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This volume examines political life in the Kingdom of Dahomey, located in the Republic of Bénin.
This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to examine the relationship between the production of space and political order in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey during the tumultuous Atlantic Era. Dahomey, situated in the modern Republic of Benin, emerged in this period as one of the principal agents in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and an exemplar of West African state formation. Drawing from eight years of ethnohistorical and archaeological fieldwork in the Republic of Benin, the central thesis of this volume is that Dahomean kings used spatial tactics to project power and mitigate dissent across their territories. J. Cameron Monroe argues that these tactics enabled kings to economically exploit their subjects and to promote a sense of the historical and natural inevitability of royal power."
"This volume applies insights drawn from the theories and methods of landscape archaeology to contribute to our understanding of the nature if West African societies in the Atlantic Era (17th-19th Centuries AD). The authors adopt a briad set of methods and approaches to tackle how the nature and structures of African political and social relations changed across regions in this period. This is only the second volume in a decade to focus on the archeology of this period in West Africa, and the first volume in sub-Saharan Africanist archeology to be focused in the recent past in oue sub-region of the continent from a coherent methodological and theoretical standpoint"--Provided by publisher.
The Archaeology of Slavery grapples with both the benefits and complications of a comparative approach to the archaeology of slavery. Contributors from different archaeological subfields, including American, African, prehistoric, and historical, consider how to define slavery, identify it in the archaeological record, and study slavery as a diachronic process that covers enslavement to emancipation and beyond. Themes include how to define slavery, how to identify slavery archaeologically, enslavement and emancipation, and the politics and ethics of slavery-related research.
This Handbook provides a comprehensive synthesis of African archaeology, covering the entirety of the continent's past from the beginnings of human evolution to the archaeological legacy of European colonialism. It includes a mixture of key methodological and theoretical issues and debates and situates the subject's contemporary practice.
An Archaeology of Elmina examines a complex African settlement on the coast of present-day Ghana from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries using the archaeological record, European narratives, and indigenous oral histories. Placing the site in broader context as the first European trading post in sub-Saharan Africa, Christopher DeCorse explores the developments there in light of Portuguese, Dutch, and British expansion and illustrates remarkable cultural continuity in the midst of technological change. Originally published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2001.
Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past offers a comprehensive assessment of new directions in the historiography of West Africa. With twenty-four chapters by leading researchers in the study of West African history and cultures, the volume examines the main trends in multiple fields including the critical interpretation of Arabic sources; new archaeological surveys of trans-Saharan trade; the discovery of sources in Latin America relating to pan-Atlantic histories; and the continuing analysis of oral histories. The volume is dedicated to Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, whose work inspired the intellectual reorientations discussed in its chapters and stands as...
Journey to the ancient past with cutting-edge science and new data to discover how horses forever altered the course of human history. From the Rockies to the Himalayas, the bond between horses and humans has spanned across time and civilizations. In this archaeological journey, William T. Taylor explores how momentous events in the story of humans and horses helped create the world we live in today. Tracing the horse's origins and spread from the western Eurasian steppes to the invention of horse-drawn transportation and the explosive shift to mounted riding, Taylor offers a revolutionary new account of how horses altered the course of human history. Drawing on Indigenous perspectives, ancient DNA, and new research from Mongolia to the Great Plains and beyond, Taylor guides readers through the major discoveries that have placed the horse at the origins of globalization, trade, biological exchange, and social inequality. Hoof Beats transforms our understanding of both horses and humanity's ancient past and asks us to consider what our relationship with horses means for the future of humanity and the world around us.
Dahomey’s Royal Architecture examines the West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in present-day Republic of Benin. The book explores the Royal Palace of Dahomey’s relationship to the religious, cultural, and national identity of the pre-colonial Kingdom of Dahomey (c. 1625–1892), colonial Dahomey (1892–1960) and post-colonial Benin (1960–present). The Royal Palace of Dahomey covers more than 108 acres and was surrounded by a wall over two miles long. When the French colonial army arrived in Abomey in 1892, the ruling king set fire to the palace to keep it from falling into enemy hands. Though much of the palace structure was subsequently left to ruin, a portion of it was restored...