The Introduction of Maize into West Africa: An Assessment of Recent Evidence

Abstract

Opening ParagraphIt is important to establish the date and route of the introduction of maize into West Africa for several reasons. It could throw light on early documents about the area, it would help to clarify certain questions of the contact of indigenous cultures with each other as well as with intrusive cultures, and it could introduce an element of absolute dating into the chronology of archaeological deposits in the area. The last point may well be the most important, since most techniques for dating archaeological material in absolute terms cannot be employed in the study of the ethnohistory of West Africa. The cob of the maize plant is widely used in West Africa as a decorative roulette on pottery, usually on the coarser wares. The presence or absence of such decoration is therefore used as a horizon in excavating archaeological sites in West Africa. (Cf. Goodwin, 1953, and Willett, 1959.) Moreover, botanists have studied the genetics of maize in West Africa in great detail so that a statistical study of maize impressions on pottery, although not permitting the identification of particular varieties of maize, could in theory permit the identification and relative location in time of changes in the maize population cultivated at a given site, and thus serve to date the pottery. (Cf. Jones 1959, Stanton and Willett.)