With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Ann Stahl and associates will conduct two seasons of archaeological excavations to investigate how daily life in Banda, Ghana was reshaped through global processes. The project will investigate change and continuity in practices of ritual, craft production and diet in relation to the area's shifting global connections, including the trans-Saharan trade from c AD 1200, Atlantic trade from c AD 1600 and formal colonial rule from the late 19th century. As amply demonstrated in Africa as elsewhere, daily life was reshaped through global entanglements. New products were produced and consumed, new crops adopted, and divisions of labor reconfigured.
This research is part of a long-term project that has investigated successively earlier Banda sites to gain comparative insight into the dynamics of cultural practice. Drawing on oral historical, archival and archaeological evidence, project personnel have documented the dynamics of cultural practice as Banda was drawn into the British colonial sphere (after 1880); as Banda became subject to the expansionist Asante state and the external slave trade gave way to intensified internal trade (1770s to 1880s); and as Banda peoples negotiated the southward shift in the gravity of trade with the opening of Atlantic networks (from the early 17th century). As such, project results challenge conventional images of West African societies as unchanging and enmeshed in tradition.
In this research phase, attention will focus on the period when Banda became enmeshed in trans-Saharan trade. Expanded archaeological excavations at two previously tested sites (an Ngre Phase site dating to c. AD 1250-1400 in year 1 and a Volta Phase site occupied c. AD 1000-1200 in year 2) will generate evidence on practices of ritual, diet and craft production in a period when Banda villagers were forging connections with urban centers on the Niger River. Smaller scale excavations at a 19th-century site in year 1 will provide insight into spatial variation in practices of ritual, craft production and diet during a period of political and economic dislocation in the 19th century. A study of contemporary plant exploitation will create a required baseline for interpreting archaeological botanical evidence.
A particular focus of this project is how communities were formed and reconfigured through material practice (the making and using of pottery and metal; the manipulation of objects in ritual; the acquisition, preparation and consumption of foods; and the depositional practices that created archaeological deposits). Comparative analyses of practices within and across archaeological phases will provide insight into the genealogical connections between communities as they negotiated a changing geopolitical landscape.
Intellectually this project will contribute to our understanding of global processes by balancing an appreciation of their shared effects with an exploration of the locally and culturally specific ways in which people negotiate geopolitical currents through material practice. Broader impacts include training opportunities for American and Ghanaian students and continuing community involvement in a project that underscores the value of archaeological data for understanding West Africa's dynamic past.
