From stone to metal: New perspectives on the later prehistory of West Africa

McIntosh, Susan Keech; McIntosh, Roderick J.

doi:10.1007/bf00975123

Cited by 51 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…This is evident in critical reviews of earlier claims of anomalously early or superior African metal working technology. 13 With these more recent developments we are rescued from a proliferation of discoveries of 'special' circumstances and can begin to appreciate the social contexts of indigenous metal production 14 and the real diversity of African metal-working techniques, especially the numerous variants that make up the bloomery process for producing iron and steel. 15 These variants are far from fully understood, and the fundamental documentation of them is only just underway.…”

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confidence: 99%

Early Metal Working in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Recent Research

1994

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Thispaper is a review of the course of research during the past decade into the history of indigenous metal working in sub-Saharan Africa. It comprises three sections: a summary of the chronology of early metallurgy and the spread of metal working; a description of African metal working in terms of mining, smelting and smithing, with particular emphasis on recent interpretations of the iron-smelting technology; and a conclusion summarizing the main developments and some lines of future enquiry. A glossary of technical terms used in this paper is appended.

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confidence: 99%

Early Metal Working in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Recent Research

1994

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“…While some palaeochannels, such as the Fala de Molodo, do not appear to have ceased flowing until tile beginning of the current millennium (McIntosh and McIntosh 1988), this would not appear to be the case for the Vallde du Serpent. Along the Fala, in tile Mdma or Dead Delta region of Mali, human occupational remains dating from tile mid to recent Holocene are dense and highly visible, usually taking the form of dense middens along levdes or enormous tells rising from tile floodplain (Togola and Raimbault 1991).…”

Section: Palaeohydrolog) and Geomo~pholog) Of The Vailand Du Serpent mentioning

confidence: 87%

A reconsideration of the West African macrolithic conundrum: new factory sites and an associated settlement in the Vallée du Serpent, Mali

MacDonald¹,

Allsworth-Jones²

1994

Afr Archaeol Rev

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Within West African prehistory, perhaps no period remains more mysterious than that between the Terminal Pleistocene and the mid-Holocene. This time period is shared by diverse macrolithic and microlithic industries. The macrolithic phenomenon has remained ill-defined, with most occurrences being generally lumped together as a single group, or attributed to earlier time periods. Recent archaeological investigations in the Vall~e du Serpent and southern Gourma regions of Mali have revealed Holocene macrolithic assemblages quite different from the well-known bifacial traditions of Cap Manuel and Manianbougou, but not without parallels from elsewhere in the Sahel and Savanna. The most important of the ValiSe du Serpent sites is that of Sirakoro-Ancien, where worked stone aggregations are associated with several rings of laterite cobbles believed to be the remnants of structures. Its lithic industry consists of massive flakes, perhaps removed directly from local outcrops, and smaller flakes from prepared cores as well as formal tools. Geomorphological and archaeological evidence suggests an age of the ValiSe du Serpent sites somewhere between 9000 and 6000 bp. A new synthesis based upon sites investigated by the authors and the predominantly Francophone literature is presented in order to shed light upon this neglected portion of African prehistory. R~sum~Dans toute la pr~histoire de l'Afrique occidentale, aucune p6riode ne reste peut-@tre plus myst~rieuse que celle situ~e entre la fin du Pleistocene et le milieu de l'Holoc~ne. Diverses industries macrolithiques et microlithiques se partagent cette p~riode. Le ph6nombne macrolithique reste mal d6fini, la plupart des exemples en sont g6n~ralement rassembl6s en un seul groupe, ou attribu6s ~ des p~riodes ant~rieures. Des recherches arch6ologiques effectu~es dans les r~gions de la valise du Serpent et du sud du Gourma au Mali ont r&,~l~ des collections macrolithiques de l'Holocbne bien diff~rentes des traditions bifaciales bien connues de Cap Manuel et Manianbougou, mais non sans parall~les ailleurs dans le Sahel et la Savanne. Le plus important des sites de la valise du Serpent est celui de SirakoroAncien o~5 des agr~gats de pierres travaill~es sont associ~s ~ plusieurs cercles de galets en lat~rite que l'on pense 6tre des restes de structures. Cette industrie lithique consiste en ~clats massifs, peut-6tre retires directement de couches g6ologiques locales, et en ~clats 74 Kevin C. MacDonald and P. Allsworth-Jones plus petits provenant de nucleus pr6par~s ainsi que des outils. Des preuves g~omorpholo-giques et arch~ologiques sugg~rent que les sites de la valise du Serpent ont entre 9000 et 6000 ans. Une nouvelle synth~se, fond~e sur les sites ~tudi~s par les auteurs et des documents principalement en fran~ais, est pr~sent~e afin d'ficlairer cette partie n~glig6e de la pr6histoire africaine.

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“…During the Younger Dryas the aridity and consequently the vegetation radically changed in Africa [32]. Following the Younger Dryas, the Holocene climate optimum favoured the spread of agriculture and colonization of new territories which is in turn associated with a demographic expansion of lineages in many African populations [33]–[35].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancestral Stories of Ghanaian Bimoba Reflect Millennia-Old Genetic Lineages

et al. 2013

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Oral history and oral genealogies are mechanisms of collective memory and a main cultural heritage of many populations without a writing system. In the effort to analytically address the correspondence between genetic data and historical genealogies, anthropologists hypothesised that genealogies evolve through time, ultimately containing three parts: literal – where the most recent ancestry is truthfully represented; intended – where ancestry is inferred and reflects political relations among groups; and mythical – that does not represent current social reality. While numerous studies discuss oral genealogies, to our knowledge no genetic studies have been able to investigate to what extent genetic relatedness corresponds to the literal and intended parts of oral genealogies. We report on the correspondence between genetic data and oral genealogies among Bimoba males in a single village in North-Eastern Ghana. We compared the pairwise mismatch distribution of Y chromosome short tandem repeat (Y-STR) haplotypes among all lineages present in this village to the self-reported (oral) relatedness. We found that Bimoba are able to correctly identify unrelated individuals in 92% of the cases. In contrast, they are able to correctly identify related individuals only in 38% of the cases, which can be explained by three processes: (1) the compression of genealogies, leading to increasing inaccuracy with increasing genealogical distance, (2) inclusions into the lineage from intended relations such as clan co-option or adoptions, and (3) false paternities, which in this study were found to have a minor effect on the correspondence between genetic data and oral genealogies. In addition, we observed that 70% of unrelated pairs have from six to eight Y-STR differences, a diversification peak which we attribute to an ancient West African expansion dating around 9454 years ago. We conclude that, despite all caveats, oral genealogies are reflecting ancient lineages more accurately than previously thought.

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From stone to metal: New perspectives on the later prehistory of West Africa

Cited by 51 publications

References 48 publications

Early Metal Working in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Recent Research

Early Metal Working in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Recent Research

A reconsideration of the West African macrolithic conundrum: new factory sites and an associated settlement in the Vallée du Serpent, Mali

Ancestral Stories of Ghanaian Bimoba Reflect Millennia-Old Genetic Lineages

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