Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa : Archaeological Perspectives

The Atlantic World is increasingly a topic of investigation for historical archaeologists who have followed the lead of historians in designating a number of “Atlantics” as analytical units defined by region, ethnic, or national affiliations. One of the many Atlantics is the “African Atlantic,” which has been proposed as a distinct area of study with its own research agenda by one of the editors of Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives (Ogundiran, Akinwumi, African Atlantic Archaeology and Africana Studies: A Programmatic Agenda, African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter 2, 2008, ). This research program aims to understand the impact and nature of the Atlantic experience for those of African origin living throughout the Atlantic basin by fostering a dialogue between archaeologists on both sides of the Atlantic. Studies of the African diaspora form an overwhelming majority of these studies. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa is a welcome addition to this growing body of literature that enhances understanding of this period on the African side of the Atlantic. However, this is only a secondary contribution of the text. The primary goal of the editors is to raise awareness of the work by Africanists in understanding complexity and long-term historical processes in African history. In their volume Monroe and Ogundiran compile a well-rounded collection of papers that pursues their central argument “that the commercial revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries dramatically reshaped the regional contours of political organization across West Africa” (p. 2). Individual contributors are asked to examine this idea through the lens of landscape by examining various forms of landscapes in West Africa during the Atlantic period that are tied to shifting commerce, political allegiance, and exhibition of authority. The case studies in the book answer these questions by offering examples of the assertion and maintenance of power. The text is comprised of 12 chapters including an introduction, conclusion, and 10 case studies developed from original research. Three forms of landscape within Atlantic West Africa serve as the organizational foundation of the text: fragmented landscapes (Thiaw, Richard, Spiers, and Norman); state-generated landscapes (MacDonald and Camara, Monroe, and Ogundiran); and internal-frontier landscapes (de Barros, DeCorse, and MacEachern). Monroe and Ogundiran define each type broadly, but this is where the editors’ direction regarding a specific definition of landscape ends. The individual authors define landscape locally by “examining a plethora of ways in which social and political transformation in West Africa are observable in reference to regionally defined archaeological remains” (p. 5). The editors urge their contributors to move beyond traditional archaeological approaches to landscape as a simple unit of analysis. Some authors directly engage with the editors’ challenges, including the assertion that a landscape is socially constructed (p. 14). This active engagement is seen in Richard’s examination of the historical construction of the Siin (Senegal) as a colonial backwater; he challenges the long-held belief that the Atlantic era in this region translated into little material change under state control. Archaeological survey findings demonstrate that pockets of densely populated areas that existed in the Siin constitute a fragmented landscape with regional manifestations balking the intentions of the state. Similar processes are investigated by Thiaw (chap. 2) in the upper Senegal