A New Survey of Radiocarbon and Thermoluminescence Dates for west Africa

Abstract

There are signs that the familiar bias towards research on the Later Stone Age of the southern Sahara and Sahel and on the Iron Age of other parts of West Africa is beginning to be redressed, although Nigeria and Ghana still furnish the vast majority of dates from the southern coastal states. Historical and protohistorical archaeology is becoming increasingly popular, and some areas, for example southern Mali, are receiving serious attention for the first time. Dates are now appearing in large numbers; this paper reports on 355 new radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates.Multi-disciplinary research has helped to clarify the Holocene environmental and cultural-stratigraphic sequence in several areas, including the Aïr and Ténéré in Niger and coastal Mauretania and Senegal. There is now strong evidence of a centre of copper metallurgy in the Azelik region of Niger in the 1st millennium b.c. which may well have facilitated the spread of iron working to Nigeria. At the same time, new dates from Mali may indicate a second diffusion route through the western Sahara. In Nigeria, new and early dates for the Nok culture are supported by thermoluminescence dating. Recent work on the later Metal Age of Senegal has permitted the description of four partially overlapping zones, and should soon lead to understanding of their internal and external relationships. Similarly, a substantial body of data has been accumulated, though not yet published, on the Iron Age of the Inland Niger delta. In the more southerly parts of West Africa, several new dates from just north of the forest refer to the emergence of the earliest Akan groups in Ghana and of Oyo in Nigeria. Previously reported dates from Ife and Benin have now been supplemented by a series of thermoluminescence dates.