The settlement mound of Birnin Lafiya: new evidence from the eastern arc of the Niger River

Haour, Anne; Nixon, Sam; N'Dah, Didier; Magnavita, Carlos; Smith, A. Livingstone

doi:10.15184/aqy.2016.7

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Additional evidence of sorghum has been found in the archaeobotanical assemblages of sites such as Dia Shoma (Fuller and Stevens 2018), Jenné-Jeno (Fuller and Stevens 2018), and Birnin Lafiya (Champion and Fuller 2018a;Fuller and Stevens 2018;Haour et al 2016a). These finds are the earliest regional evidence of a diversification of the farming system.…”

Section: Ad 600mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Oursi (Oursi 1 and Oursi West), for example, has evidence of diversified farming systems at this time (Kahlheber 2004). Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), fonios/small millets (Digitaria or Brachiaria), and rice (Oryza glaberrima) were all recovered from the site of Birnin Lafiya dating to this time (Champion and Fuller 2018a;Haour, Nixon, Ndah, Magnavita and Smith 2016a), showing the presence in the region of both floodplain farming with rice and of diversified crop sets, and the faunal assemblage was dominated by fish throughout (Haour, Nixon, Ndah, Magnavita and Smith 2016b). Diversified farming is also present in the Nok region at this time (Höhn and Neumann 2016;Kahlheber, Höhn and Rapp 2009b), as well as further west, in the Middle Senegal Valley site of Cubalel (Murray, Fuller and Capezza 2007).…”

Section: Ad 200mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many societal and environmental changes occurred between the 2nd millennium BC and the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies, which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services of the region. Quantification of these land-use influences and potential feedbacks between human and natural systems is controversial, however, in part because the archaeological and historical record is highly fragmented in time and space. To improve our understanding of how humans contributed to the development of African landscapes, we developed an atlas of landuse practices in western Africa for nine time-windows over the period 1800 BC-AD 1500. The maps are based on a broad synthesis of archaeological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological, historical, linguistic, genetic, and ethnographic data, and present land use in 12 basic categories. The main differences between categories is the relative reliance on, and variety of, domesticated plant and animal species utilized, and the energy invested in cultivating or keeping them. The maps highlight the irregular and frequently non-linear trajectory of land-use change in the prehistory of western Africa. Representing an original attempt to produce rigorous spatial synthesis from diverse sources, the atlas will be useful for a range of studies of human-environment interactions in the past, and highlight major spatial and temporal gaps in data that may guide future field studies.

show abstract

Section: Ad 600mentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Ad 200mentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Unfortunately, the areas between Sahel and coast remain some of the least well known, archaeologically speaking, and as researchers begin to fill in the blanks on the map between the Niger bend and the forest to the south we are inevitably confronted by new interpretational challenges (Haour et al 2016b). The assumption that the earliest cowries reached West Africa via the trans-Saharan trade, and that these consisted mainly of M. moneta, is supported by the rather limited range of historical evidence and even more limited archaeological evidence; here, the eleventh/twelfth century Ma'den Ijafen load referred to above, recovered in one of the emptiest quarters of the Mauritanian Sahara, remains unique and uniquely evocative, and it consists very largely of M. moneta (Monod 1969, Christie and.…”

Section: Exchange Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cataloging Cowries: A Standardized Strategy to Record Six Key Species of Cowrie Shell from the West African Archaeological Record

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Two species of cowrie shell, Monetaria moneta (Linnaeus 1758) and Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus 1758), occur repeatedly in archaeological contexts across West Africa. Despite their archaeological and ethnographic importance, these shells remain poorly and inconsistently reported in the archaeological literature. The absence of standardised data on species composition, size and condition of cowrie assemblages, and whether and how the shells were modified, make it difficult to examine their significance in a regional and/or chronological framework. To address this, we propose a standardisation of the criteria and coding used to systematically record cowrie assemblages -in particular species, size, condition and state of modification. We aim to enable non-shell specialists within the wider archaeological community to securely identify intact or intact but modified specimens of M. annulus and M. moneta, showing how these can be distinguished from four cowries native to West Africa (specifically Luria lurida (Linnaeus 1758), Zonaria zonaria (Gmelin 1791), Zonaria sanguinolenta (Gmelin 1791) and Trona stercoraria (Linnaeus 1758)) that occur in assemblages from West African sites. We demonstrate how accurate species identification

show abstract

“…Fleisher et al 2012; Wynne-Jones 2012; Welham et al 2014; Fitton & Wynne-Jones 2017). Sites with earthen features have been explored in West Africa (Magnavita & Schleifer 2004; Haour et al 2016; Magnavita 2017; Olorunfemi et al 2019), while in southern Africa, electromagnetic-induction survey at the Iron Age site of Mmadipudi Hill (Botswana) has helped to define an area of a cattle kraal and clusters of household units surrounded by thorn fencing; this, in turn, enabled the targeted excavation of a daub structure (Klehm & Ernenwein 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting and mapping the ‘ephemeral’: magnetometric survey of a Pastoral Neolithic settlement at Luxmanda, Tanzania

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Common assumptions about the ephemeral archaeological signature of pastoralist settlements have limited the application of geophysical techniques in the investigation of past herding societies. Here, the authors present a geophysical survey of Luxmanda, Tanzania, the largest-known settlement documented for the Pastoral Neolithic era in eastern Africa (c. 5000–1200 BP). The results demonstrate the value and potential of fluxgate gradiometry for the identification of magnetic anomalies relating to archaeological features, at a category of site where evidence for habitation was long thought to be undetectable. The study provides comparative data to enable archaeologists to identify loci for future investigations of mobile populations in eastern Africa and elsewhere.

show abstract

The settlement mound of Birnin Lafiya: new evidence from the eastern arc of the Niger River

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 8 publications

References 26 publications

Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500

Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500

Cataloging Cowries: A Standardized Strategy to Record Six Key Species of Cowrie Shell from the West African Archaeological Record

Detecting and mapping the ‘ephemeral’: magnetometric survey of a Pastoral Neolithic settlement at Luxmanda, Tanzania

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About