Making and unmaking the state in the Horn of Africa: A deep-time perspective

González‐Ruibal, Alfredo

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.04.013

Geoforum

2022

DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.04.013

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Making and unmaking the state in the Horn of Africa: A deep-time perspective

Alfredo González‐Ruibal

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2024

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Cited by 5 publications

References 55 publications

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Landscapes of Memory and Power: The Archaeology of a Forgotten Kingdom in Ethiopia

González-Ruibal

2024

Afr Archaeol Rev

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Unlike their northern counterparts, the kingdoms of southern Ethiopia have received little attention by archaeologists. Their relatively late emergence and absence of literacy may explain this lack of interest. However, they have much to offer to better understand the history not only of the Horn but also of the precolonial African state more generally. In this paper, the polities that developed in the southern Ethiopian highlands during the second millennium AD are briefly described and then one of them is explored in more detail: the kingdom of Anfillo. An archaeological and historical overview of the polity is provided based on two seasons of fieldwork. It is argued that in Anfillo, as in other southern Ethiopian polities, a fortified landscape materialized at the same time a persistent situation of conflict and the collective memory of the ruling classes, which used it as a mnemonic device to tell history and legitimize social divisions.

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Landscapes of Memory and Power: The Archaeology of a Forgotten Kingdom in Ethiopia

González-Ruibal

2024

Afr Archaeol Rev

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Isotopic Evidence for Socio-economic Dynamics Within the Capital of the Kingdom of Alwa, Sudan

Ciesielska,

Le Roux,

Scott

et al. 2024

Afr Archaeol Rev

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Between the sixth and fifteenth c. CE, a vast expanse of central and southern Sudan belonged to the kingdom of Alwa, ruled from the urban metropolis of Soba. Renewed investigation of the city unearthed a small cemetery in the northern part of the site. The heterogeneity of burial practices raised some questions as to the cultural and religious affinities of the deceased and suggested potential multiculturalism of the local urban population. We applied isotopic analyses to investigate the origins of the people buried at Cemetery OS and their concomitant ways of life. Non-concordance of 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O values with local hydro-geological background speaks to the mixing of water sources as a result of residential mobility. The concordance of human and faunal strontium and oxygen results, combined with elevated δ13C values corresponding to almost exclusive reliance on C4 produce, points to the possibility of seasonal movement of people with their herds between the Nile valley and the adjacent grasslands. Despite the turn of the medieval Nubian economy towards settled agriculture, by revealing the granular specificities of human adaptation in challenging ecosystems, our results produce the first insight into the enduring diversification of economic production, even in urbanized settings, and persisting participation of local peoples in agro-pastoral symbiosis.

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Traditions of Equality: The Archaeology of Egalitarianism and Egalitarian Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa (First and Second Millennium CE)

González-Ruibal

2024

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Interest in egalitarianism and egalitarian behavior in complex societies has grown in recent years, spurred by anarchist approaches and collective action theory. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, has seldom figured in the discussions, despite the fact that it has been historically home to a diversity of societies that have either rejected political centralization altogether or put limits to it. The aim of this article is to examine, from an archaeological point of view, the forms of resistance that have restricted—or thwarted—monarchic power in the continent during the last two millennia. For this, I use the concept of traditions of equality. They can be defined as sets of political practices that are materially constituted, shaped by culture and transmitted through collective memory and that generate and structure egalitarian behavior in any given society. They occur across different types of sociopolitical organizations, from undivided societies of hunter-gatherers to strongly hierarchized kingdoms. Here, I will explore six of such traditions as they operate in Sub-Saharan Africa: relocation and isolation, anarchic and heterarchical settlements, adverse sacralization, equalizing technologies, counterinfrastructures, and revolution.

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Making and unmaking the state in the Horn of Africa: A deep-time perspective

Cited by 5 publications

References 55 publications

Landscapes of Memory and Power: The Archaeology of a Forgotten Kingdom in Ethiopia

Landscapes of Memory and Power: The Archaeology of a Forgotten Kingdom in Ethiopia

Isotopic Evidence for Socio-economic Dynamics Within the Capital of the Kingdom of Alwa, Sudan

Traditions of Equality: The Archaeology of Egalitarianism and Egalitarian Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa (First and Second Millennium CE)

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