Evidence of an Eleventh-Century AD Cola Nitida Trade into the Middle Niger Region

Abstract

Kola nut (Cola cf. nitida) and Safou fruit (Dacryodes edulis) remains have been discovered in eleventh- to fourteenth-century archaeological contexts at Togu Missiri near Ségou in Mali. These remains are evidence of early trade in perishable foodstuffs from the West African forest zone into the Middle Niger region. On the basis of these finds, this paper argues that long-distance trade links were well established by the end of the first millennium AD. It thereby supports the hypothesis that dates the inception of trade between the West African forest zone and the savanna regions to the first millennium AD. The circumstances of the find are discussed, as are the implications for our understanding of the wider exchange network based on the Niger River system in the late first and early second millennium CE.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
1 3
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-021-09445-7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Evidence ofanEleventh‑Century AD Cola Nitida Trade
intotheMiddle Niger Region
NikolasGestrich · LouisChampion·
DaoudaKeïta· NafogoCoulibaly·
DorianQ.Fuller
Accepted: 7 June 2021
© The Author(s) 2021
established by the end of the first millennium AD. It
thereby supports the hypothesis that dates the incep-
tion of trade between the West African forest zone
and the savanna regions to the first millennium AD.
The circumstances of the find are discussed, as are
the implications for our understanding of the wider
exchange network based on the Niger River system in
the late first and early second millennium CE.
Résumé Des fragments de noix de cola (Cola cf.
nitida) et de fruits de Safou (Dacryodes edulis) ont
été découverts dans des niveaux archéologiques du
onzième au quatorzième siècle à Togu Missiri près
de Ségou au Mali. Ces vestiges témoignent d’un com-
merce précoce des denrées périssables de la zone for-
estière d’Afrique occidentale vers la région du Moyen
Niger. Sur la base de ces découvertes archéologique,
cet article montre que les liens commerciaux à longue
distance entre la zone forestière d’Afrique de l’Ouest
et de la région des savanes étaient déjà bien établis
dès la fin du premier millénaire AD. Les contextes et
la nature de cette découverte sont discutés, ainsi que
les implications sur notre compréhension du réseau
d’échange basé sur le haut et moyen Niger à la fin du
premier et au début du deuxième millénaire de notre
ère.
Keywords Kola nut· African plum· Stimulants·
West African archaeology· Archaeobotany· Mali
Abstract Kola nut (Cola cf. nitida) and Safou fruit
(Dacryodes edulis) remains have been discovered
in eleventh- to fourteenth-century archaeological
contexts at Togu Missiri near Ségou in Mali. These
remains are evidence of early trade in perishable
foodstuffs from the West African forest zone into the
Middle Niger region. On the basis of these finds, this
paper argues that long-distance trade links were well
N.Gestrich(*)
Frobenius Institute, Goethe University, FrankfurtamMain,
Germany
e-mail: gestrich@uni-frankfurt.de
L.Champion
Laboratoire Archéologie Et Peuplement de L’Afrique
(APA), Anthropology Unit, Department ofGenetics
andEvolution, University ofGeneva, Geneva, Switzerland
D.Keïta
Musée National du Mali, Bamako, Mali
N.Coulibaly
Institut Des Sciences Humaines du Mali, Bamako, Mali
D.Q.Fuller
Institute ofArchaeology, University College London,
London, UK
D.Q.Fuller
School ofCultural Heritage, Northwest University, Xi’an,
China
D.Q.Fuller
Department ofArchaeology, Max Planck Institute
fortheScience ofHuman History, Jena, Germany
/ Published online: 5 July 2021
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
Introduction
Kola nuts (the seeds of Cola nitida or Cola acumi-
nata) are important to West African cultures past and
present. These seeds contain caffeine, theobromine,
and kolanin, among other bioactive phenolic com-
pounds (Niemenak etal., 2008; Nyadanu etal., 2020).
In recent times, they have been essential as gifts for
almost any social occasion. They accompany visits,
negotiations, reconciliations, and many other events,
where they are given as a sign of respect or goodwill
or as a form of symbolic payment. Kola nuts also fea-
ture centrally in divination and sacrifices and are val-
ued as mild stimulants that suppress hunger and thirst
(Lovejoy, 1995; Sundström, 1966). Their cultural
uses and symbolism are fairly well described for the
forest zone (Drucker-Brown, 1995; Hauenstein, 1974;
Kwame, 2019) but less explicitly so for the western
Sahel, where they are a constant yet peripheral feature in
ethnographic accounts (Bertaux, 1984; Boujou,2000).
Although they are highly valued culturally, kola nuts
do not grow in the Sahel. Instead, they come from
the West African forest zone, a fact which has even
led to the cardinal direction south becoming named
after kola nuts in several Sahelian Mandé languages.
For example, the Bambara and Northern Maninka-
kan word for the “south” is “wòrodugu” — lit. “the
land of kola.”
The most common species of kola nuts in West
Africa, and those responsible for the vast majority of
consumed nuts, are Cola acuminata (Vent.) Schott
et Endl. and Cola nitida (P.Beauv.) Schott et Endl.
These two are the economically most important of
more than 125 Cola species native to the West Afri-
can forest zone (Burkill, 2000). The growing condi-
tions of the trees prevent them from prospering in
the drier climate north of the tropical forests (Fig.1).
Thus, large parts of West Africa in which kola nuts
are regularly consumed lie outside of the areas where
they can be grown, and so the nuts need to be moved
to reach their consumers. The trade in kola nuts
is considerable today, with a global production of
280,000 metric tons in 2016, of which Nigeria, the
Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Ghana produced 97%
(Tridge, n.d.).
Despite their popularity as a trade item, kola nuts
are not easy to transport. Since they must be kept
moist, despite warm climatic conditions, and are sus-
ceptible to pests (Lovejoy, 1980, p. 97), they must be
frequently unpacked, checked, watered, and repacked.
Several authors have pointed out that trade in kola
nuts (especially historical trade that did not rely on
mechanized transport) must depend on established
commercial networks so that the nuts can reach their
destination before they are spoiled (Lovejoy, 1980,
p. 106; Person 1968, p. 102). Even present-day kola
Fig. 1 Distribution of main
production area for Cola
nitida, Cola acuminata, and
Dacryodes edulis (Lovejoy,
1980, Burkill, 2000) and the
archaeological site (Togu
Missiri) where Cola sp.
and Dacryodes edulis fruit
remains were recovered
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
404
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
trade is seen as a high-risk venture, according to
Kirikoshi (2019), who stresses the importance of trust
relationships between the parties in this trade.
Kola nuts are thus a trade good that cannot be
traded casually. They require carefully planned trad-
ing operations, established routes, high mobility,
and close contact between persons over large geo-
graphical distances to minimize the risk of spoiling
the merchandise. It may be due to this risk and these
infrastructural demands that the profit margins were
historically very high. Roberts (1987, p. 67) speaks
of a gross profit of 400% for traders from the Ségou
area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while
a late nineteenth-century source speaks of a value
increase of 6,000% on nuts bought in Ghana and sold
near Lake Chad (Hopkins, 2016, p. 73). Between the
long distances to be overcome and the risk of loss
from spoiled commodity, the beginnings of this trade
would have faced considerable obstacles. The ques-
tion of when and under what circumstances such a
trade began remains to be answered.
Kola Trade andTrade Networks inMiddle Niger
During theFirst andSecond Millennia AD
Lovejoy’s (1980) study on the interior regions pro-
vides the most comprehensive overview of the his-
torical, ethnographic, and linguistic evidence for
the development of the West African kola trade to
date (also see Brooks, 1980, for the treatment of
the coastal kola trade). He claims that the market
for kola existed in the savanna by the thirteenth
century and proposes, though without firm evi-
dence, that it might have been established much
earlier than that. There are several indications that
kola nuts are a product that must have been traded
following a long formative period of exchange rela-
tionships, which allowed the kola nut to gradually
gain popularity in the Sahel. Firstly, the perishable
nature of the nuts means they must be transported
quickly or traders risk losing their cargo. Hence,
routes with safe and fast passage must be known
and negotiated in advance. Secondly, the linguis-
tic evidence of widely shared names across many
languages suggests that kola nuts became avail-
able in the savanna and Sahel zones within a short
period, rather than through a lengthy, gradual spread
(Lovejoy, 1980, p. 106). This contrasts with the evolved
cognates shared across Benue-Congo languages and
basal Bantu that presumably originated in the forest zone
(Bostoen, 2014). Thirdly, Lovejoy (1980, p. 100) points
out that kola nuts are an acquired taste, which means
that a market for them had to be created. This sets
them apart from many other historical West African
trade items like salt, sandstone implements, iron,
cloth, or grain which are arguably more fundamen-
tal to human needs. In this regard, a lengthy period
of contact must have existed between the Sahel/
savanna and the rainforest zones before a regular
trade in kola nuts could be established. While the
evidence presented in this paper is the earliest for
kola nuts in the savanna zone so far, it probably
does not date the beginning of the kola trade, and
it is definitely later than the beginning of trade rela-
tionships between the forest and savanna zones.
Much of the existing literature ties the begin-
nings of the forest-savanna trade to gold. This
is, for instance, the case with Nehemia Levtzion,
who saw contacts between the savanna and the
forest areas as an effect of political developments
driven by the gold trade. Levtzion (1973, p. 53)
supposed that the political succession from the
Empire of Ghana to Sosso and then to the Empire
of Mali implies a progressive movement of the
centers of power southward from the desert edges
towards the forest zone, although the accuracy
of this orthodox version of West Sudanese his-
tory has been questioned (Gestrich, 2019; Hun-
wick, 1973; MacDonald et al., 2018). Corollaries
of this shift, he believes, are that the Buré gold-
fields gained importance and that the populations
in the forest zone were drawn into the pre-existing
long-distance trade networks of the savanna. This
would date the inception of regular trade links to
the early fourteenth century. Paradoxically, Lev-
tzion states elsewhere (1973, p. 181) that the use
of kola nuts was well established in the savanna
by then and that it “already fulfilled many of its
more recent economic and social functions” dur-
ing the period of the “great empires.” Certainly,
the fourteenth-century date for the inception of
the kola nut trade appears to be late since we have
documentary records that suggest the inclusion of
kola nuts in the trans-Saharan trade before 1356
(al-Maqqarī in Levtzion & Hopkins, 2000, p. 307).
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 405
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
R. McIntosh sees a similar link to gold as a driver
of north–south trade, though he believes this trade
began considerably earlier, by the middle of the first
millennium AD. For R. McIntosh, the kola and gold
trades are a southern add-on to earlier networks
that brought iron, sandstone objects, and salt into
the Inland Niger Delta in exchange for foodstuffs
and led to specialized and regular trading expedi-
tions (McIntosh, 1998, p. 217). All of these relate to
the broader economic connections in the West Afri-
can savanna and the Sahel, for which archaeological
research is increasingly showing that a high-volume
trade over medium to long distances developed in
the mid to late first millennium. The existence of
such interregional trading networks has been mostly
documented in iron (Gestrich, 2013; Gestrich &
MacDonald, 2018; Håland, 1980; McIntosh, 1995;
Serneels & Perret, 2003) and likely also extends to
foodstuffs, salt, sandstone, and charcoal. The main
drivers of this trade are the diversity in ecological
zones and regional variations in geology, which gov-
ern the distribution of plants, animals, and mineral
resources such as iron ore, salt, and sandstone. These
regional ecological and geological contrasts mean
that many areas are abundant in a particular set of
vital resources while lacking others. If we suppose
Levtzion’s and McIntosh’s proposals for the connec-
tion between gold and kola trades to be accurate, we
might suggest that the kola trade developed before
the seventh or eighth century since this is when we
have the earliest written mentions and earliest archae-
ological evidence for the trans-Saharan gold trade
(Nixon, 2017, p. 157–160). In this context, it is also
worth mentioning Brooks’ (1993) work on the early
expansion of pre-European contact trade networks,
in which he also links kola and gold as major factors
in the rise of Mandé-speaking populations to politi-
cal power and their demographic expansion. Brooks,
however, sees this trade as developing in response to
a southward shift in climatic zones around 1100.
In historical linguistics, names for kola are recon-
structible to considerable time depths. Williamson
(1993) showed that terms for kola could be recon-
structed in many West African proto-languages. A
root that occurs in Benue-Congo languages in Nigeria
and Cameroon is shared with Proto-Bantu and recon-
structed to *-bèdú (Blench, 2006; Bostoen, 2014). The
term góóró from Songhay appears to have been spread
by Hausa traders later (Blench, 2006). Lovejoy’s
(1980) reconstruction of the linguistic evidence shows
considerable diversity in words for kola nuts in the
languages of the forest zone. By contrast, the terms
for kola in the savanna from the Atlantic coast to
Lake Chad virtually all use a variation of goro or
woro, indicating that they are borrowed from a West
Atlantic language in the Sierra Leone-Guinea border
area, where the Niger has its headwaters. Although
the kola nut was undoubtedly known throughout the
forest zone, it therefore seems to have been this area
from where its commercialization and trade into the
savanna began. This linguistic evidence also suggests
that none of the other growing areas traded north
sufficiently early to influence the vocabulary of the
savanna peoples, who had settled on the *goro root
before areas like the Akan region became involved in
the trade. When exactly the first regular trade links
to the latter area developed is currently impossible
to say. However, the Gonja region of north central
Ghana seems to have been involved in trade with
the savanna, possibly the Inland Niger Delta, by the
twelfth century AD, as the presence of African rice
(Oryza glaberrima) at Old Buipe indicates (Cham-
pion in Genequand etal., 2020), and thus, earlier than
Wilks (1961) had previously suggested.
Thus, the extant literature documents the estab-
lishment of regular trade routes linking the West
African forest zone with the savanna and the desert
edge sometime between the mid-first millennium and
the early second millennium AD. Through these net-
works, which might have initially developed for gold
trade, kola nuts began to be traded into the savanna
and even across the Sahara. The initial trade seems to
have focused on the source areas of the Niger river
in today’s Sierra Leone-Guinea border region, but
it subsequently developed across several areas in
the forest zone, where kola trees were also known
and grown. From the outset, the trade in kola nuts
required well-known routes, at least part-time special-
ized traders, and social contacts spanning large dis-
tances. From the beginning of the second millennium
AD, Togu Missiri near Ségou in Mali was part of this
trade network.
The Maraka Settlement ofTogu
Togu is today a large village on an unpaved road link-
ing the city of Ségou to the market town of Dioro. It
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
406
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
consists of a recent sprawling settlement and an older
core beside a large pond, which is seasonally fed from
the canals of the neighboring irrigation scheme, the
Opération Riz Ségou (see Fig.2). During the time of
the Segu fanga, a polity founded in the early eight-
eenth century by “Biton” Mamari Coulibaly and
effectively ended by El-hajj Umar Tall’s conquest in
1860, Togu was one of the major marakadugu, set-
tlements of the Maraka group. The Maraka were, and
are, understood as a contrast to the majority Bamana
group (Bazin, 1972, 1985) and engaged in activities
that were not part of Bamana lifestyle, most signifi-
cantly the practice of Islam, the refusal to take part
in warfare, and an engagement in long-distance com-
merce. The marakadugu are the focus of a research
program which aims to understand the settlement
and population dynamics in the area between the
Niger and the Bani before the eighteenth century.
Together with the Traoré lineages (Bazin, 1988),
they play a key role in local histories preceding the
Segu fanga.Their origins are controversial and their
age was formerly unknown. Nevertheless, previous
authors have seen them as a key enduring part of an
ancient settled landscape (MacDonald & Camara,
2011) and sociopolitical system (Bazin, 1972, 1988).
Although they were politically sidelined, they were
not removed in the demographically and politically
turbulent developments of the fanga period and con-
tinued to be of commercial and religious importance.
Our ongoing project has carried out archaeological
surveys and excavations as well as extensive inter-
views on local traditions in an attempt to gain a mul-
tiperspective understanding of the past of the Maraka
and their neighboring communities. This undertaking
brought team members to Togu on several occasions
between 2016 and 2020.
As Richard Roberts (1987) has described for Sin-
zani, one of the main Maraka centers of trade and
Fig. 2 Location of the site
below the eastward turn
of the Niger at Markala
(archaeological sites of the
area are shown in black)
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 407
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
production in the Segu fanga, the Maraka commer-
cial activities took several forms. Instead of trading
in the market, the Maraka of Sinzani mainly acted as
brokers (jatigi) to Azawagh Arab (Suraka) traders
bringing salt from the north, in exchange primarily
for slaves, which the Segu fanga supplied in large
numbers. Yet, there was also a southern component
of this trade, based entirely on foodstuffs, in which
Maraka traders were directly involved. Accord-
ing to our informants in the region, salt, dried fish,
and sunbala (a condiment made from the fermented
pods of the nɛrɛ tree — Parkia biglobosa) were car-
ried south on donkeys as far as Man, Bouaké, and
Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire (see Fig.3) until recently.
The traders returned with kola nuts and cloth. In the
first detailed French reports on Ségou in 1893/1894,
Togu is listed as a staging point for caravans going
towards the southeast, crossing the Bani, and from
there taking many different directions (ANOM 51
PA 1).
Our surveys in 2016 revealed four archaeologi-
cal site complexes surrounding the present village
of Togu — three habitation sites and one small iron
smelting site (Gestrich & Keita, 2017). We focused
our attention on the site known as “Togu Missiri,”
which translates as “mosque (or, the meeting place)
of Togu.” The town notables that we interviewed in
the course of our research believe this to be the first
of the settlements at Togu and that it was inhabited
by one of the founding lineages of the Jiré patronym.
The Site ofTogu Missiri
Togu Missiri consists of a cluster of thirteen set-
tlement mounds, seemingly in two distinct areas
(Fig.4). The mounds are most likely the remains of a
single settlement, with the lower-lying areas between
them representing seasonal ponds, open spaces, and
roadways. The height of the mounds varies between
1.5 and 3.0m. The excavations carried out in Janu-
ary and December 2017 targeted the larger northern
part of the site and tested one of the higher mounds,
Mound G. Here, a 3- × -3-m test trench aimed at gain-
ing an overview of the stratigraphy and dates of the
settlement was excavated to a depth of around 3 m
below surface. The excavations, led by Daouda Keita,
uncovered a sequence of layered earth and mud-brick
buildings, floor levels, and midden deposits subdi-
vided into four phases (Gestrich & Keita, 2017). The
sequence was dated with five AMS dates on wood
charcoal between the early ninth and the late thir-
teenth century (Table1).
In terms of material culture, Togu Missiri is com-
parable to other sites investigated in the area in recent
years, mainly Sorotomo (MacDonald et al., 2011),
Fig. 3 Map of locations
mentioned in the text
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
408
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
Marakaduguba, and Faraku. A combination of recti-
linear and curvilinear construction in mud-brick and
coursed earth, tamped laterite gravel floors, and pot-
tery decorated with folded strip roulettes, fish spine
roulettes, red slip, and burnish are among the typical
elements of the archaeology of this region in the first
half of the second millennium AD. Overall, the mate-
rial culture of this settlement was not significantly
different from the contemporaneous ones in the
region. What was remarkable at Togu Missiri was the
number of midden deposits uncovered by the exca-
vations. These mostly consisted of soils with a high
amount of ash and organic admixture which were
rich in finds. There were pit features containing such
midden deposits as well as midden layers between
the occupation levels of the site (see Fig.5). In the
other sites that have been excavated in the area, no
such deposits were found, with the possible exception
of a deep pit feature at Sorotomo Unit B (MacDonald
etal., 2011). The reason why our excavation trench
at Togu Missiri had such an exceptional amount of
midden material cannot so far be explained, nor do
we know whether this is a feature of the site in gen-
eral rather than only of the small area selected for test
excavations.
The Botanical Assemblage
The soil samples analyzed for this study came from
midden deposits (nine samples), from the sediment
found inside intact pottery vessels (seven samples),
and from living floors (two samples). They do not
represent a systematic sample of the site, but all major
architectural rebuilding phases are represented. The
soil samples were subjected to bucket flotation and
subsequently passed through a 0.25-mm mesh sieve
by the students of Bamako University’s HOPE labo-
ratory under the supervision of Nikolas Gestrich and
N’Ji Jacques Dembélé. The samples were analyzed in
London and Frankfurt by Louis Champion following
the methodology described in Champion and Fuller
(2019). Three samples were devoid of any plant
remains. In total, 1425 archaeobotanical items were
recovered from 100 L of soil. The density of finds,
Fig. 4 Map of the individual settlement mounds at Togu Mis-
siri, showing the location of the 2017 excavations
Table 1 Radiocarbon dates
from Togu Missiri Sample no Site Context Depth below
datum (cm)
BP 95.4% cal AD
Beta-464271 TOG2 5 29 780 ± 30 1,210–1,281
Beta-464267 TOG2 13 90 880 ± 30 (68.4%) 1,117–1,222
(27%) 1,042–1,104
Beta-464272 TOG2 20 116 900 ± 30 1,039–1,210
Beta-502929 TOG2 42 235 1,140 ± 30 (78.6%) 854–981
(11.3%) 802–848
Beta-502928 TOG2 50 257 1,140 ± 30 (78.6%) 854–981
(11.3%) 802–848
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 409
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
14.3 botanical items per liter of soil, is high compared
to other sites in the West African savanna and Sahel,
where the average is around 10 botanical remains per
liter of soil (Champion, 2019).
The archaeobotanical assemblage from Togu Mis-
siri (Table2) is largely dominated by fonio remains,
of which 709 grains were found in 13 samples (72%
of ubiquity), representing a frequency of 54%. Pearl
millet is also well represented with 348 items (for
24% of the total assemblage [frequency]). Sorghum
is present as well but only in low frequency (4%).
Finally, cowpea is present in very low frequency,
with only three cowpea remains (less than 1% of the
assemblage). With 37 remains (3%), cotton is the
main cash crop present.
One major diachronic development visible in the
assemblage is the arrival of cotton, which is not pre-
sent before around AD 1200 in Phase B. Further, a
constant decrease in the frequency of pearl millet
remains is noted (from 67% in Phase E to 7% in phase
B; Table2). African rice is observed only in the ear-
liest phase but only in a very small proportion (2%
in phase E) and is absent in other phases. These agri-
cultural results will be further discussed in a separate
publication. The focus here is on kola nut and safou
fruit remains.
Like kola nuts, safou fruit trees, Dacryodes edu-
lis, grow natively in the countries bordering the Gulf
of Guinea but are cultivated (and naturalized) from
Sierra Leone to Angola in the South and Uganda in
the East (Fig. 1). The fruit is an ellipsoid drupe of
8–12cm by 3–6cm that usually supports one oblong
seed up to 6cm long. In Cameroon, where Safou is
a daily staple, it is usually boiled in water and con-
sumed as a side plate. It is usually the pulpy pericarp
that is eaten, either raw or cooked. The pulp could
also be reduced to a sort of butter. The seed kernel is
also rich in oil and can be turned into butter (Bostoen,
2014; Burkill, 2000).
Kola nuts (Cola cf. nitida) and Safou fruits
(Dacryodes edulis) (Fig. 6) are present in each soil
sample from the last three phases (D, C, B) but are
absent in the earliest phase. Cola nitida fruits are dry,
woody capsules (or aphiscarum) that grow in radial
clusters of two to six fruits (Fig. 6A). Inside the
shell is a series of ovate to obturbinate seeds (“kola
nuts”) arranged in two rows. The seeds are three-
or four-sided, with an indented hilum on the wider
end, and often coming to point; in cross section,
they are three- or four-sided. Pods of ~ 10cm long
contain three to 14 seeds, which are reddish when
fresh, ~ 3 cm long, and surrounded by white fleshy
aril. The C. nitida seed has a typical dicotyledon-
ous structure, unlike C. acuminata with a seed that
can split into three to six lobes (Dah-Nouvlessounon,
etal., 2016; Niemenak etal. 2008). The specimens
studied here have two cotyledons and are therefore
referred to as Cola. cf. nitida (Fig.6B, C), the spe-
cies that is natural to the western side of the kola
belt. Dacryodes edulis, the Safou or “African plum,”
Fig. 5 Profiles of the excavations Togu Missiri showing midden deposits
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
410
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
produces elliptical drupes (~ 7cm long) that ripen to
a purple or blue hue, but the edible pulp (mesocarp)
is somewhat tough and oily and will soften when
boiled. While the endocarp and testa of the stone are
thin and unlikely to preserve, the highly convoluted
and segmented embryo within it (Fig.6D) is denser
and thus able to survive charring (as in Fig.6E).
Togu Missiri andtheLong‑Distance Trade
oftheLate First andEarly Second Millennium
AD
How Did the Tropical Produce Get to Togu Missiri?
The find of kola nut and Safou fruit remains at Togu
Missiri raises questions about the circumstances of
their deposition. It is not usual to find any botanical
trace of kola nuts at the point of consumption since
they are reduced to a pulp by chewing and often
digested. Further, no durable specialized material cul-
ture is currently or historically used in their transport
and storage. Kola nuts are usually stored and trans-
ported in baskets and wrapped in leaves. Why, then,
do we find large fragments of nuts here? We suggest
that whole kola nuts or large fragments would only
enter the archaeological record in important numbers
during the regular process of repacking the nuts and
discarding those that are no longer in good condition
and risk spoiling others by spreading mold or infesta-
tion. If Togu Missiri were a regular halt on the kola
trade route northwards, then it would make sense
that nuts would regularly be discarded there and that
some would survive alongside other organic material
Table 2 Archaeobotanical
assemblage at Togu Missiri
by phases: number of items
recovered, frequency, and
ubiquity for the main crops
Togu Missiri
Date AD Phase E
900–1,000
Phase D
1,000–1,100
Phase C
1,100–1,200
Phase B
1,200–1,300
Total
Number of samples 3 5 5 5 18
Volume of soil in liters 15 25 25 25 100
Digitaria exilis - 315 336 58 709
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
56%
75%
59%
100%
32%
100%
54%
72%
Pennisetum glaucum
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
72
67%
100%
161
29%
100%
103
18%
100%
12
7%
75%
348
24%
89%
Sorghum bicolor
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
3
3%
33%
14
2.5%
100%
35
6%
100%
- 52
4%
67%
Oryza glaberrima
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
2
2%
33%
- - - 2
< 1%
5%
Vigna sp.
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
- 3
< 1%
40%
- - 3
< 1%
10%
Gossypium sp.
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
- - - 37
20%
75%
37
2%
22%
Tree/bush (fruit)
 Frequency
 Ubiquity
1
< 1%
33%
16
3%
75%
65
11%
75%
53
25%
75%
135
10%
55%
Cola cf. nitida
 Ubiquity
- Present
100%
Present
100%
Present
100%
Present
84%
Dacryodes edulis
 Ubiquity
- Present
100%
Present
100%
Present
100%
Present
84%
Total number 108 562 574 181 1425
Density (item/liter) 7.2 22.5 23 7.2 14.3
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 411
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
in the midden deposits. Their charred state might
not be an accident but rather a deliberate burning of
infested nuts to prevent the spread of pests, as is also
suggested by current best practice guidelines, which
advocate burning and burying the discarded nuts
(Ndingwan etal., 2013). It is a question of chance
that these middens were deposited on the habitation
mound and in the area of our excavations. However,
the finds do allow us to suggest that Togu Missiri was
a settlement through which kola nuts were regularly
traded, rather than only being a point where they were
consumed.
If Paul Lovejoy’s interpretation of the linguistic
data is correct and kola trade originated in the Sierra
Leone-Guinea border highlands (Lovejoy, 1980), then
the kola nuts would have reached Togu Missiri on a
route that roughly follows the course of the Niger.
From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, accord-
ing to Roberts (1987), the kola trade from the Segu
area was focused mainly on the trade entrepots of
Wassulu and Bonduku, with only a secondary route
to Guinea and Sierra Leone. The oral accounts that
we have collected also speak of recent trade for kola
through entrepots in Côte d’Ivoire, in particular Man,
Bouaké, and even Abijan (Fig. 3). Roberts (1987, p.
62) further states that the Maraka kola trade did not
often use the river but instead relied on overland
caravans for their journeys, which were often more
Fig. 6 Modern Cola sp.
and Dacryodes edulis draw-
ings and archaeobotanical
remains from Togu Missiri.
A Fruit cluster, sectioned
fruit, seed and seed sections
of Cola acuminata (after
Kohler 1890). B and C
Archaeobotanical remains,
Cola cf. nitida carbonized
fruit from Togu Missiri
archaeological deposits
A14 and A6. D Dacryo-
des edulis fruit and seeds
(after Hooker, 1899). E
Archaeobotanical remains,
Dacryodes edulis carbon-
ized fruit from Togu Missiri
archaeological deposit A17
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
412
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
than 500km one way. In the establishment of early
trade from the Guinea highlands to the Middle Niger,
prior to the last centuries of the first millennium, it
is difficult to imagine that the river would not have
played some role in transport or at least in the estab-
lishment of contacts between the populations of the
two regions. As Kuba (2009) points out, for the lower
reaches of the Niger, river trade (at least downstream)
was considerably faster, with less need for tolls and
negotiations, something that would be convenient
for the trade of perishable goods. For now, however,
we must treat the question of trade routes as mostly
unknown. This is because the northern edges of the
forest zone, especially the areas of Guinea and north-
ern Cote d’Ivoire, have seen little archaeological
work and no archaeobotanical analyses from this area
are known to the authors.
What Was the Wider Trade Network and Who Were
the Traders?
Our results suggest that kola nuts were not the only
commodities traded north from the forest into the
savanna zone. The safou fruit remains found at Togu
Missiri shows us two things: Firstly, those trade
operations were fast enough to bring tropical fruits
northward into the savanna. Secondly, the previous
archaeological and historical view on traded items
in West Africa was too narrow. The Arabic historical
sources with their focus on gold are extremely limited
in their information on trade goods in the West Afri-
can interior. Early European sources contain much
more detail for the coastal regions, but not until the
fifteenth century. Archaeological research has missed
many goods traded across the region because of pres-
ervation problems, especially for organic objects. The
fortunate finds of kola nut and safou fruits from Togu
Missiri strongly suggest that we need to imagine early
long-distance trade in West Africa as incorporating
a much more diverse range of items than the current
historical and archaeological evidence documents.
It is usual for authors on historical trade in West
Africa to focus on gold, and as we have stated above,
the link between kola and gold trades has been made
by Levtzion and R. McIntosh. It is, however, also
the case that the early written sources for the area
have the gold trade as their main concern. It is per-
haps these sources that lead many historians to place
a disproportionate emphasis on gold (Green, 2019;
Hunwick etal., 1979) and slaves and to neglect other
trade items. A notable exception is Brooks (1993),
whose list of traded items is considerably more var-
ied. The archaeological focus has been on gold, salt,
iron, stone, cowrie shells, and beads. Some of the
less frequently documented trade items include ani-
mal hides (Dueppen & Gokee, 2014) and ivory (Stahl
& Stahl, 2004). However, the accounts collected by
Roberts (1987) and the Markadugu project (Gestrich
& Keita, 2017) suggest that the emphasis, at least
in recent centuries, was on dried fish, the fermented
tree-pod spice sunbala, horses, tobacco, re-exported
desert salt, and cotton cloth. From a seventeenth-
century source, we also know that grain was exported
from the area of Ségou to Timbuktu (Houdas, 1964,
p. 406). Gold is nowhere mentioned, though we do
know from Mungo Park (1858) that there was a trade
in gold 250km further upstream at Kangaba in the
late eighteenth century.
On the present evidence, we assume that the popu-
lation of Togu Missiri was involved in trading forest
zone items further northwards, into the Niger’s Inland
Delta and its margins, and to the desert edge. This
trade network intersects with others and feeds into a
complex and high-volume network of exchange cen-
tered on the middle reaches of the Niger. The often-
cited geological and environmental differences in the
West African interior appear to have been the basis
for the development of high-volume long-distance
trade in basic provisions, especially salt and tools, by
the mid-first millennium AD. This can be seen from
growing imports and less local manufacture in met-
ropolitan areas such as Jenné-jeno (McIntosh, 1995)
and increased evidence of large-scale, market-ori-
ented manufacturing in peripheral regions (Gestrich,
2013; Gestrich & MacDonald, 2018). Long-distance
but low-volume trade in nonessential items had
existed in the region since the Late Stone Age. That
trade was fundamentally different from the high-
volume trade that began in the first millennium AD.
It included cash crops, large-scale manufacture for
export, specialist traders with established networks,
and above all, the dependency of large populations
on the availability of traded items such as iron tools
and grinding stones (for a description of this system
of growing specialization and regional interdepend-
ency, see R. McIntosh, 1998). Societies along the
Niger were already used to buying and selling things
regularly by the mid-first millennium AD, probably
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 413
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
with a socioeconomic system that was sufficiently
monetarized to cope with the large scale and high
frequency of transactions. The earliest known cow-
rie shells from the region also date from the mid-
first millennium and were clearly used as currency
by the beginning of the second millennium (Haour
& Christie, 2019). The regular trade in basic items
and the concurrent development of specialist trad-
ers and long-distance routes will have opened up
the possibility for any item to be traded in any vol-
ume along the same routes. The fact that forest zone
safou fruits were brought to Togu Missiri, appar-
ently regularly during three centuries, may therefore
act as an example of how economically connected
the entire interior of West Africa was in the late first
and early second millennium AD.
It is, therefore, interesting to note the absence of
kola nut and safou remains in the pre-tenth-cen-
tury layers at Togu, although midden deposits were
equally abundant there. Of course, this is not evi-
dence that the trade in kola nuts did not exist during
this period, but it might not have had the same vol-
ume, or it might not have used Togu Missiri as a reg-
ular stop. In any case, we must suppose other items
to have traveled along the same routes until a market
for kola nuts was established. By then, specialized
traders had well-established relationships along their
trading routes.
It remains to discuss the sociocultural and eco-
nomic contexts within which such specialized traders
operated. A large number of historical and archaeo-
logical writings have focused on the structure of trade
in West Africa, emphasizing the establishment of
trade diasporas, the importance of shared cults, or a
shared and exclusive Muslim identity as key factors
in the establishment of trade links (Brooks, 1993;
Wilks, 1961). Following Levtzion (1973), these trade
diasporas are often linked to the Empire of Ghana
and its downfall. This link has become cemented in
the historical literature of the area due to the identi-
fication of the Ghana of the medieval Arabic sources
with the Wagadu polity of Soninké historical tradi-
tions (see Gestrich 2018). Across many parts of West
Africa, Soninké individuals and communities have
functioned as long-distance traders and have set up
diaspora communities over a remarkably wide geo-
graphic area. Many of them link their existence in
diasporic communities to the “scattering” (saanxi)
event that marks the fall of Wagadu in oral traditions.
In fact, many local populations regard it as received
wisdom that all Soninké are traders. Due to this, it
has become usual for authors on the past of Sahelian
West Africa to associate all trade with the Soninké,
and with the Empire of Ghana, a desert-edge pol-
ity engaged in Saharan trade. Both R. McIntosh
(1998) and Lovejoy (1980), for example, assume
that Soninké networks must be behind the early kola
trade. At first glance, our results would support this
identification. Togu is, and is claimed to always have
been, a settlement of the Maraka population group,
and maraka is the Bambara word for those who call
themselves Soninké. This has led to the assumption
that the Maraka settlements of the Ségu area were
founded as part of the Wagadu polity or as part of its
dissolution and the scattering of its population (e.g.,
Pageard, 1961). However, a closer look reveals that
the term Maraka nowadays describes people of very
varied ethnic backgrounds. They share a certain num-
ber of cultural practices, by which their identity is
defined in opposition to the Bamana who also settle
in this area (Bazin, 1985). A Maraka is supposed to
be Muslim, engage in trade, and not take part in wars.
For the Maraka of the Ségu area, this is not overtly
a profound cultural difference, and becoming Maraka
often simply denotes the addition of Islamic reli-
gious practices or a change of clothing style (Bazin,
1972). Anyone could and can become Maraka, but
men engaging in these activities would have been
excluded from their communities of origin to a cer-
tain degree. They would no longer have been part of
initiation societies, the family farming enterprise, or
the strict scheme of succession within the family unit.
A male Maraka’s work and life are incompatible with
male identity in most agricultural societies of Sahe-
lian West Africa, including the Soninké. While the
Maraka are known far and wide as traders, engaging
in this activity means leaving behind the ties of the
sedentary agricultural lineages. The word maraka, for
us, thus equates with a set of practices that include,
but are not limited to, trade. It has become attached
to the Soninké by virtue of the high number of them
engaged in commerce.
We have focused on this argument to make explicit
that there is no dependable link of the early kola trade
to either the Soninké ethnicity or the Wagadu polity/
the Empire of Ghana. Secondly, we want to stress the
extent to which traders in Sahelian West Africa were
a professional group, yet one with such pronounced
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
414
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
social distance from others that they could be consid-
ered almost like an ethnic group. In contrast to some
other West African occupational specialists, member-
ship is open, and there are no strict rules regarding
endogamy. The degree to which individuals in such
groups engaged in commerce, however, could be
highly variable. There were surely those who plied
long-distance trade routes several times a year, as
well as those for whom joining a trading caravan was
a one-off when they found themselves in a position to
do so and those who engaged only in resale. We can-
not be certain how far back in time Maraka identity
existed and whether the inhabitants of Togu Missiri
would have understood themselves as being Maraka
or even belonging to a trading group, separate from
the surrounding population. For the moment, the
integration of traders into local society in this area is
still an open question, but one we hope to address in
future studies.
Conclusions: Early Kola Trade Into theMiddle
Niger
Lovejoy’s history of the West African kola trade
appeared in a themed issue of the Cahiers d’études
africaines, alongside an article by Roberts (1980)
which criticized some fundamental points of Hop-
kins’ Economic History of West Africa. Hopkins
had seen African societies as largely self-sufficient
before the nineteenth century, a view that is fre-
quently repeated to this day (e.g., Eltis, 2013), often
in the first chapter of historical overviews focused
on later periods. For Hopkins, local exchange was
limited because everyone was producing the same
goods under the same conditions. Long-distance
trade, for him, was limited to luxury items destined
to individuals with high buying power. In addition
to criticizing Hopkins’ static picture of the pre-nine-
teenth-century past, Roberts pointed out that several
important long-distance trade goods, such as salt and
kola, were accessible to ordinary buyers because the
quantities required were small. People bought when
they could. He further showed how the market limi-
tations identified by Hopkins were overcome by
transporting surpluses into areas beyond the limits
of local markets where that product was in demand.
He argued that ecological differences strongly influ-
enced precolonial West African trade and that this,
in turn, aided specialized production when coupled
with long-distance trade. While the four contribu-
tions that discussed Lovejoy’s and Roberts’ papers
mainly focused on the role of polities and slavery as
depending on or creating trade links, several impor-
tant further points were raised which continue to be
topical now. Amselle (1980), for instance, pointed
out the uncertain causality between trade, polity, and
slavery and that ecological factors alone were some-
what too weak to explain the development of long-
distance trade. According to him, the growers in kola-
producing areas needed to make a conscious decision
to plant and tend to the plants, harvest and pack them,
and thereby make a seasonally abundant crop of lim-
ited sale value into a product for export. At the time,
Amselle came to the rather vague conclusion that the
West African subcontinental economy was a globaliz-
ing system in which everyone had their role to play.
Based on the archaeological work of the intervening
40years and with the arguments presented here, we
might add some precision to this debate.
By the end of the first millennium AD, the West
African interior was connected by trade routes.
These occasionally transported luxury goods but
regularly moved all sorts of materials between the
different geological and ecological zones. Some of
these materials were moved in high volumes. It is
now apparent that the environmental differences
that Roberts underlined did more than just present
opportunities for trade. Rather, they made trade
inevitable: there are strong indicators that the large
population living in and around the Inland Niger
Delta from the mid-first millennium AD would not
have covered its needs without a medium- to long-
distance, high-volume movement of nonluxury
items. The archaeological data indicates that the
populations of such ecological and economic niche
areas drove high-volume exchange and regional
economic specialization and the development of
internally differentiated specialized traders and
craftspeople. Over time, this had an integrating
effect on the broader region and, from the mid-first
millennium onward, led to societies in which spe-
cialization and the buying and selling of goods were
commonplace. The end product is the situation that
Amselle described, a globalized economy in which
everyone had their place — that is, everyone pro-
duced something to sell. Although some communi-
ties may have been able to cover their basic needs
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 415
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
for food, clothing, and shelter, almost all would
have also been able, and were willing, to produce
something that traders would buy from them on a
regular basis.
The find of Cola sp. and Dacryodes edulis remains
at Togu Missiri shows that the regional trading net-
works that included the Middle Niger region were
well-organized by the early second millennium and
ran from the West African forest zone through the
Savanna and Sahara to North Africa. Much research
has concentrated on the trans-Saharan portion of this
trade, to the detriment of the sub-Saharan portion,
though the latter is likely to have been economically
far more important. That kola nuts reached Arab trad-
ers in Walata in the mid-thirteenth century is a testa-
ment to how efficient these networks were (Levtzion
& Hopkins 2000, p. 307). Even more impressive is
that fresh tropical fruit appears to have been brought
from the forest to at least the southern margins of the
Inland Niger Delta.
Previous research on early sub-Saharan trade in
West Africa tends to concentrate on archaeologi-
cally more visible items such as iron, and on gold
destined for North Africa. Other goods are often
assumed to have also been part of long-distance
trade, such as salt, sandstone, wood, clothing, and
slaves. Yet our results show that we must in the
future envisage this trade to have incorporated a
much larger pallet of perishable items, especially
foodstuffs. And in the face of such a regular, high-
volume trade, we must also consider the entire sub-
continent to have been closely and regularly con-
nected, at least from the late first millennium AD.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the peo-
ple of Togu for their enthusiastic support for this research. In
particular, we thank Seydna Oumar Dembele and his family
for being our hosts while in Togu, as well as those who par-
ticipated in the excavations: Bafing Djiré, Zoumana dit Bagui
Djiré, Baba Koita, Ladji Kanouté, Madou dit Fa Dembélé,
Bassa Dembélé. We thank David Glauser for his help with the
photographs of the archaeobotanical remains. We thank the
students of the HOPE lab in Bamako for their help with the
flotation of the soil samples.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by
Projekt DEAL. The research for this article was carried out
as part of the Markadugu Project, funded by the Volkswagen
Foundation. The archaeobotanical analyses were carried out at
the UCL Institute of Archaeology in London and Goethe Uni-
versity in Frankfurt am Main. The fieldwork was supported by
the Institut des Sciences Humaines de Mali and the Université
des Sciences Sociales et Gestion in Bamako.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Com-
mons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits
use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the
original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Crea-
tive Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The
images or other third party material in this article are included
in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your
intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds
the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit
http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/.
References
ANOM 51 PA 1. Notice sur le cercle de Ségou (vers
1893/1894). Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-
Provence. 51 PA 1, ark:/61561/vl918kfz.
Amselle, J.-L. (1980). Autosubsistance, petite production
marchande et chaînes de sociétés. Cahiers D’études Afric-
aines, 20(77–78), 155–160.
Bazin, J. (1972). Commerce et predation. L’Etat Bambara de
Segou et ses Communautés Marka. Conference on Man-
ding Studies. Royal Anthropological Institute MS415/9.
Manuscript.
Bazin, J. (1985). À chacun son Bambara. In J.-L. Amselle &
E. M’Bokolo (Eds.), Au coeur de l’ethnie: Ethnies, trib-
alisme et état en Afrique (pp. 87–128). Ed. la Découverte.
Bazin, J. (1988). Princes désarmés, corps dangereux: Les
“Rois-Femmes” de La région de Segu. Cahiers D’études
Africaines, 28(111/112), 375–441.
Bertaux, C. (1984). La technique des prescriptions sacrifi-
cielles dans la géomancie bambara (région de Ségou,
Mali). Systèmes De Pensée En Afrique Noire, 6, 117–130.
Blench, R. M. (2006).Archaeology, language, and the African
past. AltaMira.
Bostoen, K. (2014). Wild trees in the subsistence economy
of early Bantu speech communities. In C. J. Stevens, S.
Nixon, M. A. Murray, & D. Q. Fuller (Eds.), Archaeology
of African plant use (pp. 129–140). Left Coast Press.
Boujou, J. (2000). Clientélisme, corruption et gouvernance
locale à Mopti (Mali). Autrepart, 14, 143–163.
Brooks, G. E. (1980). Kola trade and state-building: Upper
Guinea coast and Senegambia, 15th-17th centuries. Work-
ing Papers in African Studies, No. 38. Boston: Afri-
can Studies Center. https:// hdl. handle. net/ 2144/ 40581.
Accessed 20 June2021.
Brooks, G. E. (1993). Landlords and strangers. Westview
Press.
Burdock, G. A., Carabin, I. G., & Crincoli, C. M. (2009).
Safety assessment of kola nut extract as a food ingredient.
Food and Chemical Toxicology, 47, 1725–1732.
Burkill, H. M. (2000). Useful plants of West Tropical
Africa(2nd ed.).Kew Publishing.
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
416
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
Champion, L. (2019). The evolution of agriculture, food and
drink in the ancient Niger River basin: Archaeobotanical
studies from Mali and Benin. Ph.D. thesis, University Col-
lege London, London.
Champion, L., & Fuller, D.Q. (2019). Archaeobotany: Meth-
ods. In Spear, T. (Ed.),The Oxford encyclopedia of Afri-
can historiography: Methods and sources. Vol 1. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Dah-Nouvlessounon, D., Adoukonou-Sagbadja, H., Nafan, D.,
Adjanohoun, A., Noumavo, P. A., Sina, H., etal. (2016).
Morpho-agronomic variability of three kola trees acces-
sions [Cola nitida (Vent.) Schott et Endl., Cola acuminata
(P. Beauv.) Schott et Endl., and Garcinia kola Heckel]
from Southern Benin. Genetic resources and crop evolu-
tion, 63(3), 561–579.
Drucker-Brown, S. (1995). The court and the kola nut: Woo-
ing and witnessing in Northern Ghana. The Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, 1(1), 129–143.
Dueppen, S. A., & Gokee, C. (2014). Hunting on the margins
of medieval West African states: A preliminary study of
the zooarchaeological record at Diouboye, Senegal. Aza-
nia: Archaeological Research in Africa, 49(3), 354–385.
Eltis, D. (2013). The slave trade and commercial agriculture in
an African context. In R. Law, S. Schwarz, & S. Strickrodt
(Eds.), Commercial agriculture, the slave trade and slav-
ery in Atlantic Africa (pp. 28–53). Boydell & Brewer.
Houdas, O. (Ed.) (1964). Tarikh es-Soudan: Par Abder-
rahman b. Abdallah b. ’Imran b. ’Amir es-Sa’di.
Adrien-Maisonneuve.
Genequand, D., Apoh, W., Gavua, K., Canetti, M., Champion,
L., Gyam, S., Hajdas, I., Maret, F., de Reynier, C., &
Ruben, I. (2020). Preliminary report on the 2019 season
of the Gonja Project, Ghana. SLSA Jahresbericht, 2019,
225–289.
Gestrich, N. (2013). The archaeology of social organisation
at Tongo Maaré Diabal. Ph.D. thesis. University College
London, London.
Gestrich, N. (2019). The empire of Ghana. In Spear, T. (Ed.),
Oxford research encyclopedia of African history. Oxford
University Press. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1093/ acref ore/ 97801
90277 734. 013. 396.
Gestrich, N., & Keita, D. (2017). Report on a season of
prospection and excavation near Ségu, Mali. Nyame
Akuma, 88, 48–55.
Gestrich, N., & MacDonald, K. C. (2018). On the margins of
Ghana and Kawkaw: Four seasons of excavation at Tongo
Maaré Diabal (AD 500–1150), Mali. Journal of African
Archaeology, 16, 1–30.
Green, T. (2019). A fistful of shells. University of Chicago
Press.
Håland, R. (1980). Man’s role in the changing habitat of Méma
during the old Kingdom of Ghana. Norwegian Archaeo-
logical Review, 13, 31–46.
Haour, A., & Christie, A. (2019). Cowries in the archaeology
of West Africa: The present picture. Azania: Archaeologi-
cal Research in Africa, 54, 287–321.
Hauenstein, A. (1974). La noix de cola. Coutumes et rites de
quelques ethnies de Côte d’lvoire. Anthropos, 69(3/4),
457–493.
Hooker, W. J. (1899). Icones Plantarum, Vol. 26. Dulau and
Co.
Hopkins, A. G. (2016). An economic history of West Africa.
2nd edition. Routledge.
Hunwick, J. O. (1973). The mid-fourteenth century capital of
Mali. The Journal of African History, 14, 195–206.
Hunwick, J. O., Meillassoux, C., & Triaud, J.-L. (1979).
La géographie du Soudan d’après al-Bakri Trois Lec-
tures. Revue Française D’histoire D’outre-Mer, 66,
111–138.
Interviews Markadugu Project (2016). Group interview with
village council at Togu, 13/12/2016. Group interview
with village council at Marakaduguba, 14/12/2016. Inter-
views conducted by Seydou Camara, Soumaila Coulibaly,
Daouda Keita and Nikolas Gestrich.
Kirikoshi, H. (2019). Migrants’ participation in cocoa produc-
tion: Trust-building among multi-ethnic groups in West
Africa. In H. Kirikoshi, Y. Matsunami, & S. Takeuchi
(Eds.), Development, migration, and resources in Africa
(pp. 45–59). ASC-TUFS Working Papers.
Köhler, H. A. (1890). Medizinal-Pflanzen, Vol. 2. Franz Eugen
Köhler.
Kuba, R. (2009). Cultural contacts between the savannah and
the forest: Trade along the Eastern Niger. In S. Mag-
navita, L. Koté, P. Breunig, & O. A. Idé (Eds.), Cross-
roads/Carrefour Sahel: Cultural and technological
developments in first millennium BC West Africa (pp.
147–156). Journal of African Archaeology Monograph
Series 2. Africa Magna.
Kwame, A. (2019). An ethnographic sketch of social inter-
actions in Dagbon society: The case of greeting, shar-
ing drinks and kola nut. Journal of Multidisciplinary
Research at Trent, 2(1), 1–20.
Levtzion, N. (1973). Ancient Ghana and Mali. Methuen.
Levtzion, N., & Hopkins, J. F. P. (Eds.) (2000). Corpus of
early Arabic sources for West African history. Markus
Wiener.
Lovejoy, P. E. (1980). Kola in the history of West Africa.
Cahiers D’études Africaines, 20(77–78), 97–134.
Lovejoy, P. E. (1995). Kola Nuts. The ‘coffee’ of the central
Sudan. In Goodman, J., Lovejoy, P. E., & Sherratt, A.
(Eds.), Consuming habits. Drugs in history and anthro-
pology (pp.103–125). Routledge.
MacDonald, K. C., & Camara, S. (2011). Segou: Warfare and
the origins of a state of slavery. In P. Lane & K. C. Mac-
Donald (Eds.), Slavery in Africa. Archaeology and mem-
ory (pp. 25–46). Proceedings of the British Academy 168.
MacDonald, K. C., Camara, S., Canós-Donnay, S., Gestrich,
N., & Keita, D. (2011). Sorotomo: A forgotten Malian
capital? Archaeology International, 13(14), 52–64.
MacDonald, K. C., Gestrich, N. , Camara, S., & Keita, D.
(2018). The ‘Pays Dô’ and the origins of the empire of
Mali. In T. Green & B. Rossi (Eds.), Landscapes, sources
and intellectual projects of the West African past: Essays
in honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias (pp.
63–87). Brill.
McIntosh, R. J. (1998). The peoples of the Middle Niger.
Blackwell Publishers.
McIntosh, S. K. (Ed.). (1995). Excavations at Jenne-Jeno,
Hambarketolo and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali),
the 1981 Season. University of California Press.
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418 417
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1 3
Meillassoux, C. (1973). Etat et conditions des esclaves a
Gumbu (Mali) au XIXe Siecle. The Journal of African
History, 14(3), 429–452.
Ndingwan, M. A., Tsobeng, A., Asaah, E., Degrande, A., &
Tchoundjeu, Z. (2013). Best practices on kola nut conser-
vation and storage. Handbook for Kola producers. World
Agroforestry Centre.
Niemenak, N., Onomo, P. E., Lieberei, R., & Ndoumou, D. O.
(2008). Purine alkaloids and phenolic compounds in three
Cola species and Garcinia kola grown in Cameroon. South
African Journal of Botany, 74(4), 629–638.
Nixon, S. (2017). Trans-Saharan gold trade in pre-modern
times: Available evidence and research agendas. In D. J.
Mattingly, V. Leitch, C. N. Duckworth, A. Cuénod, M.
Sterry, & F. Cole (Eds.), Trade in the ancient Sahara and
beyond (pp. 156–188). Cambridge University Press.
Nyadanu, D., Lowor, S. T., Akpertey, A., Tchokponhoué, D.
A., Pobee, P., Dogbatse J. A., etal. (2020). Genetic vari-
ability of bioactive compounds and selection for nutraceu-
tical quality in kola [Cola nitida (Vent) Schott. and Endl.].
PLoS ONE, 15(12): e0242972
Park, M. (1858). Travels in the interior of Africa. A. and C.
Black.
Pageard, R. (1961). Note sur le peuplement du pays de Ségou.
Journal De La Société Des Africanistes, 31, 83–90.
Person, Y. (1986). Samori: Une révolution dyula. Vol. 1.
Dakar: IFAN.
Roberts, R. (1980). Linkages and multiplier effects in the eco-
logically specialized trade of precolonial West Africa.
Cahiers D’études Africaines, 20(77–78), 135–148.
Roberts, R. (1987). Warriors, merchants, and slaves: The state
and the economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700–1914.
Stanford University Press.
Serneels, V., & Perret, S. (2003). Quantification of smith-
ing activities based on the investigation of slag and other
material remains. In Archaeometallurgy in Europe. Pro-
ceedings of the International Conference (Milano, Sep-
tember 24–26, 2003), 469–478.
Stahl, A. B., & Stahl, P. (2004). Ivory production & consump-
tion in Ghana in the early second millennium AD. Antiq-
uity, 78, 86–101.
Sundström, L. (1966). The cola nut: Functions in West Afri-
can social life. Studia Ethnographica Uppsaliensia XXVI,
Varia, II, 135–149.
Tridge, n.d. https:// www. tridge. com/ intel ligen ces/ kola- nut/
produ ction. Accessed 09 Mar 2020.
Wilks, I. (1961). The northern factor in Ashanti History:
Begho and the Mande. The Journal of African History,
2(1), 25–34.
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard
to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional
affiliations.
Afr Archaeol Rev (2021) 38:403–418
418
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Terms and Conditions
Springer Nature journal content, brought to you courtesy of Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH (“Springer Nature”).
Springer Nature supports a reasonable amount of sharing of research papers by authors, subscribers and authorised users (“Users”),
for small-scale personal, non-commercial use provided that all copyright, trade and service marks and other proprietary notices are
maintained. By accessing, sharing, receiving or otherwise using the Springer Nature journal content you agree to these terms of use
(“Terms”). For these purposes, Springer Nature considers academic use (by researchers and students) to be non-commercial.
These Terms are supplementary and will apply in addition to any applicable website terms and conditions, a relevant site licence or
a personal subscription. These Terms will prevail over any conflict or ambiguity with regards to the relevant terms, a site licence or
a personal subscription (to the extent of the conflict or ambiguity only). For Creative Commons-licensed articles, the terms of the
Creative Commons license used will apply.
We collect and use personal data to provide access to the Springer Nature journal content. We may also use these personal data
internally within ResearchGate and Springer Nature and as agreed share it, in an anonymised way, for purposes of tracking,
analysis and reporting. We will not otherwise disclose your personal data outside the ResearchGate or the Springer Nature group of
companies unless we have your permission as detailed in the Privacy Policy.
While Users may use the Springer Nature journal content for small scale, personal non-commercial use, it is important to note that
Users may not:
use such content for the purpose of providing other users with access on a regular or large scale basis or as a means to
circumvent access control;
use such content where to do so would be considered a criminal or statutory offence in any jurisdiction, or gives rise to civil
liability, or is otherwise unlawful;
falsely or misleadingly imply or suggest endorsement, approval , sponsorship, or association unless explicitly agreed to by
Springer Nature in writing;
use bots or other automated methods to access the content or redirect messages
override any security feature or exclusionary protocol; or
share the content in order to create substitute for Springer Nature products or services or a systematic database of Springer
Nature journal content.
In line with the restriction against commercial use, Springer Nature does not permit the creation of a product or service that creates
revenue, royalties, rent or income from our content or its inclusion as part of a paid for service or for other commercial gain.
Springer Nature journal content cannot be used for inter-library loans and librarians may not upload Springer Nature journal
content on a large scale into their, or any other, institutional repository.
These terms of use are reviewed regularly and may be amended at any time. Springer Nature is not obligated to publish any
information or content on this website and may remove it or features or functionality at our sole discretion, at any time with or
without notice. Springer Nature may revoke this licence to you at any time and remove access to any copies of the Springer Nature
journal content which have been saved.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Springer Nature makes no warranties, representations or guarantees to Users, either express
or implied with respect to the Springer nature journal content and all parties disclaim and waive any implied warranties or
warranties imposed by law, including merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.
Please note that these rights do not automatically extend to content, data or other material published by Springer Nature that may be
licensed from third parties.
If you would like to use or distribute our Springer Nature journal content to a wider audience or on a regular basis or in any other
manner not expressly permitted by these Terms, please contact Springer Nature at
onlineservice@springernature.com