Reconnecting the Forest, Savanna, and Sahel in West Africa: The Sociopolitical Implications of a Long-Networked Past

Abstract

Despite major advances in archaeological coverage of West Africa over the past several decades, interpretations remain hampered by the analytical bifurcation of the region’s past into northern (active) and southern (reactive) economic and political trajectories. Building on the expanding corpus of scholarship, I argue that northern origins models centering the arid zones have limited our ability to see broader economic and political processes. The region has been intricately interconnected for millennia, and a dispersed network of culturally diverse farmers (and larger nodes) is visible by the second millennium BC. The network shaped the development of diverse cities, influenced statecraft and governance in regional polities, and supported a centrally located autonomous region. I integrate data from West Africa with emerging archaeological research foci on diverse forms of urbanism and the agencies of nonelite and local settings within kingdoms and empires. I highlight the distinctive contributions of the complex historical autonomies found along the central Mouhoun/Black Volta commercial corridor. An egalitarian ethos had a transformative effect in societies in this region, and communities may have viewed inequalities as an impediment to exchange systems for critically important goods.