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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. In order to understand different processes of urban/regional ethnic identification, we shall compare the role of elite associations in two regions of Cameroon; one in the Grassfields, characterised by 'chiefly' titles and 'chiefdoms', the other on the coast (South Western Province), distinguished by more diffuse, acephalous polities. We argue that the influence elites exert in their home regions depends on the respect they acquire in local politics for their knowledge of and influence over external affairs. The central point is that the extent to which urban elites will play a significant role in defining a regional identity for their home area depends on the resources they bring with them and the incentives that encourage them to mobilise local political support. To some extent this depends on the number of educated, literate adults that exist to represent a particular rural population as well as their willingness to remain identified with local interests. Encouraging the young to gain an education and go abroad, yet not to forget their debt to those who supported them at home in the village, is one of the benchmarks for measuring regional progress and development in Cameroon.During the era of President Ahidjo, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was much less reason for elites to remain attached to their 'village'. The pursuit of regional ethnic loyalties was inimical to the authoritarian interests of a centralised administration with which elites were encouraged to identify as their source of patronage. How people of influence in the 'village' managed to keep control of their upwardly mobile elites at that time has been a much discussed subject (e.g. Geschiere, 1982). Witchcraft and the need for protection against the malice of envious people left behind in the village were widely recognised as a fear that secretly bound urbanites to their homelands (cf. Geschiere, 1997; Fisiy and Geschiere, 1996). Others attached

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This paper investigates with the aid of ethnographic data from modern, small-scale societies, certain general assumptions made by archaeologists as to the organization of metalwork production with particular reference to the European Bronze Age.Ucko has discussed the use of the comparative method in archaeological interpretation based on the belief that regularities occur in human behaviour whether in ethnographic, historic or prehistoric contexts (Ucko 1969: 263). This supposes that if the primary aim of archaeology is the 'reconstruction' of past cultures and societies, then it is doubtful if this can be done entirely by the historical method since this is restricted in aim and content to the explanation of a particular historical event. The use of data from other periods and geographical areas, however, involves deriving a number of hypotheses or models for explanation and judging their validity by testing them against the archaeological evidence available (Binford and Binford 1968: 16-18; Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967: 157). The main challenge appears to be in establishing connections that bridge the methodologies of different fields of study so that the results of one can be compared to the other. This should also answer the criticisms of those who say that such comparisons will result in interpretations not derived from archaeological facts.The explanatory value of ethnographic data has been emphasized by Ucko as a means of preventing the archaeologist imposing his own 'culturally orientated' assumptions on archaeological material and to provide a wider range of possible explanations for interpretation. The use of ethnographic data therefore has a speculative quality as a source of further questions that might be applied to the archaeological material (Ucko 1969: 262, 264). There is also a predictive aspect in the use of such data since the models proposed are designed to contribute to the reconstruction of archaeological cultures, in other words, the purpose of the comparison is also to enlarge one's understanding of the particular archaeological phenomenon under study. Nevertheless in comparing ethnographic data to archaeological evidence, the latter must form the controlling factor by which the evidence from ethnography can be organized to form relevant models.It is proposed to distinguish metalworking as a separate cultural institution which can be seen to be composed of a number of socio-economic activities. These have been isolated for further study and particularly for use as focal points for comparisons between the archaeological and ethnographic evidence. It should be emphasized that the socio-economic circumstances of the skilled craftsman attached to a high status group need not be the same as the circumstances governing the position of the smith producing Downloaded by [New York University] at 07:40 09 February 2015The archaeological interpretation of prehistoric metalworking 211 tools and weapons for the general population. The literary sources which have, through extrapolation, played a large part...

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