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Many West African societies have egalitarian political systems,
with non-centralised distributions of power. 'Egalitarian
Revolution in the Savanna' analyses a wide range of archaeological
data to explore the development of such societies. The volume
offers a detailed case study of the village settlement of Kirikongo
in western Burkina Faso. Over the course of the first millennium,
this single homestead extended control over a growing community.
The book argues that the decentralization of power in the twelfth
century BCE radically transformed this society, changing gender
roles, public activities, pottery making and iron-working.
'Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna' will be of interest to
students of political science, anthropology, archaeology and the
history of West Africa.
Many West African societies have egalitarian political systems,
with non-centralised distributions of power. 'Egalitarian
Revolution in the Savanna' analyses a wide range of archaeological
data to explore the development of such societies. The volume
offers a detailed case study of the village settlement of Kirikongo
in western Burkina Faso. Over the course of the first millennium,
this single homestead extended control over a growing community.
The book argues that the decentralization of power in the twelfth
century BCE radically transformed this society, changing gender
roles, public activities, pottery making and iron-working.
'Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna' will be of interest to
students of political science, anthropology, archaeology and the
history of West Africa.
Kirikongo, in the west African country of Burkina Faso, is an
archaeological site composed of thirteen remarkably well-preserved
discrete mounds occupied continually from the early first to the
mid second millennium AD. It spans a dynamic era that saw the
growth of large settlement communities and regional socio-political
formations, development of economic specializations,
intensification in interregional commercial networks, and the
effects of the Black Death pandemic. The extraordinary preservation
of architectural units, activity areas and industrial zones
provides a unique opportunity to discern the cultural practices
that created stratified mounds (tells) in this part of West Africa.
Building from a new detailed zooarchaeological analysis and
refinements in stratigraphic precision, this book argues that
repeated ritual activity was a significant factor in the
accumulation of stratified archaeological deposits. The book
details consistencies in form and content of discrete loci
containing animal bones, food remains, and broken and unbroken
objects and suggests that these are the remnants of sequential
ancestor shrines created when domestic spaces were converted to
tombs or dedicated mortuary monuments were constructed.
Continuities and transformations in ancestral rituals at Kirikongo
inform on earlier West African ritual practices from the second
millennium BC as well as political and social transformations at
the site. More broadly, this case study provides new insights on
anthropogenic mound (tell) formation processes, social
zooarchaeology, material culture theory, historical ontology, and
the analysis of ritual and religion in the archaeological record.
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