Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana Empire

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Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana EmpireAuthor(s): Patrick J. MunsonReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1980), pp. 457-466Published by: Cambridge University Press

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Journal of African History, 21 (I980), pp. 457-466 457Printed in Great Britain

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PREHISTORIC ORIGINS

OF THE GHANA EMPIRE

BY PATRICK J. MUNSON

THE EARLIEST historically recorded kingdom of the West African Sahel-Sudan is the Ghana Empire. The major thesis of this paper is that Ghanawas not the first, but rather the second complex political system to exist inthis region, and that just as the Mali Empire arose from the ruins of shatteredGhana, Ghana had in turn arisen from the remains of a still earlier, prehistoricsystem. 1

What is known, historically, of the ancient kingdom of Ghana has cometo us through various Arabic texts dating from about 8oo to i 650. Thesewritings, as they concern Ghana, have been translated, quoted, summarized,and interpreted elsewhere in considerable detail,2 and consequently onlysome of the more salient features of the kingdom will be noted here. Ghana,which is known to have been in existence prior to 8oo, was centred in thewestern Sahel in what is now southeastern Mauretania and western Mali. Itsreason for being, at least in large part, was the trans-Saharan trade; it lay atthe southern terminus of the caravan routes that brought salt (as well as, toa lesser extent, such things as copper and cloth) from or across the Sahara,

and it lay at the northern edge of the West African gold fields. The profitsgained from the control of this trade allowed Ghana to become rich andpowerful.

Available data on the social and political structure of Ghana suggest, amongother things, that rule was by a divine king. Apparently the political systemwas little different from most later despotic kingdoms through the savannazone of sub-Saharan Africa. The king of Ghana and much of his court, despitecertain statements to the contrary by later writers, was certainly Negro,specifically Soninke,3 and pagan. There were, to be sure, white men (MuslimBerbers) in important positions in the kingdom, but prior to the Almoravid

intervention in 1076-7 their primary role was clearly that of merchants andtraders who supplied the means by which the gold and salt moved throughthe kingdom.

The writings of Ibn Hawqal in 977 and al-Bakri in IO67-8 give us a fairdescription of the capital of Ghana. There were two towns. One was occupiedby Muslim Berbers (merchants, Islamic scholars). The other, some Io kmaway, contained the fortified palace of the Negro king. The Tarikh al-Fattash('Chronicle of the Seeker', written in the seventeenth century) provides us

1 An earlier, unpublished version of this position was presented at the Conference onManding Studies, London, 1972.

2 Raymond Mauny, 'The question of Ghana', Africa, xxiv, iii (I954), 200-13; BasilDavidson, The Lost Cities of Africa (Boston, 1959); Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghanaand Mali (London, 1973).

3 Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali, chap. ii; Abdoulaye Bathily, 'A discussion of thetraditions of Wagadu, with some reference to ancient Ghana', Bulletin de l'Institutfondamental d'Afrique noire (ser. B), xxxvii, i (I975), 1-49.

0021-8537/80/2828-1950 $02.00 (D I980 Cambridge University Press







458 PATRICK J. MUNSON

with the name of the capital: Koumbi. Using these historical data, pluspresent local traditions and archaeological excavations, Bonnel de Mezieres4located a ruined city in southeastern Mauretania which he suggested was

Koumbi. Subsequent excavations at this site5 have substantiated this identi-fication and have shown that the city was over i km2 in size. However, fromthe architecture and the artifacts, there seems little doubt that the excavations

have been within only the Muslim town. The fortified palace of the kind has

not yet been positively located (or at least has not yet been investigated).

The date of origin of Ghana is obscured in prehistory. It definitely predates8oo when the Arab geographer al-Fazari referred to the kingdom. The Tarikh

al-Sudan, written many centuries after the collapse of Ghana and apparentlybased primarily on oral tradition, states that there had been twenty-two kingsprior to the Hejira. If one assumed the validity of this statement and assumed

an average reign of twenty years per king, this would suggest an origin in thesecond century A.D. Levtzion6 has rightly argued, however, that these figures

should be treated very cautiously. A more defensible position would be to

posit a beginning date some centuries before 8oo, or near the middle of the

first millennium A.D.

THE ORIGIN OF GHANA: PREVIOUS HYPOTHESES

There has been a tendency for many years and with many Africanists to

ascribe most cultural advances in sub-Saharan Africa to forces from outside

sub-Saharan Africa, and specifically from North Africa and the Near East.The so-called Hamitic hypothesis, as it concerns sub-Saharan Africa in

general, is perhaps best exemplified by Seligman,7 who has argued that the

'Hamites were, in fact, the great civilizing force of Black Africa from a

relatively early period.' Such explanations have not been lacking for the

origins of Ghana and other early states in West Africa; many authors have

argued for migrations, invasions, or massive diffusion from Meroe,8 ancient

Egypt,9 or North Africa.10The Sudanic states, in this view, are seen, to quote

Oliver and Fage,11 as 'a superstructure erected over village communities of

peasant cultivators rather than a society which has grown naturally out of

them'.Posnansky12 has rightly pointed out, however, that the 'absence of the

highly distinctive Meroitic pottery in West Africa... provides... reason to

believe that the direct contribution of Meroe ... has been overstressed'. As

4 A. Bonnel de Mezieres, 'Recherches de 1'emplacement de Ghana (fouilles a Koumbi

et ai Settah)', Comptes rendus de l'Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, xii (1920),

227-63.

P. Thomassey and R. Mauny, 'Campagne de fouilles de 1950 a Koumbi Saleh

(Ghana?)', Bulletin de l'Institutfran(ais d'Afrique noire (ser. B), xviii, i-ii (1956), 117-40.

6 Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali, 20.

C. G. Seligman, The Races of Africa (London, 1930), I9.

8 A. J. Arkell, 'The valley of the Nile', in Roland Oliver (ed.), The Dawn of AfricanHistory (London, I96I), i i.

9 Cheik Anta Diop, Nations negres et culture (Paris, 1955).

10 M. Delafosse, Haut-Senegal-Niger, ii (Paris, 1912), 22-5.

" Roland Oliver and J. D. Fage, A Short History of Africa (Baltimore, I962), 46.

12 Merrick Posnansky, 'Kingship, archaeology, and historical myth', in Robert 0.

Collins (ed.), Problems in African History (Englewood Cliffs, I968), 48.







THE PREHISTORIC ORIGINS OF THE GHANA EMPIRE 459

for North African-Berber contributions to the basic elements of the Sudanicstates, the Saharan nomads 'had little experience in political organization and

state-building '.13 It would be fair to assume that the effect of the protohistoric

Libyco-Berbers on the peoples of the West African Sudan would have beencomparable to that of their historic descendants, people such as the nomadicTuareg, who carried on a continuous series of raids against the northernfrontiers of the West African societies.14

It is my contention, based in part on recent archaeological investigationscarried out among late prehistoric remains in south-central Mauretania, thatthe early kingdoms of West Africa exemplify what might be called a culturalcore which is purely African in content. Murdock15 has called this an African'mental blueprint of a despotic political structure', and Lewis16 has arguedthat this distinctive African complex must be viewed as having 'great age and

elaboration in situ'.There were white men, specifically Libyco-Berbers ultimately from

northern Africa, involved, and importantly involved, in the Ghana Empireas it existed in historic times. The question, however, is how they wereinvolved originally. I submit, as has previously been suggested by others,17that it was the possibilities of trade across the Sahara, carried out by theLibyco-Berbers, plus to a lesser extent the introduction of ironworkingtechnology, also by the Libyco-Berbers, that stimulated the evolution of theGhana Empire out of a basic pre-existing pattern which had its roots in this

area in a prehistoric period well prior to the initial Libyco-Berber influences.

THE LATER PREHISTORY OF SOUTHERN MAURETANIA

Recent archaeological research,18 plus earlier surveys,19 has demonstratedthat there exists in the Dhar Tichitt-Oualata region of southern Mauretaniaa great wealth of rather spectacular prehistoric remains. For the purposes ofthis paper the primary concern will be only with the latest portion of this

13 Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali, 8.14 Bolanle Awe, 'Empires of the Sudan: Ghana, Mali, Songhay', in J. F. Ade Ajayi

and Ian Espie (eds.), A Thousand Years of West African History (Ibadan, 1965), 58-9.15 George P. Murdock, Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History (New York, 1959),

37.

16 Herbert S. Lewis, 'Ethnology and culture history', in Creighton Gabel and Norman

R. Bennett (eds.), Reconstructing African History (Boston, 1967), 30.

17 Murdock, Africa, 72; Davidson, Lost Cities, 8i; Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali,

9-I1, 14.

18 Patrick J. Munson, 'The Tichitt Tradition: A Late Prehistoric Occupation of the

Southwestern Sahara', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois-Urbana

(1 971); 'Archaeological data on the origins of cultivation in the southwestern Sahara and

their implications for West Africa', in Jack R. Harlan et al. (eds.), Origins of African Plant

Domestication (The Hague, 1976), I 87-209; H.-J. Hugot, 'Les communautes neolithiques

urbaines de Tichitt', Revuefranfaise

d'histoire d'Outre-Mer, LIX, CCXVi (I972), 506-I2.

19 Pierre Laforgue, 'Une station prehistorique dans le secteur nomade de Tichitt',Bulletin de la Societe de geographie et d'archeologie d'Oran, XLIV, iii-iV (1924), 267-79;Raymond Mauny, 'Villages neolithiques de la falaise (dhar) Tichitt-Oualata', Notes

africaines, L (1950), 35-43; 'Du nouveau sur la prehistoire et l'archeologie de l'Aouker

et du Hodh (Mauritanie)', Bulletin de la Societe prehistorique franfaise, XLVI, i-ii (I 95 I),

78-83.








prehistoric sequence, a continuum that I have called the Tichitt Tradition,and will begin with what I have called the Naghez Phase, radiocarbon-datedabout I 100 B.C. It is to be noted that this phase is the result of cultural

developments which had been occurring, apparently without major externalinfluences, for many centuries prior to this time. The Naghez Phase,however, represents something of a cultural deflexion from the precedingdevelopments; for the first time large stone masonry villages were constructed.

These villages cover more than 0 25 km2 and consist of roughly circularcompounds 20-40 m in diameter, connected by well-defined streets. Withineach compound one finds the ruins of one to three structures which have beeninterpreted as dwellings.

The Naghez Phase villages are always located at the base of the escarpmentand adjacent to the beaches of the several small, shallow, freshwater lakes that

existed in the region at this time. Subsistence, as reconstructed from the bonesand carbonized plant remains found in the excavations and from theimpressions of grains found on the pottery, consisted of a heavy emphasison the herding of cattle and goats, some hunting of wild animals, a limitedamount of fishing, and considerable collecting of wild seeds and fruits.Impressions of seeds of the millets Pennisetum and Brachiaria occur in verylimited quantities, but unfortunately it has not been possible to determineif they represent cultivated grains; it seems likely, however, that at leastlimited, incipient cultivation was being practised at this time.

There is no indication of the use of metal at these sites, the industry being

what in a technological sense would be called Neolithic: pottery, ground stoneaxes and gouges, chipped stone scrapers and projectile points, and millingstones. Population density was relatively light at this period, for although thevillages were large (and would contain, I would estimate, from 500 to I,OOO

persons each) they were spaced about 20 km apart along the base of theescarpment.

The following phase, which I have named the Chebka Phase and whichhas been radiocarbon-dated from about IOOO B.C. to goo-800 B.C., clearlyevolved directly from the preceding Naghez Phase. It does, however, differfrom it in several very significant ways. The villages, although still of stone

masonry construction and similar in both size and plan to the Naghez Phasevillages, differ in that they are located in high, easily defensible positions atopthe ioo m high escarpment. Each village is entirely encircled by a masonrywall over 2 m high and i m thick. Furthermore, each approach to these

villages is lined with small defensive structures which take the form of

horseshoe-shaped, masonry archer's redoubts. Clearly this was a period of

considerable strife, but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary we mayassume that this was warfare between culturally related groups or villagesrather than with invaders from outside the area.

Additional differences are seen in subsistence, for over half of the numerous

grain impressions found on the pottery are of the millet Pennisetum, and a

high proportion of these have definite characteristics of cultivated varieties.Other aspects of the subsistence pattern include the continued herding of

cattle and goats, with milking probably being important since in theassociated rock art the cattle are usually depicted with exaggerated udders.

Gathering of wild plant foods still played some part, as did hunting. Fishing,








I I I~~~~~Tih

0 500km

Fig. i. Ghana Empire (solid line) and known extent of Tichitt Tradition

(dashed line).

however, no longer was practised since, from all indications, the lakes haddried up by this period. Population had apparently increased considerablyby this period. Villages are equally large as in the preceding Naghez Phasebut are about four times more numerous; from western Dhar Tichitt tosouthern Dhar Oualata, a distance of some 300 ki, there is approximately one

village everY 5 km along the escarpment.The following Arriane Phase, dated about 800-900 B.C. to 6oo B.C., evolved

from the preceding Chebka Phase, but exhibits still further differences. Interms of diet, over 8o per cent of the grain impressions on the pottery arenow of cultivated Pennisetum, and herding continued to play an importantrole. The villages, although still of stone masonry construction and of similar








plan, differ in that they are no longer placed in extremely inaccessiblepositions nor are they fortified in any way. They are also somewhat smallerthan the Chebka Phase and Naghez Phase villages, but are much more

numerous; there are about 200 known villages of this phase within the 300 kmdistance between the present towns of Tichitt and Oualata.

The final Neolithic phase known for this region has been named theAkjinjeir Phase and has been radiocarbon-dated between about 600 B.C. and300 B.C. Site locations of this phase are very different from those of thepreceding phases; the sites are hidden among the high, jagged rocks at thevery summit of the escarpment. Not only are these sites very well hidden,they are also quite small and heavily fortified. Standards of architecturalworkmanship and the lithic and ceramic industries had declined, and theproportion of bones of domesticated animals decreases greatly.

The conclusion is inescapable that the people of the terminal NeolithicAkjinjeir Phase were under very serious attack, and that this pressure wassufficiently serious that their culture could not be maintained on its previouslevel. As to the identity of the attackers, all lines of evidence point to the north,and specifically to the Libyco-Berbers. Following the Akjinjeir Phase and upto the foundation of the still-existing town of Tichitt there is a long hiatusin which no villages are found. What are found are numerous pecked andpainted figures of mounted warriors and tifinar inscriptions superimposeddirectly over the rock art of the Akjinjeir Phase, and pre-Islamic, Libyco-Berber rock tombs, often made from stones torn from the walls of the

Akjinjeir Phase villages. Of additional relevance are historical documentsconcerning North Africa, specifically the writings of Herodotus in the fifthcentury B.C., which mention the horse-using Garamantes who 'hunted' the'Ethiopians' who lived to the south.20 Although it is unlikely that this refersspecifically to the Tichitt area, it might reflect a pattern of Libyan incursionsthat was occurring throughout the western Sahara.

There are no indications that the northern invaders were a civilizingelement in this area; their basic contribution, at least initially, was thedestruction of a pre-existing and rather sophisticated society of cultivators.In a quest for the progenitors of Ghana, it would seem very much more likely

that it was the descendants of the sedentary cultivators,rather than the

nomadic Libyco-Berbers, who are the better candidates.

ETHNO-LINGUISTIC IDENTITY OF THE TICHITT TRADITION

If one is to demonstrate a continuity from the Tichitt Tradition to the GhanaEmpire it is first necessary to demonstrate that the same people were

responsible for both. The basic population of Ghana was Soninke. A case can

be made for identifying the population of the Tichitt Tradition as Negro and

probably Soninke, or perhaps proto-Soninke or possibly proto-Mande. A

number of lines of evidence are applicable, and although no one of them

in isolation is conclusive, when taken in combination they strongly supportthis position.

The plans of the masonry villages of the Tichitt Tradition argue for a

Sudanic identity of their builders. Towns consisting of circular or irregular

20 G. C. Macauley (translator), The History of Herodotus (London, I904), I96.








conjoined compounds, each containing several dwellings and storehouses andconnected by a series of winding streets, are the pattern with the modernSoninke, Manding, Bambara, etc., just to the south, and such a patterncontrasts markedly with towns in North Africa or towns built or inspired byBerbers. Furthermore, the Diawara, who were Soninke speakers and whopresently live just south of the Mauretanian border, build a type of structureby erecting three lines of three posts and then covering them with a mat.21These structures, without the mat roof and substituting up-ended linearstones for the posts, compare very well with some constructions found withinthe compounds of the Tichitt Tradition villages.

The ceramics of the final phase of the prehistoric Tichitt Tradition, interms of both vessel shapes and decoration, show striking similarities withpottery still made by modern Soninke (Diawara) potters22 and with pottery

made until recently by the Negro peoples of Dhar Tichitt-Oualata (who wereformerly speakers of the Aser dialect of Soninke). Monod23 has previouslyargued for a direct continuity from the Neolithic of the Oualata area to theAser, on the basis of the ceramic similarities.

Modern linguistic distributions contribute further support. Within whatwould be roughly the southern third of the area covered by the Ghana Empire,Soninke now forms almost a solid block. The northern two-thirds or so ofthe old Ghana area, which includes Dhar Nema, Dhar Oualata, Dhar Tichitt,the Affole, and much of the Assaba and the Tagant, is now occupied in largepart by nomadic Moors who speak the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic. However,

scattered throughout this area one finds enclaves of Negro cultivators whospeak (or at least until recently spoke) the Aser dialect of Soninke. It ispossible, of course, that these people represent only descendants of slaves whohad been brought from areas to the south and installed around the oases.However, if this is the case, one would more reasonably expect a mixture ofSudanic languages to be represented - Soninke, Manding, Bambara, Tukulor,Songhay, etc., rather than a single language. Consequently, it would seemmore likely that Soninke was once the language throughout this region andthat its speakers have been encapsulated by the subsequent spread of theMoors. And since there is reason to believe that peoples akin to the Moors,

the Libyco-Berbers, were encroaching upon this area by the seventh centuryB.C. the initial period of encapsulation would seem to have begun during thefinal phase (Akjinjeir) of the Tichitt Tradition.

Finally, there exist a number of Iron Age, stone masonry ruins in theAffole and Assaba regions of southern Mauretania which, because of certain

ethnographic parallels, distributions, etc., would seem most likely to be ofSoninke origin.24 These sites share many specific architectural similaritieswith the villages of the Akiinieir Phase of Dhar Tichitt.

21 Cf. G. Boyer, 'Une peuple de l'Ouest soudanais: les Diawara', Memoire de l'Institut

franfais d'Afrique noire, XXIX (1953), fig. I0.

22 Boyer, 'Les Diawara', fig. 25.23 Theodore Monod, Meharees: explorations au vrai Sahara (Paris, I937), 230.24 Pierre Laforgue, 'Notes sur Aoudaghost: ancienne capital de Berberes Lamtouna',

Bulletin de la Societe de geographie et d'archIologie d'Oran, LXIV (I943), 30; CharlesToupet, 'La vall6e de la Tamourt en Nanj. Tagant. Problermes d'amenagement', Bulletinde l'Institutfranfais d'Afrique noire (ser. B), xx, i-ii (958), 77.

17 AFH 21








THE ORIGIN OF GHANA: A NEW HYPOTHESIS

If it is given that the population of the prehistoric Tichitt Tradition wasSoninke (or proto-Soninke), the next step is to demonstrate the relationshipof this cultural complex to the subsequent emergence of Ghana. Thehypothesis that I am about to present draws in large part from Carneiro's25theory of state formation, which in turn draws upon certain key concepts ofSteward's26 formulation for the development of complex political organiza-tions. Of particular importance is the position that the condition under whichmany early states arose was a limited supply of agricultural land.

Stated in the simplest terms, Carneiro's theory holds that where agriculturalgroups occupy areas with unlimited agricultural land there would be nowarfare over land. There might be warfare for other reasons (personal

prestige, obtaining wives, etc.), but since the losers in this type of conflictcould easily move away to areas farther from attack the villages would remainautonomous; there would be little reason for or likelihood of the developentof large and complex political organizations. In areas of limited arable land,however, the situation would be quite different. Originally, when populationdensities were light, there would have been autonomous villages. As populationgrew, however, there would be fission of villages until all the available landwas being farmed. At this point, if villages continued to grow, they wouldbegin competing for the available land, but the losers in this type of warfarecould not flee; there would be no other available land to flee to. Consequently,

to remain on the land requires that the losing villages give up their autonomy,to be subordinated by and incorporated within the political unit dominatedby the victor. This would be the political level of a chiefdom. The next stepin this process is the conquest of chiefdom by chiefdom, with the sizes of thepolitical units increasing and their numbers decreasing, until eventually oneparamount chief, or king, emerged as the centralized ruler of a large area andpopulation.

How does this formulation fit the Tichitt sequence? First, the peoples werefull-fledged farmers by the Chebka Phase (c. IOOO-900 B.C.) and wereprobably incipient cultivators by at least the later portions of the preceding

Naghez Phase. Secondly, this is an area of sharply circumscribed agriculturalland; rainfall at c. I000 B.C. was probably little more than I50 mm per year,and given the absence of any indications of artificial irrigation the only arableareas would have been the silt deposits within the seasonally wetted formerlake beds.

Prior to the Chebka Phase, and prior to the appearance of intensivecultivation, population density was relatively low and there is no evidence ofwarfare; villages were almost certainly autonomous at this time. However,coinciding with the appearance of intensive cultivation at the beginning ofthe Chebka Phase, we find evidence for a greatly increased population and

25 Robert L. Carneiro, 'Slash-and-burn cultivation among the Kuikuru and itsimplications for cultural development in the Amazon basin', in Johannes Wilbert (ed.),

The Evolution of Horticultural Systems in Native South America: Causes and Consequences

(Caracas, I96I), 6o-i; 'A theory of the origin of the state', Science, CLXIX (I970), 733-8.

26 Julian H. Steward, 'Cultural causality and law: a trial formulation of the development

of early civilization', American Anthropologist, LI, i (I949), 1-27.








for elaborately fortified villages. I submit that what we see here is inter-villagewarfare resulting from competition over the limited agricultural lands.

In the following Arriane Phase (beginning c. goo-800 B.C.), however, there

is no longer evidence of warfare, despite the facts that products of cultivationnow played an even greater role in the subsistence economy, and thatpopulation density was considerably greater than in the Chebka Phase. If weassume that the primary cause of the warfare in the Chebka Phase wascompetition for land, and given that in the Arriane Phase, with its higherpopulation and more intensive cultivation, there is no evidence of warfare,it then follows that somehow this conflict had been resolved. The mechanism,given the abundant evidence for warfare in the preceding Chebka Phase,seems clear; the strongest village, or alliance of villages, had emergedvictorious and had subjugated the others. It is also probably relevant that

there is evidence at this time for the expansion of the Tichitt Tradition (actualvillages or at least numerous artifacts and styles of the Arriane Phase) fromat least the extreme western end of Dhar Tichitt to Dhar Nema. Furthermore,located near the centre of the known distribution of the Arriane Phase villagesis the architectural site of Kedama,27 which is over i km2 in size.

I submit that what we see in the Arriane Phase is a rather complex politicalorganization, at least a powerful chiefdom or perhaps an incipient state, andthat the site of Kedama may represent its administrative capital. Whether thispolitical organization would have continued to expand and would haveevolved into a true kingdom on its own momentum, or whether it had reached

the limits of complexity possible within the existing technological-environmental framework, can of course never be known. What is known,however, is that in the seventh century B.C. a new element was introduced;the area was invaded by Libyco-Berber raiders, first by ox-cart, later onhorses,28 and equipped with metal weapons. The result, for the moment atleast, was cultural disaster. Those persons who were not killed or enslavedbarely managed to eke out an existence, hidden in small groups in fortifiedlittle villages among the high rocks.

The Libyco-Berber groups in the meantime were expanding farther andfarther south, and there found, eventually, a rich field of gold and slaves to

be exploited. Butfor

these resourcesto

be profitable required their transportto the Mediterranean world, and the long caravan route across the Sahararequired supply stations along its length. Consequently, about 300 B.C., thesurviving population of the Akjinjeir Phase was induced, under the promiseof protection, to come down from the fortified little villages among the highrocks and to establish agricultural villages along the caravan route, villageslike the present town of Tichitt, where they could then exist in a symbioticrelationship with the nomadic, caravan-oriented Libyco-Berbers.

With a return to tranquillity, plus the acquisition of ironmaking technologyand involvement in the rich trans-Saharan trade, the sedentary, Negro,Soninke descendants of the Tichitt Tradition again began to flourish, both

27 Mauny, 'Villages', p. 39.28 Raymond Mauny, 'Une route prehistorique

I travers le Sahara occidental', Bulletin

de l'Institut franfais d'Afrique noire, Ix, iv (I947), 341-57; P. J. Munson and C. A.

Munson, 'Nouveaux chars a bceufs rupestres du dhar Tichitt (Mauritanie)', Notes

africaines, cxxii (I969), 62-3.

17-2








in population and power, and within a few hundred years, perhaps prior toA.D. 500, the 'mental blueprint of a despotic political structure' re-emerged.The result was the eventual establishment, just slightly to the south of the

earlier Tichitt Tradition, of the much more powerful Ghana Empire.

SUMMARY

Archaeological investigations in southern Mauretania have revealed a wealth ofrather spectacular stone masonry villages which were occupied by prehistoriccultivators as early as I000 B.C. It is argued that the inhabitants of these villageswere Negro and very probably Soninke, andthat the basic elements of their culturehad developed without major influences from outside the area. The apparentsophistication and complexity of this cultural manifestation, combined with theclose fit of developments in this area with Carneiro's theory of state formation,suggests that this prehistoric complex represented at least a powerful chiefdomwhich embodied manyof the characteristicsof subsequentWest Africanstates. Thefirst demonstrable outside influences in the area began about 600 B.C. with thearrival of Libyco-Berbers from North Africa. Rather than causing still furthercultural advances, the initial effect of this contact was the collapse of thissociopolitical organization. But with subsequent adjustment, plus the potentialfrom trans-Saharantradecarried out by the North Africans,the basic, pre-existingpattern re-emerged, resulting eventually in a second and much more powerfulAfrican political organization in this area- the Ghana Empire.

Documents

Archaeology and the Prehistoric Origins of the Ghana Empire