British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

BA PDF Symposium 2005

26 April 2005

Abstracts

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Dr Anne Haour

Empires and Empirical Evidence in the Central Sahel

Archaeological sites of Sahelian Niger, West Africa, are used here as an example of discrepancies existing between written history, oral tradition and archaeology. The central Sahel is not featured in written records until the fifteenth century AD – this, despite the later predominance of local people such as the Hausa (which became famed in Europe for their extensive trade and monumental wall building) and despite abundant archaeological remains on the ground. At the same time, the written and oral records insist on the existence of a plethora of medieval 'empires' in the Sahelian belt. How, then, do we reconcile oral, historical and archaeological data?

Strikingly, many sites in the Makarauci Valley and elsewhere in the central Sahel are identified by oral tradition not just as centres of authority or prestige, but also as predecessors to one another. As it turns out the occurrence of shifting capitals, with cycles of diverse lengths, is a rather common phenomenon in Africa and, indeed, may have significance beyond the confines of the continent. The time is ripe for a comparative analysis of these phenomena; African archaeology has provided a fertile ground for theoretical debating and refining, and it is hoped that its profile within the wider archaeological community will go on increasing.

Dr Anne Haour is British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford (2002–2005). Her prime area of activity is the West African Republic of Niger, and her research interests include walled sites, anthropology, empires, and pottery. Recent publications include Mitchell, P., Haour, A. and Hobart, J. (eds.), Researching Africa's Past: new perspectives from British archaeologists, School of Archaeology , Oxford; and Ethnoarchaeology in the Zinder region, Republic of Niger: the site of Kufan Kanawa, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 56, BAR International Series 1133, Oxford: Archaeopress. Power and permanence in precolonial Africa – history and belief is under consideration by the Journal of Social Archaeology and expands on some of the ideas presented during the Symposium.