Excavations at Jenne-Jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali), the 1981 Season

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Michael DiBlasi ◽  
Susan Keech McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Inland Niger Delta

The Dia archaeological project: rescuing cultural heritage in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)

Antiquity ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 75 (290) ◽  
pp. 837-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogier Bedaux ◽  
Kevin MacDonald ◽  
Alain Person ◽  
Jean Polet ◽  
Kléna Sanogo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Niger Delta ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Site Survey ◽  
University College London ◽  
Sciences Humaines ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
Inland Niger Delta

Mali is a country with a rich history and diverse cultures. Its cultural heritage is, however, threatened by both the pillage of archaeological sites and illicit trade (ICOM 1995; Bedaux & Rowlands, this volunle). Looting has dramatically increased in recent years, especially in the Inland Delta of the Niger, and has obliged Malian authorities to take measures to counteract this destruction. Within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage programme, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden recently initiated large-scale excavations in the Inland Niger Delta at Dia, in close cooperation with the Université du Mali, the Institut des Sciences Humaines and the Musée National du Mali in Bamako, the Mission Culturelle in Djenné, the Universities of Paris I and VI, the C.N.R.S., University College London and Leiden University. This excavation, financed principally by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started in 1998 and will continue until 2004. It is a continuation of previous international programmes of site survey and documentation in the Inland Niger Delta, which the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako has co-ordinated over the past two decades (e.g. Raimbault & Sanogo 1991; Dembele et al. 1993; Togola 1996). An initial season of prospection was carried out in 1998 in the Inland Delta, following which the vicinity of Dia was chosen as the principal research zone for the project.

Ancient Developments in the Middle Senegal Valley and the Inland Niger Delta

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alioune Dème
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Ecological Diversity ◽  
Horizontal Differentiation ◽  
Secret Societies ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Inland Niger Delta ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Complexity Theories

The study of West Africa has contributed to the expansion of comparative arid-lands floodplain prehistory, from both the data collection (cultural and historical) and the theoretical aspects. The neoevolutionary approach that often pictures Africa as a backward continent has been successfully challenged. In the Middle Senegal Valley and in the Inland Niger Delta, research on their societies’ complexity done along these two subcontinent’s floodplains has described new processes (including urbanization) that were not previously featured in the archaeological literature. The two floodplains, because of their ecological diversity, with the richness of their ecological diversity, attracted Saharan populations affected by drought at the end of the second millennium and the first millennium BC. However, after their initiation occupation the two areas took different trajectories in complexity and settlement organization. Large complex settlements have been found at Jenne-jeno and in the Ile a Morphil that illustrate whole new trajectories of civilization. These forms of complexity, found in areas with historically known polities, were not included in the range of possibilities predicted by standard complexity theories regarding civilizational development. Ethnographic and historical data, reveal the existence of societies with a central authority embedded within and balanced by a diffuse, segmented and heterarchical power structure; often as a strategy to resist the individual consolidation of power. These societies exhibit evidence of horizontal differentiation and consensus-based decision making. All these types of organization are characterized by the presence of several sources of power vested in corporate entities, such as lineages, age groups, cults and secret societies.

Irrigation in the Inland Niger Delta of the French Sudan

1951 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
R. J. Harrison Church
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Inland Niger Delta

A Reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus, Island of Gold

1981 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Keech McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Urban Centre ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
Niger Delta Region ◽  
Inland Niger Delta ◽  
Alternative Identification ◽  
Major Urban Centre

There is a general consensus among West African historians that the Island of Gold, known to Arab geographers as Wangara and to European cartographers as Palolus, refers to the Bambuk/Bure goldfields. This article examines the evidence for an alternative identification of the Island of Gold with the Inland Niger Delta, where the place name Wangara would be derived from Soninke long-distance traders (Wangara). Many of the details on the Island of Gold provided in the original sources can be shown to apply more convincingly to the Inland Niger Delta than to Bambuk/Bure. Until now, this hypothesis has not received serious consideration, partly because of the belief that the Inland Delta and its most important entrepot, Jenne, did not play a significant role in long-distance trade networks until the fourteenth century. This is contradicted by archaeological evidence for a major urban centre at Jenne-jeno by 900 a.d.The existence in the later first millennium a.d. of the Soninke town of Jenne-jeno, and the oral traditions which maintain that the western Inland Delta was the heartland of the Soninke trade diaspora, combine to indicate that commerce along the Middle Niger was substantial by the early second millennium. Indirect confirmation of this trading activity is found both in al-Bakri's discussion of riverine trade routes along the upper Niger Bend and in al-Idrisi's account of the Wangara along the Middle Niger. The continuing identification of the Inland Niger Delta region as the Island of Gold from the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries implies that part of this trade involved gold. A possible early gold source in Lobi is suggested.

Initial perspectives on prehistoric subsistence in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Keech McIntosh ◽  
Roderick J. McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Inland Niger Delta ◽  
Prehistoric Subsistence

The Pre- and ProtohistoricToguéof the Niger Alluvial Plain, Mali

2010 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 319-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette M. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Alluvial Plain ◽  
Archaeological Heritage ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rural Sites ◽  
Inland Niger Delta ◽  
Landscape Units

The Inland Niger Delta in Mali is scattered with thousands of tell-like dwelling mounds that testify to the rich archaeological heritage of this attractive occupation area. The results of archaeological research suggest an occupation history of more than two millennia in which large urban settlements such as Djenné-Djeno and Dia play a central role. Regional surveys have revealed primary information on the vast rural hinterland of these extensive cities, but little is known about the structure and evolution of this considerable settlement system. The aim of the re-examination of 128 sites in the southern part of the Niger alluvial plain was to obtain an understanding of intersite relations based on sites' chronological, functional, socio-economic, and hierarchical differentiation and their participation in different trade networks. For the research it was crucial to find a method to date the last occupation period of the sites using surface remains. The results of the study emphasise the former occupants' preference for the most elevated landscape units close to fertile pastures, good cultivation grounds, and extensive fishing potential for their settlement sites. The occupants' ability to distribute and exchange agricultural surplus for luxury goods – imported via regional, inter-regional and trans-Saharan trade networks – is impressive, showing that they were able to compete with occupants of the large urban centres. Although the rural sites were much smaller than Djenné-Djeno and Dia, they were well connected. The rural hinterland apparently played an important role in most of the great West African empires. Population densities of the Inland Niger Delta were high for a long time, until the trade routes changed in the 15th century AD and the region became socio-politically unstable. This led to the abandonment of settlements, first around the urban settlements, and later also in the rural hinterland. The present-day occupation of the region is only a poor reflection of its impressive past.

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