Inland Niger Delta at Dia, in close cooperation with the Université du Mali, the Institut des Sciences Humaines and the Musée National du Mali in Bamako, the Mission Culturelle in Djenné, the Universities of Paris I and VI, the C.N.R.S., University College London and Leiden University. This excavation, financed principally by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started in 1998 and will continue until 2004. It is a continuation of previous international programmes of site survey and documentation in the Inland Niger Delta, which the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako has co-ordinated over the past two decades (e.g. Raimbault & Sanogo 1991; Dembele et al . 1993; Togola 1996). An initial season of prospection was carried out in 1998 in the Inland Delta, following which the vicinity of Dia was chosen as the principal research zone for the project.

Archaeological Data on the Origins of Cultivation in the Southwestern Sahara and Their Implications for West Africa

Chapter

Dec 1980

PATRICK J. MUNSON

Les sites Gangara, la fin de la culture de Tichitt et l'origine de Ghana

Article

Jan 1995

Mohamed Ould Khattar

LES SITES GANGARA, LA FIN DE LA CULTURE DE TICHITT ET L'ORIGINE DE GHANA Mohamed Ould Khattar II arrive que l'etude de certaines questions relatives a l'archeologie pour lesquelles on ne dispose pas d'elements d'informations suffisants pour permettre une conclusion, fasse que l'on emette des hypotheses. Il arrive aussi que des travaux posterieurs, sans avoir fait avancer l'etude des dites questions, transforment ces hypotheses en conclusions puis en verites absolues. L'aspect methodologique qui en decoule est ici presente avec l'exemple du passage du Neolithique final a l'Empire medieval de Ghana dans le Sud-Est mauritanien.

The identification of cultivated pearl millet (Pennisetum) amongst plant impressions on pottery from Oued Chebbi (Dhar Oualata, Mauritania)

Article

Dec 1989
Afr Archaeol Rev

The majority of the neolithic pottery from Dhar Tichitt and Oualata bears abundant plant impressions on its surface. The present study involves direct examination of these impressions and comparsion with a control series in the laboratory. The criteria for differentiation between impressions made by wild and cultivatedPennisetum are clearly defined. In the pottery from Oued Chebbi (Dhar Oualata), the existence of many many impressions of pearl millet (Pennisetum), including both wild and cultivated strains, is confirmed. It is concluded that the area around Dhar Tichitt and Oualata belongs to a ‘non-centre zone of origin’ (Harlan 1975) and that,ca 3000 bp, its inhabitants knew how to use cultivated strains in an area where wild strains were also found in some abundance.

If the Threshing Floor Could Talk: Integration of Agriculture and Pastoralism during the Late Harappan in Gujarat, India

Article

Jun 1997

Seetha N. Reddy

Cultivation of crops as a distinct economic activity is a complex human behavior that needs to be clearly demonstrated in archaeological contexts, particularly to determine whether crop grains were obtained through trade and exchange. The article presents the results of ethnoarchaeological studies focused on the development of crop processing models tailored to aid paleoethnobotanical reconstructions. These newly developed ethnographic models of crop processing and usage were then rigorously applied to the questions of cultivation, economic role, and use of millet crops at two Late Harappan sites in Gujarat, India. The results demonstrate the interpretive potential of identifying the presence or absence of the economic activity of cultivation at a wide range of site types, and such modeling has far reaching implications for interpreting the settlement organization and subsistence orientation of a culture.

Archaeology and the prehistoric origins of the Ghana Empire

Article

Oct 1980
J AFR HIST

Patrick J. Munson

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.

The Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa

Jan 2000

H M Burkhill

BURKHILL, H.M. 2000: The Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa. 2nd Edition, Volume 5. Families S-Z. London: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

New light on the Tichitt Tradition: a preliminary report on survey and excavation at Dhar Nema

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