A developmental history for early West African agriculture

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West African Archaeology

New developments, new perspectives

Edited by

Philip Allsworth-Jones

BAR International Series 2164

2010

Published by

Archaeopress

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BAR S2164

West African Archaeology: New developments, new perspectives

ISBN 978 1 4073 0708 4

Cover illustration: Applied figurines on a fragmentary vessel from Janruwa, courtesy of Nicole Rupp

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A developmental history for early West African agriculture

Katie Manning

The Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square

London WC1H 0PY

kat_mng@yahoo.co.uk

Abstract

The origins and spread of domesticated cereals in Africa remains poorly understood despite continued efforts. This is partly due to

the perennial problem of insufficient research and poor conditions of preservation for plant and animal remains. But, there are also

potentially very real reasons for why early domestication continues to elude the archaeological record in West Africa. This paper

provides a synthesis of recent research, including genetic, linguistic and archaeological data, to examine what is known, and perhaps

what cannot be known, about agricultural development in West Africa. Particular attention is given to the initial spread of domestic pearl

millet (Pennisetum glaucum), which appears to have been the key, if not the only, crop being cultivated throughout the Sahelian regions

of West Africa between 3000 and 1000 BC. It is argued here that the apparent monocropping of early agricultural systems reflects broad

environmental circumstances and deep time cultural trajectories of the region. Furthermore, on the basis of recent evidence from the

Lower Tilemsi Valley, it is argued that pearl millet cultivation originated further north in the western Sahara and likely predates the

earliest presently known finds by at least 1000 years. Evidence from sub-Sahelian regions of West Africa demonstrates that a greater

diversity of crops came into use during the 2nd millennium BC. The identification of pearl millet as the earliest domestic crop in this

region supports prior hypotheses advocating a northern origin for the agro-pastoral occupation of sub-Sahelian West Africa, leading to

a “knock-on” effect of local domestication events.

Key Words

West Africa, plant domestication, agriculture, neolithisation, mobility

Agricultural modelling in an African context

Modelling the evolution of agricultural economies in

Africa demands a more critical understanding of the data.

One approach that has become increasingly central to

the debate is ethnobotany, i.e. the use of anthropological

data to characterise the broad diversity in current food

production strategies. Neumann (2005, 249) notes that

agricultural practices in Africa tend to cover a vast ‘middle

ground’ between hunting and gathering, on the one hand,

to intensive agriculture on the other. Greater awareness

of traditional land-use systems has led to the terms

‘cultivation’, and ‘intensification’, gaining much support

(Haaland 1999; Stahl 1993). Unfortunately, cultivation

is almost impossible to identify archaeologically, and

instead we have to rely on ethnographic analogy and

indirect evidence in order to infer cultivation practices.

Nonetheless, it is worth considering the social impact that

cultivation may have had on populations who perhaps

had little need to domesticate cereals to the point of

morphologically changing their size and shape. It is

important to bear in mind that lack of domestication i.e.

the production of genetic change in plant species, does

not negate cultivation, and that various factors may have

actually countered the domestication process. High levels

of mobility, for example, made necessary by increasingly

unpredictable environments or demographic constraints (cf.

Marshall and Hildebrand 2002) may, as suggested below,

have limited the morphological or physiological changes

associated with domestication. Instead, as suggested by

Barich (1998), the systematic exploitation and necessary

preparation skills of wild cereals would have necessitated

Introduction

The emergence of agriculture and the transition from

foraging to farming represents one of the most important

events in human history. While a recent surge in data

collection in some parts of the world has led to increasing

awareness of regional variability, and greater appreciation

for the bearings of climatic and environmental

circumstance (Colledge et al., 2004; Vigne 2008), the

process of “neolithisation”, particularly in the Near East

and Europe, is still, for the most part, embedded in the

shift to agriculture. Here, there is evident co-evolution

of plant cultivation and livestock keeping alongside

increasing socio-technological change, and whilst this

event is clearly characterised by internal diversification, at

a broad temporal and geographic scale we can still talk of

a “Neolithic transition” (Childe 1936). The evidence from

Africa, meanwhile, presents a very different picture. In

particular, cereal agriculture appears to be a relatively late

phenomenon; the data indicating more than a 3000 year

lag between the initial appearance of domesticated animals

in the eastern Sahara and the first signs of domestic crops

along the western fringes of the Sahara-Sahel borderlands,

and even later in Ethiopia. Indeed, the domestication of

plants and animals, the emergence of ceramic technology,

and the urbanisation of landscapes do not appear

synchronously as one package, negating the concept of

“neolithisation” as it is used in the Near East and Europe.

As noted by Casey (2005, 225) ‘What is being missed in

this rush to “neolithicize” the Holocene is the opportunity

to investigate a lifeway in which the management of

domesticated resources is only one of many options’.

West African Archaeology: New developments, New perspectives

regional sharing and exchange of information, providing

a framework for later agro-pastoral developments. Such

activities would have played an essential role in what she

terms ‘pre-adaptive strategies’ (Barich 1998, 38).

Nonetheless, while investigations into the pre-adaptive

conditions for agriculture (Clarke 1976) are clearly of

importance, the context of agricultural development in

West Africa is quite different to that which is found in

the Nile Valley and eastern Sahara. The early to mid-

Holocene occupation of the central and western Sahara

is comparatively ephemeral, leaving little archaeological

trace. Equally, the hydrology of the Niger delta and dense

forest cover in sub-Sahelian Africa supported low density

Holocene populations. Archaeobotanical evidence dating

to before 3000 BC is therefore extremely rare, providing

little evidence of pre-existing socio-economic strategies.

Instead, the pre-existing conditions for West African food

production appear to be rooted in the developed pastoral

strategies found along the Sahara-Sahel borderlands. As

noted by Tafuri et al. (2006, 392), increased mobility

levels, prompted by increasing aridity would have included

exchanges between groups as a further adaptive strategy,

generating broad areas of interaction and herding territories

that acted as an apposite vehicle for the spread of plant and

animal domesticates.

Figure 1: Sites mentioned in the text: 1= Lower Tilemsi Valley sites (Karkarichinkat Nord (KN05),

Karkarichinkat Sud (KS), Ebelelit (EB07), Tiboubija (TB07), Er Negf (EN07), Tin Alhar (TA07) and Jsmagamag

(JS07)), 2= Dhar Tichitt and Dhar Néma, 3= Windé Koroji Ouest, 4=Ounjougou, 5=Birimi, 6=Boase sites,

7=Bwambé Sommet, 8=Abang Minko’o, 9=Ti-n-Akof, 10=Gajiganna, 11=Waladé, 12=Cubalel. Areas of

purported pearl millet domestication: 1 [circled] after Tostain (1998), and 2 [circled] after Oumar et al. (2008)

A developmental history for early West African agriculture

The primacy of herding and environmental context of

early African food production

Set against increasing aridification, climatic conditions

in Africa became significantly more erratic during the

5th and 4th millennia BC. Between 3000 and 2000 BC,

conditions rapidly deteriorated leading to a distinct dry

episode happening around 2200/2000 BC marking the end

of the Holocene humid phase and the onset of current arid

conditions (Maley 1977, 1980, 1982; Lézine 1991). Whilst

these environmental dynamics are likely to have played

a central role in the establishment of socio-economic

change (McIntosh 1993), they also posed critical barriers

to the southward expansion of domesticated resources,

supporting what has been referred to as the ‘cattle before

crops’ model for early African food production (Marshall

and Hildebrand 2002).

Domesticated cattle are present in North Africa by at least

the mid-6th millennium BC, although Close (1987, 2001)

and Wendorf (Close and Wendorf, 1992; Wendorf et al.,

1984, 2001; Wendorf and Schild, 1980) argue for domestic

cattle in the eastern Sahara at Bir Kiseiba by c. 9300 BC

(9840±380 bp) and Nabta Playa by c. 8000 BC. The claim

for these being domestic cattle is argued primarily on

ecological grounds i.e. that in light of the associated fauna,

conditions would have been too dry to support wild cattle

populations (Close and Wendorf 1992, 64). However in

osteometric terms it has not been possible to conclusively

distinguish between them being domestic or wild (Smith

1986). Furthermore, the earliest dated remains came from

surface collections at the site of Nabta Playa E-79-8 and

most researchers today tend to view these remains with

some scepticism. To add to this debate, it now appears

as though cattle were domesticated independently in

Africa rather than being imported from the Middle East,

strengthening the case for an independent and earlier

domestication event in Africa. Grigson (1991, 2000) first

hypothesised a common domestic progenitor for modern

African cattle derived from a distinct form of African

auroch (B. primigenius mauritanicus) that was separate

from both the wild aurochs of Europe (B. primigenius

primigenius) and traditional Asian zebu stocks (B.

primigenius namadicus). Recent work on mitochondrial

DNA also demonstrates a divergence in the wild cattle of

Europe and Africa dating back as early as 22,000 years ago

(Loftus et al. 1994; Bradley and Loftus 2000).

At the site of Nabta Playa E-75-6 a date of 7200 BC

(8290±80 bp) is more widely accepted for domestic

cattle in the eastern Sahara (Gautier 1984). From here,

domestication appears to have spread westwards across

the Sahara and southwards along the Nile Valley. The

westward trend can be observed in the occupation of the

Hoggar, the Tassili, Libya at Ti-n-Torah, Uan Muhuggiag,

Murzuq and Ti-n-Hanakaten (Gautier and Van Neer 1982;

Aumassip 1986; Aumassip and Tauveron 1993), southern

Algeria at Meneit (Gautier 1987a) and Adrar Tiouyine, and

in Niger at Arlit, Adrar Bous, and Tamaya Mellet (Clark et

al. 2008; Smith 1980). Cattle are present at Gabrong and

Baradigiué in the Tibesti at around 6300 BC (7455±180

bp) (Gautier 1987b), and at Adrar Bous in the Ténéré

desert of Niger (Clark et al. 2008), where they have been

dated between 4130 and 3400 BC (6325±300 bp).

After 2500 BC deterioration of conditions in the Sahara

and southward shift in the position of the Inter Tropical

Convergence Zone prompted the movement of domesticated

livestock into Sub-Saharan West Africa. Prior to this,

much of the Inland Niger Delta was then a vast swamp,

uninhabitable for pastoral groups due to a lack of suitable

grazing land, and profusion of associated disease vectors

such as Malaria and Trypanosomiasis. These climatic and

environmental changes prompted significant population

movement. This is seen in areas such as the Tilemsi

palaeochannel, which would have provided a virtual

corridor for populations moving southwards (Gaussen and

Gaussen 1988; Manning 2008). Along with aspects of a

broadly shared Saharan material culture, the inhabitants

of the Tilemsi Valley also brought with them domestic

livestock, including cattle, sheep and goat, and domestic

pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum). During the 2nd

millennium BC, the ancient floodplain of the Méma region

in central Mali also underwent a major infiltration of people

demonstrating cultural affiliations with traditions from the

North (MacDonald 1994, 112). The Kobadi Tradition,

dated to c. 2000 BC has physical and material cultural

roots to the northeast at Hassi el Abiod (Raimbault and

Dutour 1989), while the later Ndondi Tossokel Tradition

clearly derives from the Chebka/Arianne assemblages

from Dhar Tichitt. Although evidence for cultivation is

present at Dhar Néma by c. 1700 BC (Fuller et al. 2007),

no evidence for domesticated cereals has yet been found

in the Holocene occupation of the Méma. This is likely a

result of the local hydrological conditions, which would

have provided suitable grazing territories on the periphery

of the inundated plain, but little in the way of agricultural

ground.

Lines of evidence for the origins of domestication

The reconstruction of Africa’s agricultural past demands a

multi-disciplinary approach. Although the recovery of welldated

archaeological plant remains is a valuable source of

information in the study of early agriculture, much of what

is known today about the geographical origins of African

crops has been obtained from living plant communities

and historical linguistics. Vavilov (1926) pioneered

much of this work in Africa, suggesting the East African

highlands as the potential cradle of agriculture based on

the living diversity of cultivated plants. Vavilov’s theory

has since lost much support as it has become apparent that

a crop’s diversity does not necessarily mirror its area of

origin. More recently, Harlan (1971, 1992) mapped the

geographic origins for ten of Africa’s crops according

to the distribution of their wild relatives. He proposed

a theory of ‘non-centred domestication’ whereby the

hypothetical domestication areas were very large and

rarely overlapped. For pearl millet (which together with

sorghum is today a staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa and

West African Archaeology: New developments, New perspectives

parts of India) Harlan identified the western Sahara as a

centre for domestication.

Harlan’s work has since gained support from genetic

evidence. Tostain (1998), for example, undertook

isozyme surveys of wild populations and domesticated

varieties of pearl millet, identifying enzyme similarity

datasets favouring southeast Mauritania as a centre for

domestication and/or a stretch from northeast Mali to Lake

Chad (see Fuller 2003; Oumar et al. 2008). Recent work in

the Lower Tilemsi Valley (Manning et al., in press) lends

considerable support to these findings (see below).

Another important source of information used in the

reconstruction of Africa’s agrarian history, comes in the

form of historical linguistics, defined as the analysis of the

relationship between languages, in particular those assumed

to be genetically related and to have ‘sprung from some

common source’ (Blench 2007). While linguistics have

proved successful in establishing secure reconstructions

for domestic animals (see Blench and MacDonald 2000),

they have proved to be more problematic for the major

African cultigens. Nonetheless, the names of some

cultivated plants found in the Benue-Congo languages of

Nigeria also have Bantu reflexes indicating a West African

origin for their domestication (Blench 1996, 2007).

The following section looks in detail at current lines of

evidence for select domestic cereals, namely pearl millet

(Pennisetum glaucum), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and

fonio (Digitaria sp.) in West Africa. Although, a full

review of African agriculture is beyond the scope of this

paper, it is also worth noting a number of plant resources

domesticated outside of the West African range. In

particular, Harlan (1971) highlights Ethiopia as a centre

for the domestication of Enset (Musa ensete and Guizotiv

abyssinica), Teff (Eragrostis tef) and Finger Millet

(Eleusine corocana). The origin of domesticated Sorghum

(Sorghum bicolor), meanwhile, has proved difficult in

pinning down, with Harlan proposing a broad east-west

range between eastern Sudan and Lake Chad.

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum)

Pearl millet is a staple cereal of sub-Saharan Africa and

parts of India, where it is tolerant of the drier Sahelian/

semi-desert zones as well as Savanna regions (Brunken

1977; Brunken et al. 1977; Harlan 1992; Tostain

1998). It is the only African cereal for which existing

archaeobotanical evidence is adequate, and much of what

is known today about early agricultural developments in

West Africa has to do with the domestication and spread

of pearl millet. Following Harlan (1992) and Tostain

(1998) it is perhaps not surprising that we find the earliest

evidence for morphologically confirmed domesticates on

the southern fringes of the western Sahara, at Dhar Tichitt

around 1800 BC (Amblard and Pernès 1989) and in the

Lower Tilemsi Valley by at least 2000 BC (Smith 1992,

74, Manning 2008, Manning et al., in press). Domesticated

pearl millet has also been identified south of the river

Niger at Windé Koroji Ouest, dating to the early 2nd

millennium BC (Kevin MacDonald, pers. comm.) and at

Birimi in northern Ghana (D’Andrea et al. 2001) dating

to the same period. Fully domesticated pearl millet, which

is a native African crop, is also found in India in the late

3rd millennium BC, highlighting the obvious gaps in our

knowledge of early pearl millet agriculture. Was millet

being domesticated simultaneously in more than one area?

Or do we need to look further back in time for a northern

centre of domestication predating these finds?

Recent work in the Lower Tilemsi Valley provides

new evidence for the timing and process of pearl millet

domestication (Manning 2008, Manning et al., in press).

In the early 1970’s Andrew Smith (1974) undertook

excavations at the sites of Karkarichinkat Nord (KN)

and Karkarichinkat Sud (KS), identifying impressions of

domestic pearl millet on surface material at KS (Smith

1992, 74). As noted by Neumann (2005, 259), however,

the provenance of these samples is compromised and, in

effect, they contribute little to our understanding of the

earliest history of this cereal.

In 2005 renewed excavations began in the Lower Tilemsi

with the aim to refine the chronology, and investigate the

emergence of agro-pastoral communities in this region.

Extensive excavations were undertaken at Karkarichinkat

Nord (KN05) whilst the southern site proved to be

unworkable due to the unconsolidated nature of the

deposit. A survey was undertaken of the Karkarichinkat

hinterland, covering approximately 20x20km, in which 86

multi-period sites were identified. On the basis of surface

material, and shovel testing to assess the stratigraphic

integrity, five of the large occupation mounds were chosen

for subsequent test excavation. These were Ebelelit (EB07),

Tiboubija (TB07), Tin Alhar (TA07), Er Negf (EN07) and

Jsmagamag (JS07-1 and JS07-2). In addition to sampling

for macro plant remains on site, analysis of the pottery

assemblages from the sites of EB07, EN07 and JS07-2 , all

dating to between 2500 and 2000 BC, revealed that a large

number of sherds were tempered with chaff. Casts of the

chaff impressions from a sub-sample of these assemblages

revealed that pearl millet was the predominant species.

Furthermore, eight involucre base impressions with

preserved rachis fragments were identified indicating the

stalked, non-dehiscient morphotype of the domesticate.

Only one possible wild type involucre base was noted,

although this remains somewhat ambiguous. Although the

sample size is small, it suggests the predominance of the

domesticated form (i.e. 89% of preserved rachis remains).

Direct dating of these sherds as well as a single grain of

indeterminate Pennisetum from Karkarichinkat Nord, all

produced dates in the later half of the Third Millennium BC,

mainly between 2500 and 2000 BC (Table 1). Based on the

evidence from other cereals, that non-shattering evolved

gradually, over about 1000-2000 years (Fuller 2007; Fuller

et al. 2009; Fuller and Allaby 2010), it can be inferred that

cultivation began perhaps in the 4th Millennium BC. It is

important to note that at the sites where domestic pearl

millet has been identified in the Lower Tilemsi valley, it

is present from the initial occupation levels, implying that

A developmental history for early West African agriculture

the incoming population brought with them an established

economic suite, including domesticated millet, cattle and

ovicaprines.

Finds of domestic millet from the first half of the 2nd

millennium BC are widely spread across West Africa,

including Mauritania (Amblard and Pernes 1989; Fuller et

al 2007), Mali (MacDonald 1996), Ghana (D’Andrea et

al. 2001; D’Andrea et al. 2006), Oursi and Ti-n-Akof in

Burkina Faso (Kahlheber et al. 2001; Neumann 1999) and

Gajiganna in Nigeria (Klee et al. 2004). Already by the

end of the 3rd Millennium BC, pearl millet had reached

India. Even if we are to assume that pearl millet was

domesticated some time before its initial appearance in the

archaeological record its early occurrence in India suggests

that it spread rapidly eastwards across Africa in regions that

as yet have been undocumented by archaeobotany (Fuller

2003), such as the northern savannas of Niger, Chad and

Sudan. By the 1st millennium BC, domestic pearl millet is

found at Waladé (Dorian Fuller, pers. comm.) and Cubalel

(Murray et al. 2007) in Senegal and by the mid to late 1st

Millennium BC it had penetrated the Central African forest

being present at the sites of Bwambé-Sommet and Abang

Minko’o in southern Cameroun (Kahlheber et al. 2009).

Fonio (Digitaria exilis)

Fonio remains one of the more elusive African crops,

both archaeologically speaking and in regard to its present

day status. Despite being cultivated throughout much

of West Africa, and considered to be one of the earliest

cereal domesticates (see http://inco-fonio-en.cirad.fr/),

archaeobotanical remains are extremely rare. Fonio has

been identified at the site of Kolima Sud Est dating to c.

850 BC, and is argued to be domestic on the grounds of

size diminution (Takezawa and Cissé 2004). Otherwise,

the only other reliable finds of domesticated fonio come

from Cubalel in Senegal, dating to c. AD 500 (Murray et al.

2007). Its current distribution, which is fairly fragmented

between Guinea and Lake Chad (Chevalier 1922; Portères

Lab ref. Site Material Crop Domestic

status Date bp Reference

OxA-16919 Karkarichinkat

Nord Grain Pennisetum

sp. Indet. 4011±33 Manning et

al., in press

OxA-X-2264-14 Ebelelit Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3687±30 Manning et

al., in press

OxA-X-2287-26 Er Negf Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3782±28 Manning et

al., in press

OxA-X-2287-27 Er Negf Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3980±31 Manning et

al., in press

OxA-X-2287-29 Jsmagamag (2) Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3604±30 Manning et

al., in press

OxA-X-2287-28 Jsmagamag (2) Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

sp. Indet. 4121±31 Manning et

al., in press

GX-29359-AMS Djiganyai Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3370±40 Fuller et al.

2007

GX-28140 Djiganyai Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3260±40 Fuller et al.

2007

Erl-9196 Ounjougou Grain Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3416±109 Ozainne et al.

2009

Pa-1157 Dhar Tichitt Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3500±100 Amblard 1996

Pa-1299 Dhar Tichitt Ceramic

temper

Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3420±120 Amblard 1996

TO-8172 Birimi Grain Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 3460±200 D’Andrea et

al. 2001

TO-8173 Birimi Grain Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 2960±370 D’Andrea et

al. 2001

TO-11883 Boase sites Grain Vigna

unguiculata Domestic 3410±60 D’Andrea et

al., 2007

Utc-4906 Ti-n-Akof Grain Pennisetum

glaucum Domestic 2840±49 Neumann

1999

Table 1: AMS dates for 3rd millennium and 2nd millennium BC finds of domestic pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum)

and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata)

West African Archaeology: New developments, New perspectives

1955; Hilu et al. 1997), suggests that it was once spread

over a much wider area that has since been taken over by

higher yielding crops such as millet and sorghum. Equally,

the linguistic evidence indicates an ancient origin (Blench

2007). Certain linguistic isolates for the word fonio suggest

the crop was cut off from the main zone of cultivation at

an early period (Portères 1955, 1976; Burkill 1994, 226).

However, we have a long way to go before any conclusions

can be drawn on the early history of fonio cultivation.

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata var. unguiculata)

Recent discoveries of domestic cowpea in association

with Kintampo deposits dating to c. 1700 BC in central

Ghana (D’Andrea et al. 2007) provide a critical clue to

the domestication process in this part of West Africa.

Cowpeas are one of the most important food legume crops

in the semi-arid tropics of Africa. They are a droughttolerant

and warm-weather crop, and are also shaderesistant

making them today a good intercrop with maize,

millet and sorghum. The absence of a wild progenitor

outside Africa indicates that cowpea was domesticated

somewhere on the African continent. Phylogenetic studies

and linguistic evidence indicate tropical West Africa to be

the point of origin (Coulibaly et al. 2002; Blench 1996). It

is, therefore, intriguing that the finds from central Ghana,

which correlate well with the genetic and linguistic data,

are broadly contemporary with the pearl millet finds from

Birimi.

Sub-Sahelian adaptations of the agro-pastoral

package

Today, theoretical debates surrounding Kintampo

origins are vehemently divided between diffusionist and

migrationist models (cf. Davies 1980; Posnansky 1984;

Stahl 1985, 1993, 2005; Watson 2005). Davies (1980),

and more recently Watson (2005) have suggested that the

Kintampo complex represents a migration of northern

Sahelian populations ultimately derived from Saharan

groups. Watson (2005) cites fundamental technological

and stylistic differences between the Kintampo tradition

and preceding Punpun ceramics, representing a distinct

discontinuity signalled by the appearance of the Kintampo

tradition between 1600 and 1200 BC. In contrast, Stahl has

argued for an in situ development of the Kintampo complex

(Stahl 1985, 1993) claiming for a syncretic evolution

of Kintampo cultural traits based on evidence from the

rockshelter site K6. Stahl’s excavation area however is

relatively small in contrast to the work undertaken by

Watson (2005) at the nearby Boase rockshelter sites.

Striking similarities in aspects of the Kintampo material

culture with traits from northern Sahelian regions, namely

ground stone hachettes, labrets, grooved stones, stone

rings and cord based roulettes, further support a hypothesis

advocating a northern origin. Domesticated resources,

ultimately derived from further north, were also introduced

alongside the Kintampo, including sheep, goat, cattle and

pearl millet. However, the role of domestic cereals within

the Kintampo economic regime is far from being uniform.

Wild and domestic comestibles were integrated within a

seasonally based economic regime involving residential

mobility and food storage, characterising the Kintampo as

“low level food producers with domesticates” (D’Andrea

et al. 2007: 694). Whilst previously it was thought that the

Kintampo were adapted to the forest-savanna ecotone (e.g.

Davies 1962; Flight 1976; Posnansky 1984) a number of

Kintampo sites are now known from the southern forest

of modern Ghana, indicating socio-economic adaptation to

the forest/savanna boundary.

The key to what role domestic resources played in

Kintampo society, therefore, lies in the adaptive potential

of early West African agro-pastoral strategies. In

particular, the socio-economic adaptations of Kintampo

people appear to have been heavily influenced by the

prevailing ecological conditions of the southern savanna/

forests (Watson 2005), leading to a shift in the importance

of domestic resources and a relatively greater exploitation

of available wild resources. Indeed, such malleable socioeconomic

strategies continue to prevail amongst modern

savanna/forest populations, demonstrating fundamental

ecological and climatic influences on regional food

production strategies. It is these ecological restraints that

appear to negate the primacy of cereal agriculture in the

African process of “neolithisation”, and more generally

speaking, in the diversification of African subsistence

regimes. As noted by Marshall and Hildebrand (2002), it

is likely that predictability in access to resources prevailed

over absolute abundance, leading to a prioritization of

domestic animals in the context of North Africa and the

Sahara-Sahel borderlands. Further south, continuity in the

exploitation of wild resources and gradual development of

indigenous savanna agriculture would have also ensured

predictability in an area where wild comestibles were in

abundance.

Discussion

A major obstacle in the study of agricultural development

in West Africa is that little is still known about how

migrations worked in the past and, more importantly, how

they would be represented in the archaeological record.

Traditionally, this process of population movement has

been seen as happening gradually. Ammerman and Cavalli-

Sforza (1973) estimated that the rate of spread of farmers in

Europe would have been 15 km per generation. If this rate

were applied to the West African savanna/Sahel, we could

expect a southward progression covering over 1500 years,

which does not appear to have been the case. Instead, the

spread of pearl millet was rapid, covering over 1000 km

in less than 500 years. Hassan (2000) offers an alternative

rate of migration in regard to the movement of pastoral

groups in Africa, which he describes as being more of a

‘leap-frog’ movement rather than an advancing ‘wave’ of

peoples (Hassan 2000, 74). His model, which takes into

consideration both the mosaic-like and unpredictable

environment of the African Holocene, predicts that small

groups, probably either single families or groups of

families, could have travelled a distance of up to 5000 km

in 500 years if they only travelled 10 km per year.

A developmental history for early West African agriculture

In the Lower Tilemsi Valley, Dhar Tichitt, Windé Koroji

and at Kintampo complex sites, livestock were a key

socio-economic resource, and would have almost certainly

played an important role in the initial spread of associated

domestic crops. In contrast to other parts of the world,

pastoralism, in particular cattle pastoralism along with

high levels of group mobility, appears to have been the

catalyst for socio-economic change in Africa. That

cultivation and eventual domestication occurred in tandem

with the development and movement of pastoral groups

is perhaps not surprising, and as the dates on domestic

pearl millet keep on being pushed back along the Sahara-

Sahel borderlands, we evidently need to look northwards,

amongst the Holocene herders of the western Sahara for

the origins of West African agriculture.

Despite the overarching southward shift in agricultural

practices, domesticated cereals in sub-Sahelian West Africa

do not appear to have been integrated into pre-existing

economies either uniformly or irrevocably. Although the

Birimi deposits are dominated by pearl millet, suggesting

rapid assimilation of the northern domesticate, this is in

fact unusual for a Kintampo site. Further to the south

Kintampo subsistence consisted primarily of tubers such as

yam, as well as oil palm and cowpea (D’Andrea et al. 2001,

346). This diversity in subsistence choices across a single

cultural complex raises interesting questions about the role

of domestication in this context, indicating a divergence

from the monocropping trend observed in northern

Sahelian regions. At Gajiganna around Lake Chad and in

northeastern Burkina Faso (Breunig and Neumann 2002),

the status of pearl millet appears somewhat ambiguous.

Although remains of domesticated millet have been dated

to the mid-2nd millennium BC, its role within the wider

economy is still poorly understood. In both regions, fully

domesticated forms of pearl millet are present in the early

levels of occupation, indicating an imported origin. But,

over time, there is significant variability in the role this

crop played. The continued importance of wild grasses

negates any sort of deterministic model, suggesting that

in some regions domestic forms may only have played

a minor role in the wider economy. The linguistic data

also points towards a gradual entry of domesticates into

subsistence strategies. As noted by Blench (1996, 93)

‘The complex pattern of vernacular terms for crops in

the ‘Bantu borderland’ suggests that the development of

agriculture was a far from sudden process’. Clearly, a high

degree of regionalisation is only beginning to be revealed

as greater archaeobotanical datasets become available

and communication improves between archaeologists,

linguists and geneticists.

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