Archaeological evidence from West Africa suggests a process of relatively autochthonous state formation involving unusual forms of urbanization, horse warrior aristocracies, craft status groups and commodified trade networks organized by merchant-scholars. The emergenceof a West African state system played a generative role in the world-historical development of universal rationality in Western Afroeurasia, as well as in the intensification of empire formation and monetary integration in the formative era before the rise of European hegemony.
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