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Transcript of insight into the motivations and identities of the Koma Land ...
Re-piecing the fragments: insight into the
motivations and identities of the Koma Land
pottery and figurine makers, using ceramics
analysis
A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities
2017
Holly J Atkinson
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
2
List of contents Pages
Chapter 1 Introduction 17
1.1 Introduction and rationale 17-19
1.1.1 Research objectives 19-20
1.1.2 Thesis structure 20-22
1.2 Introducing Iron Age Koma Land 22
1.2.1 Koma Land’s environment and geology 22-23
1.2.2 The history of research in Yikpabongo 23-25
1.2.3 Identifying shrines in the material record 26-27
1.2.4 The YK10/11 shrine mound 27-29
1.2.5 The YK10/11 assemblage: fieldwork challenges 30-31
1.2.6 The figurines 31-33
1.2.7 Local perspectives and responsible archaeology 33-35
1.3 Nomenclature 35
1.3.1 What is a shrine? 35-37
1.3.2 Ceramics versus pottery 37-38
1.3.3 Style 38-40
Chapter 2 Literature Review 41
2.1 Introduction 41-44
2.2 The original research 44
2.2.1 The 1985 excavation and analyses: a critical overview 45-50
2.2.2 Art history and archaeology 51-54
2.2.3 Who were the ‘Koma Landers’? 54-61
2.2.4 Ethnography and ethnoarchaeology 61-65
2.2.5 Contextualising Sub-Saharan ‘figurine essentialism’ 65-68
2.3 Current research 68-71
2.4 Archaeological approaches to ceramics in the West African Iron Age 71-77
2.5 Summary and conclusions: understanding past and present approaches to
Koma archaeology
77-79
Chapter 3: Methodology 80
3.1 Introduction: research objectives and rationale 80-82
3
3.2 Methods 82
3.2.1 Sampling 82-85
3.2.2 Data collection 85
3.2.2.1 The YK10/11 assemblage 85-86
3.2.2.2 Archaeometric samples 86-87
3.2.2.2.1 Clay 87-88
3.2.2.2.2 Rock 88-89
3.2.2.2.3 Pottery 89
3.3 Archaeometric techniques 89-90
3.3.1 Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) 90-91
3.3.2 X-ray fluorescence (XRF) 91-92
3.3.3 Portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF) 92-95
3.4 Summary and conclusions 95-96
Chapter 4: The YK10/11 pottery catalogue 97
4.1 Introduction to the YK10/11 pottery assemblage 97-98
4.2 Typology 99
4.2.1 Rims 99-101
4.2.1.1 Closed vessels 101-103
4.2.1.2 Open vessels 103
4.2.2 Bases and legs 104-107
4.2.3 Handles and lugs 107
4.2.4 Perforated vessels 108-110
4.2.5 Identification and discussion of YK10/11 vessel forms 110-112
4.3 Fabric macro-analysis 112-115
4.4 Fabrics micro-analysis 115-116
4.4.1 Scanning electron microscopy 116-119
4.4.2 X-ray fluorescence (XRF and p-XRF) 119-123
4.5 Forming techniques 123-124
4.6 Surface treatments 124
4.6.1 Slip 124-127
4.7 Decoration 127-128
4
4.7.1 Roulettes 128-130
4.7.1.1 Strip 131
4.7.1.2 Cord 131-132
4.7.1.3 Carved wooden 132
4.7.2 Mat impressions 133
4.7.3 Incised lines and grooves 133-134
4.7.4 Stamped 134-136
4.7.5 Appliqué 136
4.7.6 Banding 136
4.7.7 Multiple decorations 138-139
4.8 Firing 139-141
4.9 Use-wear 141
4.10 Discussion: manufacture, function, and use 142-144
Chapter 5 Discussion and contextualisation 145
5.1 Introduction 145-146
5.2 Pre-fragmentation: understanding the YK10/11 assemblage’s origins 146-149
5.3 Pre-fragmentation: decoration styles 149-150
5.4 Fragmentation: sherd reuse, discard, and deposition 151-158
5.5 Post-fragmentation: structure and concealment 158-164
5.6 Identity and gender: who were the Koma Land pottery makers? 165-169
5.7 Summary and conclusions 170-173
Chapter 6: The pottery and figurines, a comparative analysis 174
6.1 Introduction 174-179
6.2 Fabric 179-187
6.3 Manufacturing techniques 188
6.3.1 Shaping and forming 188-189
6.3.2 Decoration 189-193
6.3.3 Surface treatment 193-194
6.4 Approaches to fire 195-197
6.5 Fragmentation and deposition 197-202
6.6 Vessel-figurines 202-205
5
6.7 Pottery discs 205-210
6.8 Summary and conclusions 210-212
Chapter 7 The YK10/11 assemblage and Iron Age West Africa 213
7.1 Introduction 213-214
7.2 Iron Age Ghana 214-225
7.3 Koma Land 225-233
7.3.1 Comparative analysis of the settlement and shrine ceramics 234
7.3.2.1 Sherd frequencies: issues and variables 234-236
7.3.2.2. Detailed comparative analysis of the six assemblages 236-249
7.4 Connecting worlds: mobility, trade, and transmission 249-254
7.4.1 Organic substances 254-256
7.4.2 Cowrie shells and glass beads 256-257
7.4.3 Figurines 258-259
7.4.4 Site abandonment 259-262
7.5. Summary and conclusions 262-265
Chapter 8: The motivations and identities of the Koma Land pottery and
figurine makers
266
8.1 Summary and conclusions 266-268
8.2 Future research 268-270
Bibliography 271-307
Appendices 308-334
Word count: 79,811
6
List of figures
Figure 1: A map showing the location of Yikpabongo in Northern Region, Ghana,
West Africa…18
Figure 2: The distribution of areas excavated in the YK10-3/11 mound (from
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481) …28
Figure 3: A selection of Koma Land figurines (Insoll et al. 2013) …33
Figure 4: Rock samples 4, 8, and 21…89
Figure 5: A bar chart showing the size-distribution of YK10/11 rim diameters…99
Figure 6: A visualisation showing the frequency of the rims in the YK10/11
assemblage by circumference…100
Figure 7: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage…101
Figure 8: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage…102
Figure 9: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage…103
Figure 10: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage…104
Figure 11: A selection of illustrated bases, a pot-stand leg, as well as a lug…106
Figure 12: A perforated sherd with deliberately-inserted quartz pieces…109
Figure 13: Two examples of perforated sherds…109
Figure 14: A representative illustration of YK10/11 rim types…110
Figure 15: A graph showing the distribution of rim diameters by vessel form…112
Figure 16: YK10/11 fabric colours, expressed as percentages in a pie chart…113
Figure 17: A sherd decorated with irregularly-shaped triangles and a quartz
piece…114
Figure 18: A bar chart demonstrating the typical chemical composition of CS1…118
Figure 19: A bar chart demonstrating the typical chemical composition of CS2…118
7
Figure 20: A bar chart demonstrating the typical chemical composition of CS3…118
Figure 21: A scatter graph showing variation exhibited in the 19 p-XRF analysed
sherds…120
Figure 22: The variation exhibited in 16 p-XRF analysed sherds, without the three
outliers, plotted on a scatter graph…120
Figure 23: A scatter graph plotting the variation exhibited in 19 p-XRF sherds (blue)
and the YK16 clay samples (orange)…121
Figure 24: A scatter graph plotting the variation exhibited in 16 sherds (blue),
outliers removed, and the YK16 clay samples (orange)…121
Figure 25: A scatter graph plotting the variation exhibited in the ten XRF analysed
samples. Key: sherds (blue), clay (orange), and minerals (red)…121
Figure 26: An example of accidental, slip-created fingerprints…124
Figure 27: A pie chart illustrating the top ten slip colours using the Munsell colour
system, in the YK10/11 assemblage…126
Figure 28: Examples of sherds accidentally slipped through careless handling (28a);
an example of slip deliberately applied to only undecorated areas of the sherd
(28b); slip applied in thick layers post-decoration, thus obscuring the decoration
(28c-28d).…127
Figure 29: Examples of roulette (and multiple) decorated sherds from the YK10/11
assemblage, including carved wooden roulettes, simple twisted cord wrapped stick,
simple twisted cord roulette, braided and knotted strip roulette...130
Figure 30: Representative examples of incised line decoration in the YK10/11
assemblage...134
Figure 31: An illustrated example of various representative decorated rim and body
sherds from the YK10/11 assemblage…137
8
Figure 32: A trench plan of the YK10/11 excavation, highlighting the squares
recorded as excavated and the squares from which YK10/11 pottery sherds had
been recovered and stored for analysis…152
Figure 33: This photograph illustrates the “ball and socket joint” used in the
manufacture of some figurines (Insoll et al. 2013: 13) …189
Figure 34: A tomography scan of an incised figurine (Insoll et al. 2013: 13) …189
Figure 35: Clockwise from top left: Standing anthropomorphic figurine (No. 45;
Insoll et al. 2013: 34); Combined human/ bird with pointed base (No. 13; Insoll et al.
2013: 18, 22); Combined human/ animal head (No. 11; Insoll et al. 2013: 21);
Human head wearing textured cap (No. 38; Insoll et al. 2013: 29, 36); Chameleon
(No. 12; Insoll et al. 2013: 21); and Crocodile (No. 1; Insoll et al. 2013: 3) …192
Figure 36: The horse-and-rider figurine (YK08-AB9-L7) in situ, with pottery sherds
(Insoll et al. 2013: 10) ...196
Figure 37: An image the horse-and-rider on display (Insoll et al. 2013: 11) …196
Figure 38: A ‘Janus’ head hybrid vessel-figurine (Insoll et al. 2013: 32) …202
Figure 39: Pot discs from Koma Land, and a modern example of a gourd container
they might have been used to stopper (after Insoll et al. 2013: 21) …205
Figure 40: A map of all published Iron Age Ghanaian sites with geographical
coordinates available…215
Figure 41: A burial excavated by Asamoah-Mensah covered in large pot sherds that
appear to refit (after Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 54) …232
Figure 42: A comparison of the percentage frequency (%) of each sherd type in the
six Koma Land ceramic assemblage using data from Tables 29, and 30... 242
Figure 43: Multiple-decorated sherds from Tando-Fagusa, “including stamping”
(Nkumbaan 2016: 128), and YK10/11 sherds with carved wooden roulette …243
Figure 44: Notched decoration on a sherd, Tando Fagusa (Nkumbaan 2016: 130)
…244
9
List of tables
Table 1: A summary of all known artefact types, their frequency, and description, in
the YK10/11 shrine assemblage…29
Table 2: A comparative summary of the 1985 Koma Land artefact assemblage
(Anquandah 1998; Anquandah and Van Ham 1998) …47
Table 3: A comparative summary of the Koma Land pottery analyses from
Anquandah and Van Ham (1985) and Anquandah (1998) …49
Table 4: The categories of data collected for every sherd, as appropriate, in the
YK10/11 assemblage…86
Table 5: A summary of the YK10/11 sherd types by frequency…97
Table 6: A summary as to how issues in the field affected analysis…98
Table 7: A breakdown of the perforated sherds, by sherd type…108
Table 8: The frequency of slipped sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage, by sherd
type…125
Table 9: Comparison of the frequencies of single and multiple slipped sherds, by
sherd type…125
Table 10: Comparison of the frequencies of sherds with single/ multiple slipped
surfaces…126
Table 11: A list of the top ten most frequent slip colours, in numerical order…126
Table 12: A breakdown of the decorated assemblage, by sherd type…128
Table 13: A summary of the decorated sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage, by
decoration type and frequency…128
Table 14: The frequency of the roulette types in the YK10/11 assemblage…129
Table 15: The YK10/11 cord roulette types…132
Table 16: The YK10/11 carved wooden roulette types…132
10
Table 17: A breakdown of the YK10/11 grooved and incised decoration
categories…133
Table 18: The frequency of the stamped decoration types in the YK10/11
assemblage…135
Table 19: A comprehensive summary of the multiple-decorated YK10/11
sherds…138
Table 20: The YK10/11 firing condition types…139
Table 21: A summary of the YK10/11 artefact types by trench square using all
available published data…153
Table 22: A comparative summary of the Koma Land pottery’s and figurines’ chaîne
opératoire…179
Table 23: Comparison of the decorative techniques used for YK10/11 pottery
assemblage and the YK07, YK08, YK10, andYK11 figurines…190
Table 24: A catalogue of all the of figurines from Insoll et al. 2013 and the
decoration(s) they exhibit…190-191
Table 25: A catalogue of all published vessel-figurines from Iron Age Koma Land
without archaeological provenance…203
Table 26: All known published Iron Age Ghanaian sites…218
Table 27: Sites of archaeological interest for the Iron Age Koma Land cultural
complex…224
Table 28: A summary of the four excavated/ partially excavated Iron Age Koma
Land sites…226
Table 29: A summary of the six settlement and shrine mound pottery
assemblages…237
Table 30: A summary of sherd types in each assemblage by number and percentage
frequency…237
11
Table 31: A summary of fabric types for each of the six assemblages…237
Table 32: A summary of inclusions/ temper for each of the six assemblages…238
Table 33: The pottery manufacturing methods used for each Koma Land
assemblage…238
Table 34: A summary of rim profiles for each of the six assemblages…238
Table 35: A descriptive summary of each assemblage’s pottery forms…239
Table 36: A summary of surface treatments for each of the six assemblages…239
Table 37: A comparative summary of decoration types for all six Koma Land
assemblages…240
Table 38: The firing techniques identified in the six assemblages…240
12
List of appendices:
Appendix 1: All categories of data collected for analysis of the YK10/11
assemblage…308-310
Appendix 2: YK10/11 rim diameters…311
Appendix 3: Rim diameters by vessel form type…311
Appendix 4: Circumferences in the YK10/11 assemblage…311-312
Appendix 5: Average sherd thicknesses in the YK10/11 assemblage…313
Appendix 6: Average rim thicknesses in the YK10/11 assemblage…313-314
Appendix 7: A list of all archaeometric samples…314
Appendix 8: The p-XRF data for the YK16 clay samples…315
Appendix 9: The p-XRF data for the YK10/11 sherds…316-317
Appendix 10: The p-XRF data for the YK10/11 mineral samples…318
Appendix 11: The data from the XRF analysis, undertaken via the University of
Exeter with kind assistance from Prof. Insoll…319
Appendix 12: The high-resolution images of samples captured during SEM analysis
at the University of Manchester…320-329
Appendix 13: A summary of the SEM results by element type…330
Appendix 14: Documenting strip roulettes…331-332
Appendix 15: The data used to create Figure 32…333-334
13
Abstract
Until recently, the Iron Age archaeology in Koma Land, Northern Ghana was
characterised almost solely by the fired-clay human, animal, and anthropomorphic
figurines excavated from it. The pottery, contextually and chronologically-
associated with the figurines, and found in much larger quantities in shrine and
settlement contexts, has traditionally been overlooked; detrimental to
archaeological understanding not only of the material excavated from the region,
but to the motivations and identities of its makers.
Thus, the primary objective of this thesis was the analysis of an almost 10,000-
strong domestic pottery assemblage excavated from an AD 800-1100 shrine mound
in the village of Yikpabongo in Koma Land. The pottery – the YK10/11 assemblage –
was catalogued on the basis of forms, functions, fabrics, decorations, surface
treatments, firing, and use-wear, and was analysed with the assistance of
exploratory archaeometric techniques. The second objective was to reintegrate
analysis of the pottery and figurines, which historically, have been treated as
separate, unrelated categories despite their shared contexts, chronology, and
materiality.
Regardless of the arbitrary divisions between the pottery and figurine makers, it is
evident from the analysis in this thesis that the two were almost certainly the same.
Further, that the sherds, whilst originally belonging to vessels made for domestic
purposes, had significant post-breakage, pre-deposition biographies, and were
crucial to the YK10/11 shrine’s structure, meaning, and function.
14
Declaration
I confirm that no portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted
in support of an application for another degree or qualification for this or any other
university or institute of learning.
15
Copyright statement
i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to
this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”)
and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use
such Copyright, including for administrative purposes.
ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or
electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued
under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements
which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of
any such copies made.
iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and
other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any
reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and
tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not
be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such
Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made
available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of
the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions.
iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure,
publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any
Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take
place is available in the University IP Policy (see
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=2442 0), in
any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University
Library, The University Library’s regulations (see
http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The
University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.
16
Acknowledgement
I am very grateful to my first supervisor, Professor Tim Insoll, for his support,
advice, and enthusiasm since my undergraduate, to my second supervisor, Dr. Ina
Berg for her guidance in all things pots, and to the entire staff and student
community in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Manchester,
which has been my home for eight years. Our lecturers make the Department the
amazing community it is and they all deserve recognition. Dr. Mel Giles, thanks for
always being there for us.
I am grateful to Dr. Stuart Campbell for allowing me the use of his p-XRF
equipment, and for his assistance with processing the samples.
I am grateful to my Ghanaian colleagues for their support and friendship, including
but not limited to Christiana, Victoria, Abena, Emmanuel, Patricia, and Vincent.
Thanks to Professor Benjamin Kankpeyeng, and Dr. Gertrude Eyifa-Dzidzienyo, for
welcoming me to the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the
University of Ghana.
My friends’ and family’s encouragement and support has been invaluable. I would
not be where I am today without my parents, sister, or my second family; especially
Kate.
Preface
The author has a first-class BA (Hons) in Ancient History and Archaeology from the
University of Manchester (2009-2012), and was awarded a Distinction for her MA in
Archaeology at the University of Manchester (2012-2014). She began her PhD in
2014.
West African research experience consists of nine weeks of fieldwork in Ghana to
collect data for this thesis (1st December 2015 – 1st February 2016). Other
experience includes fifteen weeks of excavation, research, and archive experience,
in the United Kingdom.
17
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction and rationale
The original title of this thesis was Re-piecing the fragments: insight into the
motivations and identities of the Koma Land figurine makers. This was intended as a
deliberate commentary about the fact that archaeological knowledge of Iron Age
Koma Land has historically been defined by the fired-clay human, animal, and
anthropomorphic figurines uncovered from it. Since the discovery of the Koma
cultural complex in the 1980s, the international academic worlds of archaeology,
anthropology, and art history, as well as, unfortunately, the illegal antiquities
market, have been captivated by the figurines’ meanings and aesthetics. Academic
predilection for ancient figurines is a phenomenon Bailey has termed “figurine
essentialism” (Bailey 2005; 2017; Chapter 6.1); an issue acknowledged by
archaeologists working in the Koma region (Insoll et al. 2016; Kankpeyeng et al.
2013: 486). As well intentioned as this initial title was, on reflection it appeared to
be describing yet another research piece showcasing the figurines at the expense of
the remaining material culture; an immense, diverse, and informative collection in
its own right.
To resolve this inadvertent misdirection, the title was amended to Re-piecing the
fragments: insight into the motivations and identities of the Koma Land pottery and
figurine makers using ceramics analysis. Whilst the figurines play a comparative role
(see Chapters 5 and 6; and Chapter 1.2.6 for a brief introduction), this thesis is
about pottery. Specifically, it is the analysis of a 9692-piece pot-sherd assemblage
excavated from one 9th to 12th century AD shrine mound in the village of
Yikpabongo in Koma Land, in Ghana’s Northern Region, by archaeologists from the
Universities of Ghana, and Manchester, during the 2010 (designated YK10-3), and
2011 (designated YK11) field seasons (hereafter, YK10/11). The research for this
thesis began in 2014, and the pottery was examined, in storage in Ghana, over nine
weeks from December 2015 to January 2016 (see Chapter 3).
19
The historical proclivity of Koma figurine analyses has made the need for a
comprehensive pottery analysis self-evident. Not only is this thesis the first in-depth
Koma Land analysis of its type (but see Asamoah-Mensah 2013 and Nkumbaan
2016), it is the first to clearly explore and define the relationships that exist
between the pottery, figurines, and other types of clay material excavated from a
single Koma shrine context. Alongside the pottery assemblage, the YK10/11 ceramic
material included 251 figurines and figurine fragments, an unspecified number of
deliberately modified sherds – including discs and other shapes – two complete
vessels, plus low-fired pieces of clay, and clay structures (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013:
484, 487, 488).
1.1.1 Research objectives
Thus, this thesis was based on the need to: (a) redress the existing knowledge-
imbalance between the pottery and figurines by characterising the formers’
conditions, forms, functions, fabrics, and decorations; (b) understand how pottery
was used within the shrine, for what purposes, and if possible, with what meanings;
(c) understand how the pottery related to the remainder of the YK10/11 shrine
assemblage, with specific focus on the figurines; and finally, (d) spatially and
temporally contextualise the assemblage within Koma Land and West Africa more
widely.
Addressing these points was necessary to characterise the pottery assemblage and
to gain insight into the motivations and identities of its creator(s). To this end, the
primary objective: what conclusions can be drawn about the motivations and
identities of the Koma Land pottery and figurine makers? was supported by four
secondary research questions:
1) What types of ceramics were being produced, in what quantities, and what
techniques were used to make them?
2) Does the choice of clay(s) and temper remain consistent across the
assemblage?
3) Are the same sources/ types of clay chosen for both the pottery vessels and
the figurines?
4) Was the same level of sophistication, and are the same stylistic choices,
involved in the production of the pottery vessels and figurines?
20
These questions reflect the conviction that to gain real insight into Iron Age Koma
Land, and its inhabitants, it was essential not only to typify the ceramics, but to
integrate analysis of all types of ceramic material. Again, the title was altered to
also reflect this necessity – the Koma Land pottery and figurine makers – and
further, was designed to reflect the expectation that the makers of the pottery and
figurines were likely to be one and the same. Whilst the figurines’ makers have
been celebrated as “artists”, and “craftsmen” (Abasi 1991; Anquandah 1987a, 2002,
2003 passim; Beltrami 1992 passim; Dagan 1989 passim; Schaedler 1987; Scheutz et
al. 2016 passim; also, Ross 1987: 76 for commentary), the pottery makers have
mostly been ignored. It is argued throughout, however, that the division between
them was an arbitrary side-effect of historic emphasis on the figurines. Indeed, the
conclusions of Chapter 5 and 6 indicate this hypothesis is correct.
The relationships and interactions between the pottery sherds and figurines were
complex, and have been made, unconsciously perhaps, more complicated by the
unhelpful historic designation of the figurines as ritual artefacts, and the pottery
sherds as domestic ones. Unmistakably, the YK10/11 sherds once belonged to
vessels made for domestic purposes, but their recontextualisation within a shrine
challenges the binary sacred/ mundane divide conceptualised by Durkheim (2008
[1915]) and so often reflexively – and problematically – adhered to by West African
archaeologists, and more widely (e.g. see Anquandah 1987b; Arnold, D. E. 1981: 32;
Bedaux 1988; Eyo 1968; Dagan: 1989: 3, Sira-Bazuin 1968; for discussion see Berns
1993; Brück 1999: 317, 325; McNiven 2013: 560; Stahl 2008: 182). This issue is
addressed in Chapters 5.8, and 6.
1.1.2 Thesis structure
This thesis is composed of eight chapters whose organisation shadows the research
objectives outlined in 1.1.1. Chapter 2 provides the necessary theoretical
grounding, through critical analysis of the historic archaeological, ethnographical,
and art historical approaches to Iron Age Koma Land. It examines how these
approaches reflect and were reflected by early attitudes to the Iron Age in West
Africa, and reviews both the paradigms in which West African archaeology has been
seated, and those perceived relevant for the purposes of this thesis. Some of these
21
paradigms are methodological, and their influence is assessed and problematised in
Chapter 3; alongside discussion of the fieldwork challenges experienced during
analysis of the YK10/11 assemblage. As expected of a methodology, Chapter 3
rationalises the quantitative and semi-quantitative methods employed to
investigate the pottery, and also makes evident why other methods were excluded.
The findings of the analysis of the YK10/11 pot-sherd assemblage is presented in
Chapter 4, with the support of Appendices signposted as relevant. The conditions,
profiles, forms, manufacturing techniques, fabric, surface and decorative
treatments, and firing process are all considered. To prevent overcomplication,
Chapter 4 presents only the results of the analysis. It is Chapter 5 that discusses and
evaluates the research. Chapter 5 follows the sherds’ biographies, considering pre-
fragmentation, fragmentation, and post-fragmentation processes each in turn. In
the last section, the themes examined in Chapter 5 form the starting point as to a
critical discussion of the Koma Land ceramic makers’ identities and motivations.
Chapter 6 expands upon the concluding meditations of Chapter 5 by examining how
the YK10/11 pottery assemblage interacted with the other types of Koma shrine
ceramics, firstly, and secondly, the relationships they shared with the shrine itself.
In particular, the figurines and the pottery sherds are comparatively analysed.
Crucial to this discussion are the concepts of habitus, accumulation, and
enchainment, and the theoretical divisions between ritual and domestic, touched
upon above, and in Chapter 2, are comprehensively problematised.
Chapter 7 expands outwards even further by setting the YK10/11 assemblage into a
comparative framework populated by other known and accessible Iron Age Koma
Land pottery assemblages. These are a mixture of both settlement and shrine
mound assemblages, one of which was also excavated from Yikpabongo (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013), and the remainder of which were excavated from the nearby Koma
site of Tando Fagusa, 24km from Yikpabongo on the bank of the Kulpawn river
(Nkumbaan 2016: 207). Despite restrictions caused by methodological differences,
and slight chronological variations, the assemblages were found to exhibit
numerous, unmistakable affinities. Once these comparisons are established,
Chapter 7 takes a thematic approach to examine the place of the YK10/11 shrine
22
mound, and Koma Land as a whole, within the wider West African Iron Age. Here,
the themes of mobility, transmission and integration, trade, exchange, and site
abandonment are central to discussion.
Preceding these chapters is the remainder of Chapter 1. It is used to establish,
briefly, the geographical, climatic, and geological environment in which Koma Land
sits (Section 1.2.1); the history of archaeological research in Yikpabongo and Koma
Land (Section 1.2.2); the background of the YK10/11 shrine mound and its
identification as a shrine (Sections 1.2.3-1.2.4); a brief introduction to fieldwork
challenges (1.2.5), an introduction to the figurines (1.2.6) and the attitudes and
beliefs of the current inhabitants of the village of Yikpabongo in relation to the
archaeological material (1.2.7). Further, Section 1.3 defines the terms fundamental
to the succeeding chapters, to ensure clarity from the outset.
1.2 Introducing Iron Age Koma Land
1.2.1 Koma Land’s environment and geology
The region archaeologically defined as Iron Age Koma Land is approximately
150km2 (Insoll et al. 2013: 2) and is underlain by three diverse geological systems:
the Late Proterozoic – Early Palaeozoic Voltaian system, the Middle Precambrian
Birimian system, and the Middle Precambrian Granitoids (Yendaw n.d.). Yikpabongo
itself rests on the Voltaian system, which covers one-third of Ghana and consists
primarily of sandstone (Yendaw n.d: 26). Nevertheless, the other systems –
Birimian, which consists of phyllite, schist, tuff, and greywacke, and the Granitoids,
which consist of potash-rich muscovite biotite granite – are within an accessible
travelling distance (Wright 2012: 41; Yendaw n.d: 7), suggesting Koma Land’s
inhabitants potentially had access to a wide range of mineral resources.
North-western Ghana’s topography consists of high plains 150m to 300m in
elevation, characterised by arable soil, and a tropical savannah climate (Tijani 2014:
374). Large mammals such as lions, and hyena, are no longer typically found in the
savannah except in nature reserves (such as Mole National Park), and the
vegetation is “characterised by shea trees, acacias, and baobabs” (Tijani 2014: 374).
Comparatively, southern Ghana is covered in rainforest belts, although this cover
23
has dwindled with population expansion and development, except in preserved
forest areas such as Kakum National Park, which is still inhabited by antelope,
leopards, monkeys, and forest elephants.
Koma Land is a river basin surrounded by watercourses to the south and east (the
Kulpawn River) and to the west (the Sisili River). Ghana’s climate is tropical, and
there are two seasons, the rainy season, which in the north lasts from March to
November, and the dry season, from November to February (Tijani 2014: 374).
During the rainy season, flooding makes the northern regions inaccessible to would-
be travellers, to the point that in Ghana, they are jokingly referred to as ‘Overseas’.
The dry season in northern Ghana is typically harsher than in the south, and is often
subject to harmattan winds. The average annual rainfall is 1000mm to 1500mm, the
majority of which, unsurprisingly, falls within the rainy season (Tijani 2014: 373).
1.2.2 The history of research in Yikpabongo
Archaeological research in Koma Land began in 1985, when Professor James
Anquandah excavated four mounds in the vicinity of the inhabited village of
Yikpabongo (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985). Within these mounds, he uncovered
fired-clay human, animal, and anthropomorphic figurines, copious amounts of
pottery sherds, occasional complete vessels, iron tools, copper and iron jewellery,
and iron arrow heads, cowrie shells, glass beads, querns and quern stones, daub,
complete and partial human burials, and selected animal remains, including fowl,
cow, sheep/ goat, and monkey (Anquandah 1998: 87-91). Anquandah and Van Ham
interpreted these mounds as high-status burials, the material as grave goods, and
described them as “stone circle mounds” because some were ringed with stones
(Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 24; Anquandah 2002). The mounds were
provisionally dated to AD 1400 – 1600 on the basis of a single thermoluminescence
date (480 +/- 80 BP) produced from the analysis of one figurine at a laboratory in
Clamart, France (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 34).
The material was named the “Koma-Bulsa” complex after the Konni, the
ethnolinguistic group occupying Yikpabongo and the wider region that would come
to be collectively known as Koma Land, and their neighbours, the Bulsa. Anquandah
24
chose this name to reflect his belief that the historic, and contemporary, population
of Bulsa-speakers were directly linked to this earlier, figurine-producing population
(Anquandah 1998: 33-34, 111-112), a now-questionable perspective critiqued in
Chapter 2. The Konni, although well-established in the region, had only migrated
into it in the last two hundred years (Kröger and Saibu 2010: 74). Their oral histories
revealed no knowledge of the local archaeology and made clear that the area was
settled because it had been uninhabited; Yikpabongo, meaning “ruins in the forest”,
(Kröger and Saibu 2010: 74) demonstrates the area’s condition when it was
reoccupied. So far, radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates from Iron Age
Koma Land suggest that the area was abandoned around the 14th century AD (Insoll
et al. 2013: 9).
The inhabitants of Yikpabongo and the surrounding areas regularly uncovered
figurines whilst farming and building houses (pers comm. B. Saibu, January 2016).
Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s excavation was prompted by Mr. Ben Baluri Saibu, an
inhabitant of Yikpabongo, who realised the figurines might be significant and
brought them to the attention of academics in the Department of Archaeology at
the University of Ghana in the early 1980s (Kröger and Saibu 2010; pers comm. B.
Saibu, January 2016), at the same time as reports of unusual fired-clay figurines
written by Franz Kröger, an anthropologist working in the same area, were
emerging (Kröger 1983, 1988; Kröger and Saibu 2010). As such, it was evident from
the beginning that the local inhabitants had not produced the material being
discovered, that it predated their occupation, and thus, that archaeological
investigation was crucial to characterise the artefacts and site(s). No other sources
– oral, linguistic, or documentary – were (or are) available.
Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s excavation sparked interest in the region and led to
numerous publications on Koma Land. Of these, three were archaeological or semi-
archaeological in nature, and the literature was shaped by emphasis on figurines
(Anquandah 1987b, 1998; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985). The remainder of these
early publications were responses to the 1985 excavation, including the publication
of art historical analyses of private Koma figurine collections, and art historical
venerations, or critiques, of Anquandah’s (and Van Ham’s) publications (e.g. Abasi
25
1991; Barich 1998; Beltrami 1992; Berns 1993; Cocle 1991; Dagan 1989; Davis 1988;
Detavernier 1990, 2003; Kröger 1988; Ross 1989; and the much more recent
Scheutz et al. 2016). Subsequent analysis of the 1985 excavation led Anquandah to
revise some elements of his analysis, such as the region’s chronology (Anquandah
2002). This literature is extensively reviewed in Chapter 2.
In 2006, archaeological investigations in Yikpabongo recommenced (Kankpeyeng
and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013). Since
then, the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies (hereafter, DAHS) at the
University of Ghana have conducted fieldwork in Koma Land every January (pers
comm. B. Kankpeyeng, July 2017) under the auspices of Professor. Benjamin
Kankpeyeng, then Head of Department. In 2010, Professor Timothy Insoll from the
Archaeology Department at the University of Manchester was invited to excavate in
Yikpabongo; the beginning of a productive partnership between the two
universities that has led to the first lawful exhibition of Koma material at a museum
outside of Ghana (Manchester Museum; see Insoll et al. 2013), computed
tomography scanning to analyse the internal structure of a selection of figurines
(Insoll et al. 2016), the first successful DNA residue analysis in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Robinson et al. 2017), as well as research opportunities such as this PhD.
The resumption of investigations of Koma Land locales, structures, and artefacts
has led to further revisions of the area’s chronology, the expansion of excavations
to sites beyond Yikpabongo, the identification of different site-types, and increased
understanding of its material culture. Iron Age Koma Land sites in Tando Fagusa
(Nkumbaan 2016), Tando (Zakari 2011), and Zoboku (Dartey 2011), as well as
further sites in Yikpabongo (Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011, 2013),
have all been excavated, revealing the presence of shrine and settlement sites with
a combined chronology stretching from the 6th to 14th centuries AD (Kankpeyeng et
al. 2011: 209). Further potential sites for excavation have also been identified
(Appiah-Adu et al. 2016; see Chapter 7.3 for a detailed analysis of all known Iron
Age Koma Land sites).
26
1.2.3 Identifying shrines in the Koma Land material record
The identification of different site-types has challenged the high-status burial
“stone circle mound” description Anquandah used to interpret the four mounds
excavated with Van Ham in 1985 (1998 passim). Mounds excavated since the mid-
2000s, some of which match Anquandah’s descriptions, have been instead
convincingly reinterpreted as shrine mounds for the following reasons:
(a) the forms of the figurines found within them suggests their use for
spiritual and medicinal purposes (Insoll 2011: 149; Insoll 2015: 52, 240;
Insoll and Kankpeyeng 2014a; Insoll et al. 2012: 36, 39; Insoll et al. 2013;
Insoll et al. 2016: 27; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008: 97, 100, 101;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013). Recently, some have
been found to contain organic residues of probable medicinal substances
(see Robinson et al. 2017);
(b) the inclusion of figurine types traditionally associated with witchcraft in
Ghanaian cosmologies (Insoll et al. 2013: 15, 19);
(c) the presence of figurine types with realistically depicted medical
disorders (Insoll et al. 2013: 26);
(d) the presence of gong-shaped figurines, similar to iron gongs
ethnographically known to be used in dances and making announcements
(Insoll et al. 2013: 23);
(e) the presence of iron tools, such as razors, which may have been used in
medical treatments (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 482, 484), and/ or in
scarification practices (Kankpeyeng 2017);
(f) the presence of probable libation structures (Insoll et al. 2012: 36, 39;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 493);
(g) the presence of complete pottery vessels interpreted as too small to
have had a domestic function (Insoll et al. 2013: 21), and;
(h) a form and structure distinctive from settlement mounds (Insoll et al.
2016).
27
Comparatively, the settlement mounds contain postholes, hearths, middens, hard-
packed earth-and-gravel floors, and complete, under-floor human burials
(Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 58, 65, 84, 118-119; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492; Nkumbaan 2016: 76, 137, 146; Chapter 7.3).
Conversely, the human remains within the shrine mounds are disarticulated, and
very selective elements, of different individuals (Insoll et al. 2012: 41; Insoll et al.
2013: 5; Insoll et al. 2016: 27).
1.2.4 The YK10/11 shrine mound
“A low mound measuring approximately 18m east to west and 15m north to south.
It was excavated using an L-shaped grid measuring 10m x 5m x 10m x 5m, extended
in 2011 to form an overall grid of 10m x 10m…the mound stratigraphy was simple
with an inconsistent depth of archaeological material between 20 and 30cm depth
overlaid with a thin layer of modern dust and rubbish (c. 1-3cm) and below this by a
sterile or nearly sterile soil (c. 10cm) before the natural red gravel filled deposits
were reached at a depth of between 40-50cm from the surface” (Insoll et al. 2016:
26).
The YK10/11 shrine mound is in Yikpabongo, an occupied village in Northern
Region, one of Ghana’s ten administrative districts (see Figure 1). The mound has
been dated to Cal AD 1010 – 1170 (970 +/- 40 BP) from one radiocarbon date
obtained from a human bone sample retrieved during the 2010 field season
(Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209), placing it securely within West Africa’s Iron Age, 500
BC to AD 1400 (Dueppen 2012b: 18). The majority of the material assemblage was
excavated from the top 30cm (Insoll et al. 2012: 36), and some of the material from
the mound’s top appeared to have been disturbed by recent domestic digging
activity (Insoll et al. 2010: 25-27). The mound was excavated in 10cm spits (Insoll et
al. 2010). It was not entirely excavated, but trenches were randomly sampled in the
northern, north-eastern, south-eastern, and western sections of the mound, and
then enlarged in the following year (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481; see Figure 2,
below). Each square was 100cm X 100cm (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481).
28
Figure 2: The excavated areas of the YK10-3/11 mound by year (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481)
As well as the ceramic assemblage, described in Section 1.1, the shrine contained
iron objects, including a razor, numerous querns and grinding stones – the former
granite, and the latter, predominantly quartz – 156 ‘money cowries’ or, Cypraea
moneta (pers comm. A. Christie, July 2017), the occasional glass bead, the
fragmented remains of two individual humans, a few cow’s teeth, and unworked
quartz and sandstone pieces (Insoll et al. 2010; Insoll et al. 2012: 36; Insoll et al.
2016: 27; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013; see Chapter 5.4 for
analysis and Table 1 for a synthesis). This material was deliberately structured;
typically characterised by layers of pot sherds excavated to reveal figurines
underneath, with the remainder of the material mixed throughout (Insoll et al.
2012: 36; Insoll et al. 2016: 27).
29
Material Number Description Source
Complete pottery
vessels/ containers
2 1. Small, “flat-bottomed pot incised with lines and
dots forming decorative chevron patterns on
the exterior”.
2. “Half a ceramic gourd or seed…drawn from a
single lump of clay”.
1. Insoll et al. 2013: 23.
2. Insoll et al. 2012: 39.
Pottery sherds 9,642 See Chapter 4. See Chapter 4.
Complete figurines 13 “7 complete figurines and 6 largely complete
figurines”. None taller than 20cm. Human, part
human and animal, animal, and anthropomorphic
forms. Containing cavities incised into orifices and/ or
the top of the head.
Insoll et al. 2012: 29, 30;
See Chapter 6.1-6.5. Figurine fragments 238
Libation structure 2 1. Low-fired clay/ daub c. 15-18cm from the
mound’s surface, “arranged in a circular pattern
interwoven with potsherds.”
2. Potsherds from a depth of 15-20cm “associated
with a clay structure, perhaps a libation hole”.
Insoll et al. 2012: 36.
Pottery discs
X 28 recorded in 2011. Edged deliberately chipped to
create discs and other shapes.
Insoll et al. 2010: 32;
Insoll et al. 2012: 36;
Insoll et al. 2013: 17; See
Chapter 6.7.
Querns/ grinding
stones
X Spherical. Granite and quartz. Insoll et al. 2012: 38;
Insoll et al. 2013: 27.
See Chapter 6.2.
Unworked rock X Quartz and sandstone pieces. Insoll et al. 2010; Insoll et
al. 2012: 36; personal
observation.
Human remains - “A fragmentary human skull placed facing into the
earth, with fragments of human long bones
southeast and southwest of the skull, A human
jawbone was also recorded along with a separate pile
of human teeth, the latter east of the skull. These
teeth were from two individuals, a younger adult of
about 20 years of age, two of whose 19 teeth had
been filed, and the other 18 teeth were from an
older adult…it is clear the human remains had been
deliberately selected and arranged”.
Insoll et al. 2016: 27;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013:
483.
Iron tools X In trench square YK10-3-I15 “an iron razor, ring, point
and part of an iron bracelet” were recovered. Other
iron objects may also have been recovered.
Insoll et al. 2012: 36.
Iron jewellery X
Faunal assemblage X Cow’s teeth. One tooth found to the northwest of
the first libation structure described above. Number
unspecified.
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013:
483.
Cowries 156 Cypraea moneta. Only two cowries from this
assemblage have been examined, both were
perforated.
Pers comm. A. Christie
July 2017.
Beads X Glass. Insoll et al. 2012: 28, 36;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013:
485.
Table 1: A summary of all known YK10/11 shrine artefacts, their frequency, and description. “X”
means no data was available.
30
1.2.5 The YK10/11 assemblage: fieldwork challenges
Whilst in Ghana conducting fieldwork, challenges arose relating to sample size,
storage and climatic conditions, and data access. These required ad hoc alterations
to the prepared methodology, in some instances, and in others, they altered the
boundaries and scope of analysis. Discussion here offers a useful commentary as to
the practical difficulties of fieldwork and the analytical implications of choices in the
field. Changes to the sample size, and thus, to the sampling strategy, have been
integrated into Chapter 3.2.1 (which discusses the sampling practices used in this
thesis) for convenience and clarity. The storage, climatic conditions, and data
issues, and their effect on analysis, will be briefly outlined here.
In Yikpabongo, the pottery had been stored securely in a shipping crate. Prior to the
January 2016 fieldwork season, it was moved to a small, freely-accessible room in
the village’s community and Bible Translation Centre, a room which was also used
as communal storage for material excavated elsewhere in the region, for furniture,
and gasoline canisters (pers comm. B. Kankpeyeng December 2015; personal
observation). Unfortunately, some of these objects had subsequently collapsed or
fallen onto the YK10/11 assemblage. This caused, firstly, a number of the finds bags
– already friable from the hot, dry climate – to split. Sherds from these bags were
scattered across the floor, and were intermixed. Unlabelled, unable to be
associated with specific finds bags, and thus unprovenanced, approximately 500
sherds were immediately discarded. A second outcome was that some sherds were
possibly more fragmented than they originally might have been. Fortuitously placed
finds bags that had avoided damage included greater quantities of larger sherds,
including rim and decorated sherds, in a fairer condition. The analysis and
discussion chapters (4 and 5) have taken this into consideration.
The third issue was data accessibility. Section 1.2.4 did not explain or illustrate
precisely how the YK10/11 shrine, and its material, was constructed and arranged.
This information cannot be provided because the shrine’s contextual data – for
either year – was not forthcoming from Professor Kankpeyeng, then Head of DAHS
at the University of Ghana, during my fieldwork, or subsequently (see Chapter 5.4
31
for a structural analysis of the YK10/11 mound based on the available data).
Professor Insoll, however, made his fieldwork journal for the YK10-3 shrine test-pit
he excavated during the 2010 Koma Land field season freely available for use in this
thesis (Insoll et al. 2010). These notes provide some useful context information that
is made full use of (see Chapter 5.4). Unfortunately, the overall lack of complete
contextual data means that no detailed plans or sections can be provided to aid the
reader’s understanding. This also means that, except where deliberately specified,
how many of each artefact type was excavated from the YK10/11 shrine mound
cannot be confirmed, as Table 1 indicates. Nor is it clear what level the radiocarbon
sample was retrieved from.
A further point affecting data accessibility and interpretability was that some of the
context numbers on the finds bags did not correspond to any of the excavated
trench squares (see Figure 2 in Chapter 1.2.4 for these). For instance, context
numbers “YK11 L2 G6”, and YK11 L2 G8”. Whilst the pottery from these contexts
has been included in the YK10/11 analysis, it is unclear what part of the trench they
originated from; G8 is located in an unexcavated sector of the trench, and G6 does
not exist on the published trench plan (see Figure 2). Possibly, “G6” identifies the
student group that excavated those particular ceramics, rather than the trench
square. What trench square(s) each group was assigned to is unknown.
The fieldwork challenges discussed here and in Chapter 3.3.1 created certain
obstacles that caused some of the methods and interpretive expectations in this
thesis to be altered or adapted. They have not, however, prevented either the
successful quantitative and semi-quantitative analysis of the YK10/11 Iron Age
Koma Land pottery assemblage, or the fulfilment of the research objectives.
1.2.6 The figurines
The focus here is pottery, but it would be remiss not to provide at least a brief idea
of the figurines’ forms and purposes. The Iron Age Koma figurines are made of low-
fired orange-brown clay and take human, animal, and anthropomorphic forms
(Insoll et al. 2013: 13). The majority do not exceed 20cm in height (Insoll et al. 2012:
30; Insoll et al. 2013). Anquandah reported life-size examples (Anquandah 1998:
32
78), but none were recorded during the 1985 excavation (Anquandah and Van Ham
1985) or have yet been discovered during renewed excavations (pers comm. T.
Insoll, April 2017).
The human-formed figurines often ‘wear’ accessories, such as caps, jewellery, and
daggers, and some have stylised beards and hair (Insoll et al. 2013: 11, 14, 16, 28-
29). The figurines do not appear to have been painted, but many display traces of
eroded red slip (Insoll et al. 2013: 4, 7, 11, 15, 1721-2326, 28-29) alike in colour to
that of the pottery. Navel hernias are commonly represented, as are ‘breasts’, or
nipples (Insoll et al. 2013). Early studies sought to sex the figurines (Anquandah
2002), but current researchers describe them as androgynous, because overt
depictions of primary sexual organs are rare (Insoll et al. 2013: 33; although see
Insoll et al. 2013: 33 for an example from Tando Fagusa).
Animal-forms include chameleons, snakes, birds, and crocodiles (Insoll et al. 2013:
3, 15, 21, 22). As mentioned in Section 1.2.3, there are also figurines that mix
human-animal elements, commonly birds (Insoll et al. 2013: 22). There are also
mixed figurines depicting mounts with riders (Insoll et al. 2013: 10-11). A further
category, termed “Janus” heads, involves two or four faces looking in opposite
directions (Insoll et al. 2013: 14-15). Some figurines realistically depict medical
conditions, such as anencephaly (Insoll et al. 2013: 26).
Typically, the Koma Land figurines (human, animal, or otherwise) are characterised
by wide-open mouths variously interpreted as singing, chanting, or wearing an
expression of pain or despair, bulbous eyes, and by incisions piercing the figurines
in the same places as many human bodily orifices occur. These incisions were made
before firing. Cone figurines – a human head tapering to a pointed base, possibly
designed to be inserted in the ground – also commonly contain incisions into and
through the top of the head (Insoll et al. 2013: 22). Some of these incisions pierce
through skeuomorphic clay-cowrie motifs moulded into the figurines’ concave
head-dome (Insoll et al. 2013: 22).
33
Figure 3: Three Koma Land figurines. Left to right: a damaged ‘Janus’ head type figurine; a bird
figurine; and a cone-head type figurine with the typical bowl-shaped impression in the head (Insoll et
al. 2013: 14, 17, and 22, respectively).
Computed tomography scans of a selection of figurines reveals the incisions are
long, and narrow (as if made with a sharp, thin stick), and are up to 3cm or 4cm in
depth in some of the larger figurines (Insoll et al. 2016). Swabs taken from within
some of these incisions reveal DNA evidence from residues including plantain/
banana, grasses (possibly cereals), and both monkey puzzle tree and species of pine
tree not native to Ghana (Robinson et al. 2017: 17). The figurines’ characteristics –
forms, fabrics, decorations, surface treatments – are examined in depth in Chapter
6, which offers a detailed comparative analysis with the YK10/11 pottery in order to
integrate analysis of the different types of ceramic.
1.2.7 Local perspectives and responsible archaeology
At this stage, it would be a mistake to presume that because Yikpabongo’s residents
did not create the Iron Age material, they are dissociated from it. The relationships
between the archaeological material and the inhabitants have enough merit to
warrant their own investigation as to the meanings attributed to the figurines and
their assimilation into everyday life. The figurines, in particular, are venerated by at
34
least part of Yikpabongo’s population. Carefully cloth-wrapped and cleaned
examples of figurines were shown to myself and other archaeologists working in
the region and it was made clear that they were valued and (although no attempt
was made to buy them) that they were not for sale (although other individuals did
seek us out with figurines for this purpose). In other cases, local children used the
figurines as toys.
During the 2016 field season, it became apparent that many of the village’s
residents wished to be informed about the archaeological process, as it related to
the figurines. They were interested as to how (and why) excavations were taking
place and there was concern over the fact that the excavated figurines were being
removed to DAHS at the University of Ghana. Offers to screen a documentary
explaining the archaeological process were met with frustration, as the interest was
in the process as it was contextualised by the figurines; thus, a seminar was held by
Ghanaian colleagues the next evening to inform the locals about the Koma Land
research process, excavations, and findings. In the long-term, there are plans to
create a local museum to exhibit some of the material and to provide local training
in heritage and archaeology. Interest in the material also stems from the possibility
that eco-tourism may be developed around it.
In the interim, an exploration of the relationships between Yikpabongo’s
inhabitants and the figurines they live alongside would be a valuable
anthropological undertaking. Whilst from a purely archaeological perspective, it
would be ideal for all of the Koma Land material to remain in situ until it can be
recorded, it is more important to acknowledge, and to respect, the local
population’s connections with the material, and their sense of ownership. It is easy
to forget that what for archaeologists is material that may illuminate the past, is,
for others, material that illuminates and engages with their lived present.
As such, enabling channels of discourse with the people who are local to, and
invested in, any archaeological site should be a priority that informs every project’s
methodology. In any context, prioritising research at the expense of residents’ life-
ways is arguably neo-colonial; occupants’ concerns and queries should be engaged
with to ensure mutual benefit and understanding, and local practices respected. An
35
excellent example of this in practice is archaeological investigations of shrines –
some still in use – recently conducted in the Tong Hills in Ghana’s Upper East
Region (Insoll 2008), for which prohibitions and customs were observed, the areas’
residents were consulted, and permission requested, before the excavation of any
sacred areas (Insoll 2008: 88-89).
1.3 Nomenclature
Before examining the YK10/11 ceramic assemblage in earnest, it is first important
to define the terms and concepts used to understand and contextualise it.
Thematically, some of the terminology discussed here also resonates with, or is
fundamental to, issues explored in the literature review (Chapter 2). However, it is
worth introducing and defining relevant terminology from the outset to ensure
clarity.
1.3.1 What is a shrine?
The shrine is a concept that underpins and contextualises all aspects of analysis
and interpretation in this thesis. It provides the framework that the YK10/11
assemblage – both ceramic and non-ceramic – is part of, and defined by. Asking the
question, ‘what is a shrine?’ is fundamental, but complex; shrines are
heterogeneous, context-specific entities embodied in any material believed to be
significant. The variety shown in ethnographic studies of West African shrines is
daunting, with shrine-forms including single artefacts, such as a pot, iron object, or
a rock; sets of artefacts, some or all of which may be organic; deliberately created
structures, such as posts topped with brass- or pottery-vessels; and natural features
that may, or may not, have undergone modification and manipulation (Apoh and
Gavua 2010: 214; Dawson 2009: xi; Douny 2011: 167; Fournier 2011: 1899; Insoll
2011: 145; Mather 1999: 1-2; Ottenberg 1970; Stahl 2008: 160). A further
distinction can be made between shrines, and sacred groves (Insoll 2007; Insoll
2015: 252), and between permanent shrines, and portable ones, which may
otherwise lead to “shrine franchising” (Insoll 2006).
Mather, working within West African contexts, has defined a shrine as a site “of
mediation where the ambiguity and unpredictability of relations are harnessed to
36
generate meaning” (2003: 23). Elsewhere, Dawson has observed that shrines “are
vessels…they can act as containers in a literal sense for the spirits of ancestors and
deities” whilst also being, “symbolic vessels and reference points for social
knowledge about the universe” (2009: vii-viii; emphasis original). In Africa, a
shrine’s purpose may be to legitimise habitation of an area, or claim it;
recontextualise the meanings and functions of artefacts, deactivate or change their
nature; to enforce or negotiate social and power relations; as a facilitator or active
participant in healing practices; or as a means of codifying practices and defining
traditions (Insoll 2015: 252-257, 260, 270).
All of these definitions and descriptions are derived from ethnographical, not
archaeological, examples. For archaeologists, how to successfully identify shrine
contexts in the material record is a conundrum. Whilst not unheard of (for instance,
see Garlake 1974, 1977; Stahl 2008: 170-171), the nature of shrines is not
conducive to their discovery in the archaeological record (Insoll 2015: 154).
Stahl has rightfully pointed out that this perspective – of deliberately seeking ritual
traces – is unhelpful, and ignores the arguments repeatedly put forth by
ethnographers, “against analytically separating religion and ritual from the domain
of daily life” (2008: 160). Instead, she argues there is a need to understand
“ritualisation as strategic practice” to illustrate how “ritual activity is simultaneously
embedded and distinguished from the flow of daily social activity, as well as the
effects of those practices on social life” (Stahl 2008: 160).
Whilst this argument has great merit, the situation in Koma Land can be
differentiated from the circumstances Stahl critiques, because the contextual data
makes it almost certain that the YK10/11 material was from a shrine deposit
(Section 1.2.3, above). Further, the ability to gain insight into how ritual activity was
embedded in social contexts is not beyond the capabilities of the YK10/11 material;
the pottery sherds in this assemblage were from domestic vessels, and their fabric
and manufacturing techniques were analogous with the spiritual/ medicinal figurine
assemblage’s (see Chapters 4.2, 4.10, and 6.2-6.6).
37
Another issue with establishing ‘what is a shrine?’ is the suitability of the term itself.
Insoll has remarked that: “‘shrine’ is a term that fails to describe the range of
structures included within its boundaries” because it is derived from the Latin for
“‘receptacle’”, and as such, it can be applied to numerous features, in numerous
contexts (Insoll 2011: 145). The above examples make this shortfall in terminology
abundantly clear. Conversely, no regionally-specific, contextually relevant term can
be determined for these site-types in Koma Land because only archaeological
evidence is available. As such, in this thesis shrine is used with the caveat that it is a
non-local, non-temporally specific term, but also with the awareness that it is the
most relevant one available. Producing a specific definition of a shrine for each
archaeological site the term is applied to would be contextually-valuable, but
methodologically-bewildering.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the types of material within it, and their relationships
with one another, the YK10/11 shrine is perceived in this thesis as a space of
containment that mediates, negotiates, and controls tangible and intangible
transformations to substances, interactions, and relationships between people, and
artefacts. This idea is explored in later chapters, as the analysis of the YK10/11
pottery assemblage, and the contexts in which it operated, is presented and
develops (see Chapter 5 and Chapter 7.4.1-7.4.4).
1.3.2 Ceramics versus pottery
In Rice’s comprehensive pottery handbook, pottery is defined as “low-fired,
nonvitrified objects including cooking, serving and storage vessels (as distinct from
high-fired ceramics)” whilst ceramics “in art and archaeology” are “high-fired,
usually vitrified cooking and serving utensils and art objects (as distinct from
pottery)” (Rice 2015: 460 and 453 respectively, emphasis original). It is evident from
the beginning of this thesis that I am guilty of using these terms somewhat
interchangeably. Whilst acknowledging the technical distinctions between ceramics
and pottery, the decision to overlook them was an attempt to prevent reader (and
writer) fatigue. Arguably, this is a habit of many archaeologists (Orton and Hughes
2013: 4). Further, as is traditional with many archaeological terms, definitions of
ceramics are not completely standardised. Darvill, for instance, defines ceramics as
38
“the state that clay achieves when converted into pottery by firing to a temperature
of not less than 500˚C” (Darvill 2008; Farbstein 2015), a temperature that Rice
(2015: 464) would not consider high-fired.
The distinction in this thesis between pottery and ceramics, where it occurs, is
theoretical more than technical, and has been influenced by Farbstein’s (2015)
interpretation of Darvill’s argument that ‘ceramics’ defines both pottery vessels and
figurines (2008), a point Rice appears to agree with (2015: 453; see above).
Farbstein’s interpretation is based on the desire, in Palaeolithic European settings,
to more closely integrate the study of different types of ceramic artefact by
acknowledging their shared materiality. Elsewhere, Gosselain has criticised the
practice of studying “pottery remains in isolation” from other types of artefacts
(2008: 67). Surely, this includes other clay-based material.
These points echo the emphasis placed in this thesis on the need to closely
integrate studies of artefacts that are different in form, but alike in material, a
practice that has historically been overlooked not just by early ‘figurine essentialist’
art historic and archaeological studies of Koma Land, but by the essentialist
paradigms pervading much of Western archaeology (Conneller 2013: 121; see
Chapter 6.1). Thus, in this thesis the term ‘ceramic assemblage’ is used to refer to
the entire collection of fired-clay artefacts in the YK10/11 shrine; be it figurines,
low-fired clay (daub) libation structures, pottery sherds, vessels, and modified
sherds, whereas ‘pottery assemblage’ is used specifically to distinguish the pottery
sherd assemblage from its compatriots. In the following chapter – the literature
review – the need to integrate archaeological studies of different types of ceramic
is further justified. Here, the historical theoretical paradigms applied not just to the
ceramics in Iron Age Koma Land, but to ceramics in the wider West African Iron
Age, are critically assessed.
1.3.3 Style
Archaeological debates about style have raged since at least the 1970s (Arnold, D.E
1985; Conkey 1985, 1990; Davis 1990; Hegmon 1992; Hodder 1981; Howard and
Morris 1981; Sackett 1977; Stark 2003). It is not the purpose here to relive this
39
interminable debate, but to discuss, briefly, what it means for this thesis. Most
importantly, to offer a definition of style to ensure clarity when it is used within this
work.
Traditionally, style has been perceived as a fixed set of visual criteria informing,
among other things, pottery forms and manufacture (Arnold, D.E 1985: 1; Davis
1990: 19; Hodder 1981: 215). It has thus, inevitably and problematically, been used
in theoretical constructions of ethnicity on the basis that particular styles assist in
defining particular (ethnic) groups within the archaeological material record
(Anquandah 1998; David et al. 1991; Mayor 2010b: 23; Sterner et al. 1988)
although this view has also been rejected (see Arnold, D. E 1985: 3; Gosselain 2000:
188, 2011).
Form and style have often been associated, but sometimes problematically, as
archaeologists dispute which is most influential for pottery production (Stark 2003:
211). Nevertheless, recent approaches have concluded “there is an inescapable co-
emergence of style and function” (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 20; see also
Sackett 1977: 370; Stark 2003: 211).
Style is approached in this thesis as “present whenever there is a possibility of
choice between equally viable options” (Gosselain 1992b: 560; emphasis original).
Arnold has observed that style is less a prescribed set of artefact features, or
“template”, and more of an entity influenced by motor habits (1985: 8), and as
such, a learned, unconscious process, as opposed to a deliberate and prescripted
one.
Using ethnographic studies of Sub-Saharan African potters, Gosselain has drawn
similar conclusions (2000: 192). The perception of style as fluid, something
supported by the widespread dispersal of decorative techniques such as roulette
(of which there are numerous varieties and manipulations possible) throughout
Sub-Saharan Africa (Livingstone Smith 2007), and the rejection of early culture
historic notions of style and the specific “cultures”, “types”, and, “units” identified
from assemblages using this system (Conkey 1990: 5, 9; Conkey and Hastorf 1990:
3), leads style to be treated here as a flexible process of learned behaviour that
40
involves processing and forming techniques as much as the traditionally more
‘visible’ stylistic elements of decoration and vessel structure (after Gosselain 2000:
188).
Following this, stylistic similarities shared by the Koma Land ceramics are treated
as evidence of communally learned behaviour – not as the product of a single
ethnic identity (see also Section 5.6 for a critique of this practice) – and as active,
informative, contextually-specific constituents of the pottery-making process (after
Conkey 1985: 15).
Linked with many definitions of style is locality; with the spatial distribution of
artefacts and their production centres historically viewed as an indicator of cultural
spread (Druc 2013: 487; Gosselain 2011: 211; Lucy 2005: 86). Pondering this
question, Druc asked “How far is local?” (2013: 490). For ceramics, ethnographers
have attempted to address this with analyses of the distances potters will go to
collect clay and temper (Arnold, D. E. 1981: 34, 1985: 50-52; Browman 1976; Druc
2013: 491, 501; Jones 2002: 86), and the range of pottery distribution centres from
the areas of manufacture (Casey 2010: 89; Costin 2000: 384; Crossland and
Posnansky 1978: 80; Howard 1981; Jones 2002: 86; Tite 1999). To resolve this
question, Druc used Andean ceramic ethnographic examples to identify “seven
spheres of understanding: physical, statistical, technological, economic, social,
political, and conceptual or representational” (2013: 504-505). Essentially, Druc’s
conclusion recommends a contextual, site specific approach.
In this thesis, ‘local’ refers to the Koma Land region. At present, this is the known
extent of the material identified as belonging to the Koma Land figurine and pottery
makers. It is fully acknowledged that the Koma pottery identified and catalogued
here might not be (1) unique in Koma Land, or, (2) unique to it. Africanist
archaeologists have been aware for some time that modern boundaries are
disingenuous to research; the 15th West African Archaeological Colloquium at the
University of Ghana in July 2017, for example, took “archaeology without borders”
as its theme.
41
Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
Chapter 2 has four main objectives. The first is to review all the archaeological and
art historical publications on Iron Age Koma Land, with particular emphasis as to
how the pottery has previously been analysed. The second is to evaluate the
theoretical approaches that have shaped interpretations of Koma Land, past to
present. The third is to rationalise the theoretical paradigms that have been
employed in this thesis to assist analysis and understanding of the YK10/11
ceramics. The fourth, and final, objective is to set the theoretical and empirical
frameworks used to study the Koma ceramics into their wider West African
theoretical contexts; identifying the broader trends and issues that have shaped
archaeological understanding of the region’s archaeology.
There are two very different approaches to Koma Land in the existing literature.
The first, taken by the first researchers, Anquandah and Van Ham (1985; and
Anquandah 1987b, 1998, 2002, 2003), can be defined as archaeological research set
within an art historic framework. The second approach, begun with the re-initiation
of excavations in the mid-2000s, is almost entirely archaeological (Kankpeyeng and
Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013). It has
focused on interdisciplinary and collaborative studies using earth and
environmental sciences (Insoll et al. 2016; Kankpeyeng 2017; Robinson et al. 2017;
Tiburu et al. 2017), museums and heritage studies (Insoll et al. 2013; Kankpeyeng et
al. 2008), use of ethnography to gain insight into medicinal and spiritual practices
(Insoll et al.2012; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011), movement and posture (Insoll and
Kankpeyeng 2014b), as well as partnerships that have led to projects such as this
thesis (see also Dartey 2011).
Within this large body of literature, the place of this research is ceramics. The
primary focus is the 9692 pottery sherds excavated from the YK10/11 shrine, but
the wider ceramic assemblage has been integrated into analysis and interpretation,
particularly in Chapters 6, and 7. All publications on Iron Age Koma Land have been
42
used to contextualise this research, not only from the desire to be thorough, but
from necessity.
Quite simply, knowledge and understanding of Iron Age Koma Land pottery has, to
date, been limited by the lack of detailed investigation into it. Reports on it have
often been brief, with data fragmented across multiple publications (Abasi 1991:
82; Anquandah 1987b: 174, 1998: 102-111; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28;
Beltrami 1992: 427; Dagan 1989: 11; Insoll et al. 2012: 36, 39, 41; Insoll et al. 2013:
5, 7, 17, 21, 28; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 480-482, 492; Kröger 1988: 138). This ‘breadcrumb’ trail of
data, has, in some early publications, also been misleading: because of data
inaccuracies, unexplained methodological practices (Anquandah 1998; Anquandah
and Van Ham 1985; see Section 2.2.1 for criticism), as well as the inappropriate
application of culture historic and ethnographic concepts to interpret the ceramics
and identify its makers (Anquandah 1998; Kröger 1988; see Chapter 2.2.2). These
issues – the lack of pottery studies, and imposition of irrelevant paradigms – are not
restricted to Koma Land, but were part of wider theoretical trends that could be
mapped across many historic forays into West African archaeology, as Section 2.4
will discuss.
More recently, three researchers have examined pottery assemblages from Koma
Land (Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Dartey 2011; Nkumbaan 2016). Whilst valuable
additions, Dartey’s (2011) study is not currently accessible, and Asamoah-Mensah’s
(2013), and Nkumbaan’s (2016) projects had a range of objectives, of which pottery
analysis was one part. As such, the analyses were not fully comprehensive, and in
Nkumbaan’s study, the ceramics from four mounds were discussed as a whole,
which meant that nuances between the pottery from different assemblages, and
different mound site-types, could not be understood. Asamoah-Mensah’s study, of
one Yikpabongo settlement mound (2013), as well as evidence from Nkumbaan’s
work (2016), are used in a detailed comparative analysis with the YK10/11 shrine
assemblage in Chapter 7.3.1.
The theoretical paradigms that have shaped interpretations in this thesis begin with
the aforementioned concept (see Chapter 1.3.2) that form should not be privileged
43
over material (Conneller 2013; Ingold 2007). This perspective could fairly be
described as a direct response to the majority of the historical research on Koma
Land, which has, overwhelmingly, taken the opposite perspective. For the most
part, the figurines and pottery have inhabited different analytical worlds, which
have rarely intersected; an issue rectified in Chapter 6.
The need to examine the YK10/11 ceramic assemblage’s materiality was also borne
out of Ingold’s argument that examination of material culture has continued “to
operate with a conception of the material world, and of the nonhuman, that
focuses on the artefactual domain at the expense of living organisms” (2012: 428).
It is entirely possible that the figurines transcended concepts of inanimate/ animate
objects, evidenced in the fact, firstly, that some had been ‘fed’ with organic
substances (Robinson et al. 2017), and secondly, that through this process, they
were not only vehicles for these substances, but probable agents to their activation
and efficacy (Atkinson 2014).
The same argument could be extended to the pottery assemblage, particularly in
light of the use of pots within Koma Land shrines as libation structures, which
would have come into contact with organic substances (e.g. beer), as well as Insoll’s
suggestion that the pottery discs may have been imbued with medicinal substances
(pers comm. T. Insoll, June 2017; see Chapter 6.7). If the shrine was conceived of as
powerful, either as a means of imbuing power, or containing it, it is possible that it
was also considered an animate entity.
The second concept used throughout is that of artefact biographies (after Gosden
and Marshall 1999; Jones 2002; Joy 2009; Kopytoff 1986). To fully understand the
use, reuse, and deposition contexts of the YK10/11 sherds, this approach is
employed to ‘follow’ the sherds’ pre-fragmentation, fragmentation, and post-
fragmentation lives, from the chaîne opératoire to (terminal) deposition. It is
vehemently argued that an artefact’s biography does not culminate with its
breakage, nor, necessarily, with its deposition. This is extremely relevant to the
YK10/11 assemblage, which almost entirely consisted of fragmented material.
44
As such, the third defining concept in this thesis is that of fragmentation,
enchainment, and accumulation (Chapman 2008; Chapman and Gaydarska 2007).
Whilst this has been critiqued (Bailey 2017: 826-828; Brittain and Harris 2010), the
theory of enchainment is used here in a modified form to address the fact that
terminological divisions between the shrine and its material are somewhat
misleading; the YK10/11 assemblage – both ceramic and non-ceramic elements –
formed the bulk of the shrine’s construction materials. The majority of YK10/11
sherds appear to have been products of accidentally broken vessels whose sherds
were then recontextualised, a process which the original enchainment theory has
not considered, but which is explored in this research (see Chapter 6.5). Discussion
of accumulation is also utilised to understand how the shrine might have been
spatially and temporally constructed.
Therefore, this literature review begins with an ‘unpacking’ of the historical
approaches to the Iron Age Koma Land ceramics, and is followed by a critical
discussion of the current state of archaeological research in the region. The
rationale behind the concepts that have informed this thesis is then offered, and
then the whole discussion is set within the wider discourses that have framed
archaeological research in West Africa since the colonial era, and which continue to
influence today’s projects.
2.2 The original research
The original Koma Land research was pivotal, but problematic. In Sections 2.2.1-
2.2.5, early responses to the archaeology of Iron Age Koma Land have been
reviewed and deconstructed. Analysis began with the first-ever archaeological
excavation of Koma Land in 1985 (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985) and
subsequently, has examined the central themes, perspectives, and paradigms that
influenced and contextualised the research and its researchers. The theoretical
precepts that have informed interpretations of Koma Land, and thus, shaped all
research that has followed, have been identified as tenets of art and culture history
(2.2.2), ethnicity (2.2.3), ethnography and ethnoarchaeology (2.2.4), and
evolutionary perspectives of African history and archaeology (2.2.5).
45
2.2.1 The 1985 excavation and analyses: a critical overview
For two decades, Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s excavation of four mounds in
Yikpabongo was the only legitimate, recorded archaeological work on Koma Land in
existence (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009).
Thus, their valuable research has been fundamental, forming and informing every
successive investigation, analysis, and interpretation – be it archaeological, art
historical, or ethnographic – on the region’s Iron Age archaeology. Without their
excavation, and subsequent publications (Anquandah 1987b, 1998, 2002, 2003;
Anquandah and Van Ham 1985) the last decade of renewed research into Koma
Land would have been less-cognisant and less-developed.
With this in mind, it is also true that Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s initial pottery
analysis, (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28-31), and a second by Anquandah
(1998), contain mistakes that diminish their efficacy, both as standalone analyses,
and as comparative tools. Remaining appreciative of the significance of this early
research, whilst candid and critical, the objective here is, firstly, to critically unpack
Anquandah’s (and Van Ham’s) pottery analyses, in order to gain insight into the
ceramics they excavated. Secondly, to fully understand the (to date, largely
unaddressed) issues that have influenced later interpretations and approaches to
Koma Land, including those used in this thesis (see Section 2.1). These issues relate
to, (a) the reliability of the pottery analyses, and (b), their lack of detail, (c) the
misapplication of ethnography, and (d), the inappropriate use of culture historic
and art historic paradigms. All were crucial to the interpretive framework applied to
the evidence in this early literature.
First, some background. In the 1985 field season four mounds (designated L370,
H310, I220, and Bak.I) were excavated, and the first archaeological publication on
Koma Land, then known as “Komaland” was published later the same year
(Anquandah and Van Ham 1985). This publication’s primary focus was to showcase
the figurines, which, after all, was what had prompted excavations of the region to
begin with (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985). Although, this focus led one reviewer
of Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s (1985) publication to observe “this is a very well-
46
produced monograph, but…until a more detailed analysis has been made, much of
its value rests with visual presentation” (Ross 1987: 76).
In 1987, an article describing the excavation’s initial findings on the overall Koma
Land cultural complex was published, in which Anquandah suggested there was
adequate proof for “the existence of a Komaland ‘kingdom’, which may have been
linked with the trans-Saharan trade system” (1987: 79). The validity of this
interpretation was later questioned (Davies 1988) and has not yet been evidenced.
Whilst there is undisputed evidence of trans-Saharan trade in Koma Land (e.g.
Robinson et al. 2017) there is not yet evidence to support interpretations of its
political structure.
A more complete report – with a chapter devoted to pottery analysis – was
published by Anquandah in 1998, although again, the figurines remained the focal
point (Anquandah 1998). In 2002, a French-language piece was published in an art-
history monograph extolling the artistic value of the figurines and interpreting them
as depictions of high-status individuals and family scenes (Anquandah 2002),
followed by a similar art-focused piece a year later (Anquandah 2003).
In total, 39,632 pottery sherds were excavated from Mound L370, and Mound
H310, collectively; 5,179 from the former, and 34,453 from the latter (Anquandah
and Van Ham 1985: 28). At the time of the 1985 publication, the pottery from
Mounds I220 and Bak.I had not yet been counted, and only their figurines were
assessed (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28). In 1998, 12,825 sherds were
recorded in Mound Bak.I (Anquandah 1998: 84), bringing the known pottery total
to 52,547 sherds from three mounds. The sherds from Mound I220 were included
in Anquandah’s pottery descriptions (Anquandah 1998: 110-113), but appear to
never have been formally counted or analysed. No exact figures exist for most of
the material from this mound (see Table 2).
47
Artefact Anquandah and Van Ham 1985 Anquandah and Van Ham 1998
H310 L370 Bak.I I220 H310 L370 Bak.I I220
Sherds 34,453 5,179 TBC TBC 34,453 5,179 12,825
Discs 77 77
Figurines 258 19 226 20 258 19 226
Grinding
stones/
querns
1,786 41 20 TBC 1,786 41 725 335
Iron/ copper
artefacts
9/6 22; 3 arrowheads, 2
knife blades, 3
bracelets, 1 anklet,
1 twisted pendant, 1
hoe blade, 2 finger
rings, 4 unidentified
pieces/ 1bracelet
✓ ✓ ✓
Human
remains
Multiple
burials
Single
burial
Multiple
burials
Single
burial
Left arm, fingers,
ribs; adult, 30.
Skull fragments, left
arm, right lower
arm; 18-20 male
“Skull,
rib, and
limb
bones of
an adult
female
aged
about
45”)
Skull, jaw,
14 teeth;
adult 30-35
Skull, thigh
and leg
bones;
youth
Human
remains
Animal
remains
Multiple
cattle
Single
animal
Multiple
cattle
Single
animal
Cattle, goat/ sheep,
fowl, 1 monkey skull
Sheep/
goat
Cattle
and/or
sheep, fowl
Cattle
and/ or
sheep
Cowries ✓ ✓ ✓
Beads
Daub 85 85 29
Table 2: A comparative summary of the 1985 and 1998 assemblages from the four Koma mounds
(Anquandah 1998; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985). The frequencies of some artefacts differ
between the two. A ‘tick’ was used when an artefact type was present, but its frequency was not
specified. A greyed-out cell meant no data.
48
The pottery sherds from these four “stone circle mounds” were described as
domestic (Anquandah 1987b: 174), and were interpreted as grave goods added to
high-status burials by mourners, possibly after feasting (Anquandah 1998: 88, 110;
Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 24). Some complete vessels were interpreted as
headrests for the deceased or as libation-containers (Anquandah 1987b: 74).
Whilst there were some “slight differences in detail from site to site” (unspecified)
the pottery assemblages were generally analogous (Anquandah 1998: 101; it is also
unclear which sites were being referred to). The sherds were characterised as sand-
tempered “water jars, food bowls (diam. 6-8cm.), cooking vessels (diam. 10-12cm),
[and] water/ storage vessels (diam. 15-18cms.)” (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985:
28). Surface treatments included burnishing and slipping, and decorative
techniques included roulette, painting, incisions, channelling, and comb and carved
stamp (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28). Slip was applied to vessels inside and
out, and was typically red (Anquandah 1998: 103). Vessels were hand-made by
“pressing and moulding” the base and coil-forming the body, neck, and rim
(Anquandah 1998: 103).
Further comparative analysis of the 1985 and 1998 pottery reports, however,
reveals the two do not completely reinforce and complement one another. Both
provided an analysis of the same two pottery assemblages, recovered from the
same two mounds: H310, and L370 (Anquandah 1998; Anquandah and Van Ham
1985). Table 2 shows matching pottery data for both mounds in both reports.
Nevertheless, there are noticeable variations in the two publications’ pottery
analyses. In Table 3, for instance, the two reports’ breakdowns of sherds by surface
treatments and decoration types show clear differences between the percentage
frequencies for each category, as well as the inclusion of new categories in the 1998
report.
49
Pottery characteristic (Anquandah 1998: 108) Percentage frequency (%)
(1985: 28) (1998: 108)
‘Plain vessel without slipping or surface decoration’ 32.5
‘Vessels showing burnishing and slipping’ 63.01 24.3
‘Vessels decorated with string or plaited grass or carved roulettes’ 33.672 15.8
‘Vessels combining decoration by painting and roulette impression’ 18.0
‘Vessels decorated with incisions or channelling’ 3.0 7.0
‘Vessels decorated by comb stamp’ 0.3 1.5
‘Vessels decorated by carved stamp (e.g. cowriform)’ 0.03 0.9
Table 3: A comparative breakdown of the 1985 and 1998 H310 and L370 pottery analyses. A greyed-
out box indicates there was no data. 1In the 1985 analysis this referred to slipping, only. 2In the 1985
analysis this category was “slipping with string or cord roulette decoration” (Anquandah and Van
Ham 1985: 28).
Whilst this is not stated in the 1998 publication, upon examining Table 3 it seems
possible that some decoration types were initially misidentified and later
reanalysed. For example, cord roulettes were identified in the original analysis
(Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28) but were not present in the second analysis
(Anquandah 1998: 108). This could account for the revision from 33.67% sherds
with roulette in 1985 to 15.8% in 1998; at which juncture a new “painting and
roulette impression” category, accounting for the other 18%, was added
(Anquandah 1998: 108).
The reasons behind other variations between the two analyses, however, are less
clear. In the 1985 publication, for instance, no undecorated and unslipped sherds
were noted (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28). Yet, in 1998, this category
accounted for 32.5% of the assemblage (Anquandah 1998: 108). Possibly, the
undecorated and unslipped sherds were not included in the first analysis for want
of time but had still been included in the total sherd count. Similarly, there are
mistakes with other artefact types in the assemblage. In the 1985 assemblage, the
number of copper artefacts excavated from Mound H310 was recorded as six, and
the number of iron artefacts as nine (see Table 2). Conversely, in the 1998
50
publication one copper artefact, and 22 iron artefacts were recorded for this
mound (see Table 2).
It is evident from comparing the two reports that some analysis occurred in the
interim; the 1985 analysis contained no total sherd count for Bak.I (Anquandah and
Van Ham 1985: 28), whereas the 1998 analysis did (Anquandah 1998:108). This
lends weight to the possibility of a reanalysis. On the other hand, Anquandah
reasonably pointed out the vast quantities of pottery, cost of transport, and
climatic conditions as grounds for conducting the pottery analysis in the field
(Anquandah 1998: 64) – points that also influenced how fieldwork was conducted
for this thesis – and thus, for the same reasons was likely to have also discarded the
pottery in the field. There was no indication it had been stored, and to my
knowledge, it was not present in DAHS. This suggests that a full reanalysis could not
have been conducted in the time between the two reports.
Some confusion also exists because of the use of the term “vessels” rather than
‘sherds’ to describe the whole assemblage, when very few whole vessels were
recovered (see Table 3), and further, because of the decision to lump rather than
split the decoration, slipping, and painting categories – e.g. “painting and roulette”,
“burnishing and slipping” (Anquandah 1998: 108) – which has led to ambiguity as to
the exact numbers of each individual sherd type. Further, it is unclear from
Anquandah’s description how painting and slipping differed in this assemblage
(Anquandah 1998: 108).
The number of queries provoked by these analyses could have been mitigated by
the authors’ (Anquandah 1998; with Van Ham 1985) inclusion of more detailed
methodologies in both reports. Are the discrepancies a consequence of reanalysis,
for example? Did issues in the field affect the methodology? Without these detailed
methodologies, the data, whilst still adding significant value to both publications,
retains a measure of ambiguity. As such, the nature of H310’s and L370’s pottery
(and other) assemblages cannot be entirely understood. Having analysed the data,
the interpretive framework in which it was set is critically considered in the
following sections of Chapter 2.
51
2.2.2 Art history and archaeology
“This approach by art lovers, which emphasises mainly aesthetic aspects of the
[Koma Land] figurines, is sometimes seen as suspect by anthropologists,
archaeologists, or historians. They are critical of the fact that in exhibitions
ethnographic objects, presented in effective artificial light, are often removed from
their cultural context and that information about the function and meaning is
frequently neglected. On the other hand, it also seems overblown when students of
ethnology and archaeology are advised by their mentors to avoid the term “art” and
statements about the artistic value of an object in the description and analysis of
material culture completely” (Scheutz et al. 2016: 48).
The first publications of archaeological material from Koma Land (Anquandah
1987b, 1998; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985) sparked numerous academic
responses. This literature, however, has added little to archaeological knowledge
and understanding of the region and its material because many were either
figurine-oriented art historical derivatives (Abasi 1991; Barich 1998; Detavernier
1990, 2003), or analyses of private, unprovenanced collections of Koma figurines
(Cocle 1991; Beltrami 1992; Dagan 1989; Scheutz et al. 2016). The twenty-six cone
figurines in Dagan’s Galerie Amrad African Arts publication, for example, were
almost certainly looted examples (pers comm. T. Insoll, March 2015). Nowhere in
Dagan’s publication was this acknowledged. Examples of unprovenanced Koma
figurines in other collections, such as the ones reviewed by Cocle (1991) and then
reproduced in Anquandah (1998: 182) and Scheutz et al. (2016: 63) may actually be
fake (pers comm. T. Insoll, June 2017). Four of the five known Koma Land vessel-
figurines published in these three publications have no provenance (the fifth being
archaeologically excavated from YK08; see Insoll et al. 2013: 32 and Chapter 6.6)
and stylistically, do not correspond with the typical features of an Iron Age Koma
Land figurine (pers comm. T. Insoll, June 2017; see Chapter 6.6). Unfortunately,
examples of Koma figurines, held in private galleries, were still recently found to be
for sale (David 2012).
It is not argued here that stylistic evaluation – a mainstay of art historical analyses –
has no merits for figurine analysis. As is evident from above, stylistic understanding
52
of the figurines has allowed archaeologists to recognise probable imitations, and it
also aids the identification of further sites of interest for investigation on the basis
of artefact-similarities (Appiah-Adu et al. 2016).
Instead, the problem with the overall use of art historical discourse for
archaeological artefacts is that it isolates them. It relegates them solely to the
dimensions that can be understood using Western aesthetic criteria, which
privileges visuality at the expense of contextualised insight. For example, in
Anquandah’s 2002 article, published in a Barbier-Mueller Museum monograph, the
figurines are treated as realistic depictions of high-status, gendered individuals in
family scenes (Anquandah 2002: 119; my translation). This interpretation appears
to be solely based on visual assessment. Currently, there is no archaeological
evidence from Koma Land that would confirm its validity. Indeed, it should not even
be presumed that all or any of the figurines were intended to be realistic, as is
evidenced by the existence of anthropomorphic and mixed human-animal figurine
types (Insoll et al. 2013: 15, 21-23).
The issue with relying only on visual understanding is encapsulated by a quote
from Scheutz et al. – if the reader will excuse an additional quote to the one above,
which will be discussed momentarily – from the sole paragraph discussing pottery
vessels in an entire volume on Iron Age Koma Land:
Terracotta figurines are easy to recognise as such because of their many
stylistic characteristics. The ceramic vessels minus any applications,
however, resemble those of other cultures very much (2016: 50; emphasis
added).
This perspective embodies why the use of art historic methods for archaeological
material has been rejected in this thesis. Analysis is restricted solely to visual
parameters, and on that basis, the vessels (and sherds, which form the largest
element of all known Koma Land ceramic assemblages), are entirely disregarded
because they do not conform to recognisable, predetermined aesthetic standards.
In this thesis, visual analysis is only one tool of many. Studying the YK10/11
pottery’s uses and deposition contexts, their ability to refit, use wear, material
53
qualities and properties, and their relationships with the remainder of the
assemblage (both the ceramic and non-ceramic components), has enabled this
thesis to draw specific, evidenced conclusions about the assemblage, its makers,
and its shrine deposition context (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8).
At the beginning of this section, the quote from Scheutz et al. (2016: 48) observed
that archaeologists are often suspect of practices that de-contextualise artefacts,
and excessive in decrying those that would analyse them as art objects. In the case
of this thesis, Scheutz’s accusation is justified. Although, it is argued here that
repudiating a mode of analysis that is determined to put the ‘art’ in artefact
regardless of context (the archaeological mainstay), and ignore categories of
artefacts that do not fit in with stylistic ideals, is not an excessive response.
The arbitrary division between fired-clay figurines and pottery created by art
historic analyses of figurines from Koma Land has been cemented by these
publications’ choice of language. The figurines are incessantly presented as “art”
(Anquandah 2002, 2003, 2006), “sculpture” (Dagan 1989: 11); “exquisite clay
representations” (Detavernier 1990); as “naïve, admirable” and “mysterious,
transcendal” (Schaedler 1987 in Anquandah 2002: 118; my translation); as having
“beauty” and a “universal quality” (Dagan 1989: 1). The makers of the figurines are
likewise described as sculptors, and artists (Anquandah 1987b: 178; 2002 passim;
Dagan 1989 passim). Further articles written by Abasi (1991), Barich (1998),
Beltrami (1992), and Kröger (1988), all contain similar observations and use similar
terminology for both the figurines and their makers.
Whilst, admittedly, these publications could only initially form their own pottery
interpretations using Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s brief ceramics analysis
(Anquandah and Van Ham 1985), discussion of the Koma pottery was still
noticeably absent from the early literature. Anquandah’s observations that
complete vessels potentially functioned as libation pots or head rests for the
deceased passed unnoticed, and universally, the pottery was described as
“domestic” (Abasi 1991: 82; Barich 1998; Beltrami 1992; Dagan 1989: 11).
Anquandah himself drew a clear distinction between the complete vessels and the
54
pottery sherds, the latter which he described only as “kitchen equipment” (1987:
174).
Classifying the Koma figurines as art objects and the pottery as functional and
domestic is a consequence of the application of preconceived ideas about what art
is (and is not), rather than a true reflection of the pottery’s and figurines’ purposes.
These perceptions were a product of Europe’s 19th century class system, in which
painting and sculpture were traditionally classed as ‘high-art’, and practices such as
pottery-making, and basket-weaving, because of their associations with
functionality and utilitarianism, were defined as ‘crafts’ (Biswas 2014; Risatti 2009:
209-210). As such, and contrary to Scheutz et al.’s arguments above (2016: 48),
these terms are irrelevant to this thesis and will not feature in it.
Further, by analysing the Koma Land pottery and figurines in separate spheres,
using distinct terminologies, their makers are likewise categorised; despite the
obvious but understated fact that both types of ceramic – found in close
relationships in the same contexts – probably had the same makers. Chapter 6
substantiates this theory. In the meantime, it is reiterated here that studies of all
types of ceramic material, not just in the Koma Land region, but at every
archaeological site, should be integrated. As Berns has pointed out using West
African contexts, individuals with the skillset to make pottery vessels almost
certainly had the capability, and the opportunity, to experiment with the
production of figurines (1993: 136). Here, Berns was speaking explicitly about
women, arguing against the historic androcentric perception that figurines were a
product of the male (ritual) domain, and the pottery, a (domestic) product of the
women’s (1993: 136), but the point is also relevant more generally.
2.2.3 Who were the ‘Koma Landers’?
Early attempts to address this question did not focus on gender, which Anquandah
acknowledged could not be concretely determined (1998: 103), but on ethnicity.
The pottery was described as the product of a “distinctive ancient ethnic group”
(Anquandah 1998: 101), and problematically, the tool of choice for identifying it
was ethnographic analogy, set within a culture historic framework (Anquandah and
55
Van Ham 1985). This ethnic group and their material was labelled the “Koma-Bulsa”
complex, as outlined in Chapter 1.2.2.
In archaeology, culture history developed as a classificatory system for artefacts
(and by extension, their makers), and led to the production of typologies based on
patterns of variation in excavated material. It worked from the position that the
following are true: (a) changes in material culture are gradual; and (b) that artefact
variation is a product of time (Jones 1996: 72), presumptions that created “what is
essentially an illusion of bounded, uniform cultural entities” (Jones 1996: 73). Stahl
has argued that the underlying principles of culture history still remain a critical
element of most interpretive frameworks of West African ceramics (Stahl 2001: 19).
Typology – the practice of grouping artefacts by shared characteristics into types,
each of which is mutually-exclusive – was the fundamental tenet of culture history
(Adams and Adams 1991: 214). It remains the basis of ceramics analysis in
archaeology (Hall 1984: 262; Orton and Hughes 2013: 82; Rice 2015: 244), including
the YK10/11 pottery assemblage. Nevertheless, the contexts and manner of its
application have evolved. Unlike in culture historic analyses, typology has been
used in Chapter 4 as one component of the ceramic analytical tool-kit, rather than
the sole product of it. Its use as a functional method of identifying entire cultures
(Adams 1981: 41) has been deliberately abandoned.
These culture historic processes can be seen in the practices and interpretations of
Anquandah (1998), Kröger (1988), and Scheutz et al. (2016). In these instances, the
‘bounded, uniform cultural entities’ that Jones described are represented in the
perception that Koma Land’s material culture has remained relatively unchanged
and can be linearly traced from past to present peoples. Possibly, these attempts to
anchor the present in the past were designed to prove that the population that
produced the figurines was indigenous; many colonial (and indeed, later) historians
of West African history wrote narratives that portrayed cultural and technological
complexity in Africa as the creation of non-Africans (see Section 2.2.5). However,
applying the ethnographic present to the archaeological past in order to try and
determine ethnicity is just as problematic. Firstly, it presents the society (or
societies) in question as unchanging, or, timeless (Coombes 1994; Hall 2002;
56
MacEachern 2015: 25, 32; Wynne-Jones and Fleischer 2015: 12). Secondly, it
presumes modern, academic understandings of ethnicity, identity, and individuality
are compatible with historic ones.
Comparisons of the archaeological material and its manufacturing methods were
made with the modern Bulsa’s own possessions and ceramic processes (Anquandah
1998: 111). These comparisons were direct. The Bulsa people and culture appeared
“to provide this missing link with Iron Age Koma Land”, a fact “most clearly
demonstrated in the evidence of domestic pottery” (Anquandah 1998: 111).
Anquandah evidenced this by using the Bulsa’s own pottery forms and functions as
a comparative framework into which the Koma pottery was set (Anquandah 1998:
112).
From this basis, personal drinking vessels, food and shea-oil storage vessels (termed
“amphora”), flat-based bowls, perforated vessels for steaming and grilling food, or
for “charring/ dispensing medicinal herbs”, and vessels for storing beer and water,
were all identified in the Koma Land assemblage (Anquandah 1998: 112). Other
similarities were also noted: the iron artefacts from both communities were
compared (Anquandah 1998: 97, 101), and resemblances between the Koma
figurines’ accoutrements, such as jewellery, clothing, and hairstyles, were identified
as present in the modern Bulsa population (Anquandah 1998: 124, 163, 165). In a
more recent article, Anquandah again made similar arguments, directly equating
the figurines’ “iconography” with the practices, customs, and possessions of the
Bulsa, and arguing, subsequently, for the figurines’ association with “ancestral
veneration and totemic observances” (Anquandah 2006).
Anquandah was not alone in his aim to identify the ethnicity of the ancient
inhabitants of Koma Land. Kröger made similar observations, but argued that many
of the practices visible in the Koma pottery, such as the use of stamp and comb
decoration, had been discontinued by the Bulsa (1988: 138). Scheutz et al.’s art
historical analysis of a collection of unprovenanced Koma figurines led the authors
to conclude that the Gan (or Ga) an ethnolinguistic group populating the southeast
of Ghana, had historically migrated north, settled in the Koma region, and created
the figurines (2016: 44). This interpretation was made on the basis of stylistic
57
parallels – the cone-headed type figurines, and the imagery of snakes – evident in
both the Koma figurines and those produced by the Ga (Scheutz et al. 2016: 44).
There is no archaeological evidence to support this interpretation, however, which
can be criticised for its selective use of evidence, and focus only on visual style. The
Ga’s own oral traditions, which state that they migrated into southern Ghana from
southern Nigeria around the 16th century AD (Boahen 1999: 204; Henderson-
Quartey 2002: 49-50), also contradicts Scheutz et al.’s theory. The earliest
radiocarbon date for Koma Land is in the 6th century AD (Asamoah-Mensah 2013:
84).
Anquandah’s (1998), Kröger’s (1988), and Scheutz et al’s (2016) interpretive
approach was borne out of the culture historic tenet that variation in artefacts was
a consequence of population change or gradual stylistic change over time, whilst
stylistic similarities were irrefutable proof of production by the same group. Thus,
specific historic cultures and ethnicities could be identified and singled out by
comparing the stylistic similarities and differences in their assemblages. For this
reason, Scheutz et al. identified stylistic similarities in the Ga and Koma figurines as
evidence of their mutual creation (2016: 44), and Anquandah and Kröger felt
justified in arguing that the ancient Koma artefacts graduated into those of the
modern Bulsa (1998: 97, 101, 124, 163, 165; Kröger 1988: 138). Of course,
Anquandah and Kröger (1988) were writing in a period when Koma Land had only
been dated to the 16th century AD (Anquandah 1987b: 171; Anquandah and Van
Ham 1985: 34). Nevertheless, this critique is still relevant.
Having examined the arguments and practices of those that sought to recognise
ethnicity from the Koma Land material, it is important to deconstruct these
practices and their underlying theories. Three aspects have been identified: (a) the
culture historic perception that stylistic variation was a product of sweeping
change, and thus, in opposition, that similarities were evidence of cultural stasis; (b)
that ethnic groups were wholly defined by their material culture, and could, in
consequence, be fully identified from it; and (c) that it is appropriate to directly
associate ethnographic and archaeological entities with one another, regardless of
their chronology.
58
Point (a) is addressed in detail in Section 2.4, but has also been highlighted here to
show its direct influence on Anquandah’s interpretations and theoretical
framework. Point (c) is discussed in the following Section, 2.2.4, which examines the
historic and current roles of ethnography and ethnoarchaeology in West African
archaeology, including both their contribution to this thesis, and the discussion of
recent literature, which has begun to problematise the theoretical origins of
ethnoarchaeology, and question its relevance for archaeologists. The remainder of
this section will consider point (b).
The ability to identify specific ethnicities from archaeological remains has been
severely called into question in recent years (Blench 2016; Dores Cruz 2011; Insoll
2015: 218; Jones 1997; Lane 2016; Lucy 2005: 86; Richard and MacDonald 2016;
Stahl 1991). Dores Cruz, for example, used 19th to 20th century AD Banda in Ghana
to demonstrate the problematic nature of identifying ethnicity from the material
record (2011). Originally a colonial endeavour, Dores Cruz argued that using specific
pottery-making techniques and aesthetic practices to pinpoint ethnic groups both
in Sub-Saharan Africa and the African diaspora was overly-simplistic and denied
both the complexity and fluidity of identity and identity formation – whether on an
individual scale, or larger – (Cruz 2011: 338) and the contribution made by more
recent ethnography on the continent. Particularly, ethnographic ceramic studies by
archaeologists such as Gosselain and Livingstone Smith (Gosselain 1992b, 2000,
2008, 2010, 2014; Gosselain et al. 2008). These have illustrated that diversity in the
ceramic chaîne opératoire may be the consequence of human preferences,
marketing, adaptation, taught and learned behaviours, and uncontrollable factors
within the pottery-making methodology, such as firing temperature, rather than
differences that stem from belonging to different ethnic groups (Gosselain 1992b,
2000, 2008, 2010, 2014; Gosselain et al. 2008; Jones 2002: 94).
Similarly, Stahl’s own examination of ethnolinguistic groups in Ghana’s Banda
region revealed that those groups’ own conception of ethnicity was fluid and
changeable, because of the adoption of individuals from other descent groups (as
war-captives, refugees, or political migrants), and by extension, these individuals’
practices and traditions (1991: 267). The changing concepts and criteria of
59
particular ethnicities led Stahl to muse “how far back in time may we legitimately
employ contemporary ethnic or cultural labels in our reconstruction of the past?”
(1991: 268).
Mayor has used case studies of ethnicity from the Niger Bend to argue that where
communities had a long, continuous period of occupation, it is possible to identify
historic ethnic groups on the basis of artefact variability (2010b: 8). Particularly, the
variety (or consistency) in pottery forms, forming techniques, and decorations,
especially roulettes (Mayor 2010b: 23-27). Similarly, for Central Africa, De Maret
has argued that the history of ethnic groups could be identified using pottery styles,
“linking the pottery groups from the past with the ethnic groups of the present”
(2005: 436). Referring again to Stahl’s analysis (1991), however, is it apparent that
continuity of practice cannot be directly associated with continuity of meaning
behind that practice (Stahl 1991: 252-266). Conversely, in other instances, the self-
identity of some ethnic groups in Banda remained constant even when they
incorporated new practices (including new ceramic styles) from neighbouring
ethnicities or those of adopted descent (Stahl 1991: 252-266). Elsewhere, a seminal
study on Nubian ceramics by Adams made evident that variation in pottery styles
was independent of major historical changes (Adams 1979).
The definition of ethnicity itself has evolved to reflect such variable practices.
Traditionally, it was defined as meaning groups of the same origin or descent with
shared social, cultural, and linguistic practices (Lucy 2005: 86). Subsequently, it has
altered from being “some inherent characteristic” to “more a way of
behaving…something that has to be learnt, and it may well be fluid, both over an
individual’s lifetime, and depending on the contexts in which people interact” (Lucy
2005: 86; see also Stahl 1991). The shift from fixedness to fluidity is central to much
of the literature discussing ethnicity in archaeology, regardless of whether the focus
is a site- or regionally-specific case study, or a generalised overview of the topic
(Dores Cruz 2011; Jones 1997; Insoll 2015: 218; Lane 2016; Lucy 2005; Robertshaw
2000; Stahl 1991).
It is also recognised that identifying ethnicity using the archaeological record can
have political and ideological repercussions. Stylistic similarities in otherwise
60
incomparable ancient and modern material assemblages caused some – including
Anquandah – to conclude that the ethnic group for both sets of material was the
same (Anquandah 1998: Coombes 1994). Historically, this has led some to the belief
that stylistic similarities in chronologically-disparate material was equivalent with
lack of change, and lack of development, and that the creators of the modern
assemblage were timeless, or fossilised (Coombes 1994; Hall 2002; Lane 2005: 25;
MacEachern 1996: 245, 2015: 25, 32; Wynne-Jones and Fleischer 2015: 12). In other
parts of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa, historic studies of ethnicity have
been appropriated by groups with particular political agendas, very often to the
severe detriment of those perceived of as outsiders, or of the ‘wrong’ ethnicity (De
Maret 2005: 433; Rathje et al. 2002: 529-530).
Certainly, it is argued throughout this thesis that the pottery and figurine makers
were one and the same, and that the ceramics so far excavated from Koma Land
sites were produced by people with shared manufacturing techniques and styles.
Yet, there is not adequate evidence to make the leap from inhabitants with shared
practices to a distinct, particular group, which can be identified, defined, and
labelled by one element of its material culture. ‘Material culture’ is, in itself, a term
which demonstrates how archaeologists have historically perceived the artefacts
they excavate – culture made material – and should be used with caution, or
perhaps, discarded.
As such, the term ‘Koma Landers’ is not used to describe the inhabitants of Koma
Land in this thesis, nor has any attempt been made to determine ethnicity (see
Chapter 5.6). Instead, they are referred to generally as the inhabitants, peoples,
population(s), societies, and groups, as has been the practice of previous
archaeologists working in the area (Insoll et al. 2013). ‘Koma Landers’ is not used
because it implies a discrete, bounded group, and it is culturally deterministic.
Similarly, (as discussed in Chapters 5.6, and 7.3) there has been no attempt to infer
sex or gender from any of the Iron Age Koma Land material. Anquandah observed
that whilst women in West Africa are, typically, the pottery makers – a point
substantiated by the majority of ethnographic literature on West African pottery
(e.g. Berns 1993; Casey 2010: 89; Crossland and Posnansky 1978: 82; Frank 1994;
61
Gosselain 2011: 213, 2014: 900, 2016: 37; Insoll 2010: 100; although see Gosselain
2015 for a discussion of Hausa communities in which potters are predominantly
male) – it was not possible to determine this from any of the evidence available.
Anquandah’s outlook is shared here. Whilst in some Iron Age Koma settlement
contexts, intramural burials have been discovered, there is, as yet, no published
osteoarchaeological record of their biological sex; and of course, sex and gender are
not equivalents. Nkumbaan’s analysis of such burials from Tando Fagusa includes
interpretations of gender based on the direction the remains were facing, drawn
from ethnographic studies of known northern Ghanaian burial practices (Nkumbaan
2016: 201). This interpretation has been problematised in Chapter 7.3, however. It
is argued that whilst burial orientation might be linked to sex and gender, this
should not be presumed in ancient contexts from modern practices.
2.2.4 Ethnography and ethnoarchaeology
Ethnographic analogy is a tool that has been in use since archaeology’s inception
(Lane 2005: 24). Paradoxically, it has been used both to support the construction of
Western paradigms and presumptions about past societies (David and Kramer
2001: 14; Lane 2005: 24; MacEachern 1996: 246), and deconstruct them (Kramer
1985: 78, 87; Livingstone Smith 2000: 22). Which depends on what point in the
history of archaeological research in Sub-Saharan Africa is being investigated. Early
researchers sought contemporary examples from Sub-Saharan Africa – such as the
Kalahari San – to illuminate interpretations of European prehistory (Lane 2005: 25;
MacEachern 1996: 246). A practice comparable to Anquandah’s attempt to
superimpose the archaeology of Koma Land onto the modern Bulsa, in a bid to
create a continuous ethnohistoric narrative for the region (1998).
Later researchers rightly problematised and abandoned this practice, and
reinvented ethnographic analogy, and its ethnoarchaeological application, as a
means of gaining insight into concepts and cosmologies associated with actions,
practices, worldviews, artefacts, and technologies that would not typically be visible
in the material record (David and Kramer 2001; Stark 2003: 195). In the last three
decades, the combination of ethnographic and experimental archaeology, has, for
62
example, generated useful understanding of ceramic technical processes and
disproven empirical assumptions about particular stages of the pottery chaîne
opératoire (Gosselain 1992a; Livingstone Smith 2000: 22).
The definitions of ethnoarchaeology are numerous, and sometimes contradictory
(David and Kramer 2001: 12), but it is defined here as the application of
ethnographic insight to archaeological contexts in order to gain insight into
alternative, unfamiliar worldviews and practices. This is the manner in which it has
been employed in this thesis. There is a thin line, however, between generating
awareness and understanding of the unfamiliar, and transforming the past into a
place categorised by the unfamiliar; arguments both Lane (2005: 25) and
MacEachern (1996: 243) have made using variations of Hartley’s famous quote “the
past becomes ‘a foreign country [where] they do things differently” (Hartley 1953:
1, in Lane 2005: 25; see also MacEachern 1996: 243).
Within ethnoarchaeology, ceramic ethnoarchaeology is a sub-discipline that has
focused on examining pottery-making peoples and using the insights gained to
analyse the manufacturing processes of pottery in the archaeological record. The
central focus of these studies are issues of variation, style, and choice, which
ethnoarchaeological studies have proven to be fluid and independent of historical
changes (Adams 1979; Ever and Hoffman 1988: 740; Hoffman 1989; Keightley 1987;
Miller 1985: 2). Advocates of behavioural archaeology hold that the potter’s
technical, functional choices were determined by their environment and the
decisions they made in reaction to it (Arnold, D. E. 1985; Arnold P. J. 1991, 2000;
Kolb 1989; Skibo 1993; Williams 1992). This school of thought is also known as
ceramic ecology; a term coined by Matson (1965) to disprove the notion that the
environment is a “neutral variable” in pottery-making (Arnold, D.E. 1985: 1).
Alternatively, cultural proponents argue that cultural choice is embedded in pottery
production, which itself is set within a framework of local traditions (Hodder 1981:
215), with behavioural archaeology critiqued as “deterministic” and functional
(Gosselain 1992b: 561; Miller 1985: 4).
Contrast, for instance, the view that pottery decoration is a “visual expression of
the underlying structures of belief and thought” in societies like those of the
63
Mandara in Northern Cameroon – to the extent that it offers “the best evidence of
‘ethnicity’ generally preserved in the archaeological record” (David et al. 1988: 378)
– with the revelation that some potters choose a design for no other reason than its
personal aesthetic appeal (Gosselain 1992b: 574). In a critique of David et al.’s
equivalence of pots and people on the basis of the presence of shared terminology
for bodily and pottery adornment, Wandibba noted that whilst the researchers
emphasised the significance of decoration, they had also noted that the purchasers
of the pots were less interested in the decoration than the pot’s quality (Wandibba
1988: 741) Returning momentarily to Stahl’s use of ethnography in Ghana’s Banda
region to demonstrate that ethnicity is a fluid concept (1991), it is maintained
throughout this thesis that ethnicity cannot be identified or defined by a set of
artefacts, or by stylistic characteristics within a set of artefacts.
Alternatively, “To hell with ethnoarchaeology!”; is a paper in which Gosselain has
emphatically contended that ethnoarchaeology produces no tangible benefit to
archaeological investigations, and should be entirely removed from its analytical
repertoire (2016). Despite reinventions of ethnoarchaeology, Gosselain has argued
that the evolutionary concepts underpinning its inception still exist and have
“continued to haunt Western thought” (2016: 119). Ceramic ethnoarchaeology
does not escape this criticism (Gosselain 2016: 118), nor does Gosselain’s own
previous work (2016: 119).
In summary, Gosselain identifies the fundamental issues with ethnoarchaeology as
theoretical and methodological: communities chosen for study for
ethnoarchaeological purposes are often those perceived to best fit comparisons
with the ancient society in question (Gosselain 2016: 119); individual, anecdotal
testimonies are extrapolated to entire communities (2016: 221), societies are often
perceived as “traditional” and “static”, with overemphasis on the importance of
social and cultural elements such as collective memory, the symbolism integral to
everyday social praxis, and ritual practices, because these are less prevalent
elements in Western societies, and thus Western archaeologists pay greater
attention to them (2016: 222). The benefits of ethnoarchaeology are derivatives of
“theoretical and conceptual issues generated outside this sub-discipline” including
64
its use with experimental archaeology, and its contribution to the understanding of
technological manufacturing techniques (Gosselain 2016: 224). Whilst others have
included caveats in their discussions of ethnoarchaeology (Lane 2005; MacEachern
1996), none have advocated its complete elimination from archaeological praxis.
In the face of Gosselain’s critique, the self-reflexive challenge here is reconciling
criticisms of earlier uses of ethnography in archaeological contexts, such as
Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s (1985), with the fact that ethnography has also been
used in this thesis. In Chapter 5, for example, Mather’s examination of shrine
abandonment among the Kusasi in Ghana’s Upper East Region (Mather 1999) was
used to inform interpretations of the fragmentation and reuse of sherds in the
YK10/11 assemblage. In the same chapter, sources on shrine use in the Tong Hills
(Insoll 2008; Insoll et al. 2013), plus my own personal observations from the region,
were used to inform understandings of organic material in shrines, and the role of
artefact-deposition in the creation of a shrine’s structure.
Speaking candidly, the rationale behind the use of ethnographic observations to
better comprehend the Iron Age YK10/11 assemblage – whether derived from first-
hand observations, or from secondary sources – was from a desire to gain
experience and understanding of a completely unknown sphere. As a British-born
researcher, there were no personal experiences that could be called upon to
meaningfully contextualise shrines; and as site-types that are notoriously
problematic to identify in the material record (Insoll 2015: 154; Mather 2003: 23;
Stahl 2008: 160) examining only archaeological examples would have made a poor
frame of reference for the interpretation of almost 10,000 shrine mound pottery
sherds, and other associated finds. Indeed, the use of ethnographic studies assisted
in the identification of the YK08 and YK10/11 mounds as shrines to begin with
(Insoll et al. 2013: 15, 19, 23; Kankpeyeng 2017), before other evidence supporting
this interpretation came to light (Insoll et al. 2016; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492;
Robinson et al. 2017).
The disparity between early ethnographic practices and ethnography’s use in
modern ethnoarchaeology – including in this thesis – is the existence of self-
reflexive awareness and of changing contexts of use. Processes and actions have
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been studied to gain insight into how material assemblages may have developed,
been produced and structured, and how they engaged in daily life; but the (culture
historic) perception that similarities in actions and materials between a modern and
historic group meant chronological consistency and changelessness is absent.
Progress in African ethnoarchaeology undertaken since the 1970s and 1980s has
also been made with regards to inclusivity, with the “increased involvement” of
African and female academics in the discipline (MacEachern 1996: 288).
Nevertheless, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion as to the merits of this
archaeological sub-discipline; ethnoarchaeology and ethnography are ingrained in
archaeological practice, and have been ‘good to think with’, but Gosselain’s
arguments resonate with criticisms made earlier about Anquandah’s own
ethnographic practices (1998). At present, it is maintained that ethnographic insight
is of value, but it is also acknowledged that Gosselain (2016) has instigated a
necessary and meaningful debate about the use of historic practices, of which
ethnoarchaeology is one, and their application to situations they were not originally
created for. In resolution, the need for archaeological self-reflexion is paramount,
not only for ethnographers and ethnoarchaeologists creating and enacting
fieldwork methodologies, but for the archaeologists ‘tapping in’ to both as an
illustrative and experiential resource for their own projects.
2.2.5 Contextualising Sub-Saharan ‘figurine essentialism’
It is easy to criticise earlier publications for omitting methods or perspectives later
perceived as indispensable to the archaeological process, or for pursing approaches
now unfashionable or irrelevant. Yet, it is crucial in a literature review to evaluate
not just the approaches to an archaeological site, assemblage, methodology, or
interpretation, but to examine and to understand the contexts which influenced
those approaches and led them to develop into the practice or perspective
subsequently critiqued.
Thus far, the pre-2000s literature on Iron Age Koma Land has been critiqued for (a)
its emphasis on figurines and the consequent neglect of the remaining material
culture, including pottery; (b) the use of figurines in the construction of superficial
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and de-contextualised art historical narratives; (c) and the ensuing arbitrary
assignation of artefact-types on the basis of form, without regard for material or
context; (d) the materialisation of these methodological divides in the material’s
interpretations, leading, for example, to the perception that figurines are inherently
ritual artefacts, and the pottery sherds and vessels are domestic ones; and (e), a
lack of methodological transparency, coherency, and standardisation.
To understand the historic emphasis on figurines in Koma Land, and indeed, West
Africa more widely, it is necessary to understand the political, cultural, and social
climates of the time. The concept of “figurine essentialism” has already been
introduced in this thesis, and its pertinence is discussed in Chapter 6.1. To
summarise, however, the phrase was coined to describe archaeological approaches
to Neolithic figurines discovered in the Balkans (Bailey 2005). Arguably, the
penchant for figurines in West African contexts has been created not just from
archaeological preferences, but initially, as an understandable response to negative
political and cultural discourses about the African continent and its history.
Previously, colonial narratives maintained the evolutionary stance that the African
continent was without history; “a traditional present connected seamlessly with a
relatively unchanging past” (Stahl 2001: 2), because it did not fit in with Western
concepts of organised society and was perceived to be on a lower rung of the state-
formation (read: civilisation) step-ladder (MacEachern 2005: 450). For much, if not
all, of West Africa, the academic perception was that “contact with the ‘outside’,
and therefore ‘history’, was perceived as recent and the source of only superficial
change”, whether or not this view was consciously or unconsciously expressed
(Stahl 2001: 2). Elsewhere, Kröger decried the perception, widely held before the
discovery of the Koma Land figurines, that the whole of Northern Ghana was
“unhistorical” (1988: 142, my translation).
Thus, early historical approaches to Sub-Saharan African archaeology and history
viewed development as a consequence of Islamic and European influence and
contact. Reading early publications, it was accepted without question that social,
technological, and artistic innovations in Africa were adaptations from, or
introductions by, non-African entities (e.g. see Arkell 1944; Trevor-Roper 1969;
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Wilks 1993; and examples in Ashton 2011; Coombes 1994; De Maret 2005;
Neumann 2005: 252; Shaw 1970: 260; Stahl 2001: 8-11; Willett 1967: 30).
Comparing African and European history, in his publication West Africa before the
Europeans, Davies remarked that “in Africa culture seems to be more static; there
have been no big states and no important wars before the coming of Islam” (Davies
1967: 32).
Tellingly, even in the 21st century AD, a visit to a museum such as Geneva’s Barbier-
Mueller Museum reveals modern, ‘ethnographic’ Sub-Saharan African material
displayed alongside Koma Land figurines, and artefacts from the European Neolithic
and earlier; all described as coming from “primitive” societies (Barbier-Mueller
2015). In London’s British Museum, examples of 16th century AD bronzes looted
from Benin are on display alongside West African metal and ceramic artefacts from
the past century. There are similar issues with the African displays in Manchester
Museum. Hall similarly criticised London’s Royal Academy’s 1995 exhibition Africa –
The Art of a Continent and the commentary that arose from it, which “cast Africa’s
history and culture, as at best, an amusing side-show, a vast colourful craft market,
a mass of people whose purpose is merely to survive” (Hall 2002: 440).
Arguably, therefore, pottery analysis was not a priority for early archaeological
researchers in Koma Land because the figurines represented a much more
immediate, impactful form of evidence in an academic and wider world that in
some contexts appeared to still require convincing of Sub-Saharan Africa’s cultural
and technological complexity, and social and political longevity. At the time, it was
necessary to do so within existing frameworks. This is evidenced in later articles on
the Koma Land material in art historic publications, in which Anquandah
deliberately sought the opinions of known art historians and critics as to the
figurines’ technical complexity and conformation to Western aesthetic principles
(Anquandah 2002, 2003; see also Dagan 1989).
It is to Anquandah’s credit that he was determined to give Ghana’s Koma
archaeology the widespread attention it deserved. However, as he himself later
concluded, appreciating the figurines’ complexity is better achieved with contextual
understanding. To this end, he later called for archaeologists and art historians to
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disregard Western standards and to pursue the development of what he has
termed “ethnoaesthetic” studies, in which Sub-Saharan African material is analysed
using Sub-Saharan African aesthetic criteria (Anquandah 2014: 215). This point is
returned to in Chapter 6.1.
2.3 Current research
Renewed research of Koma Land has refined many of Anquandah’s early theories
and created new insights. These have included the recognition of different site-
types – settlement and shrine mounds – as well as significantly increased
understanding of the figurines’ functions as ritual and medicinal agents and
facilitators. This was enabled by computed tomography of a selection of figurines
(Insoll et al. 2013: 13, 25; Insoll et al. 2016), as well as DNA analysis of residues
within their incisions; the first analysis of its type for a site in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Robinson et al. 2017). The interdisciplinary nature of investigations into Koma Land
is likely to continue (pers comm. B. Kankpeyeng, July 2017). Most recently,
archaeologists researching Iron Age Koma Land have collaborated with academics
from The University of Ghana’s Biophysics Department to analyse the potential
medicinal properties of local clays, with a view to furthering understanding of
potential ancient medicinal practices and ingredients in the region (Tiburu et al.
2017).
In this thesis, the YK10/11 assemblage is approached from a similar interdisciplinary
standpoint, with the use of exploratory X-ray fluorescence and scanning electron
microscopy, alongside statistical analysis and typology to gain greater
understanding of the pottery’s fabric. Further, the YK10/11 assemblage is
approached from the perspective that the study of the different types of ceramic
should be integrated, to divest archaeological understandings of the existing false
dichotomy between pottery vessels and sherds, and figurines, and between the
sacred and mundane.
Similarly, the pottery discs and other modified sherds should be contextualised by
their origins as pottery sherds, and preceding that, as pottery vessels, rather than
viewed in isolation as tokens or weights. Finally, the pottery assemblage should not
69
be examined in isolation, but as a component part of the shrine from whence it
came. In later chapters (5 and 6), it is argued that the shrine and the material within
it were not separate entities. Instead, the YK10/11 material was the shrine. The
YK10/11 pottery sherds, which were the most abundant type of artefact found
within the shrine, were integral to its structure, functions, and meanings. Whilst
originally created for domestic purposes, the evidence for the pottery’s use, reuse,
and deposition transcends traditional perspectives of domesticity, and highlights
the sherds’ role as valuable social, cultural, and religious resources; not as mundane
artefacts to be discarded once fragmented.
The automatic application of the ritual/ domestic framework by authors in historic
publications has created unnecessary theoretical baggage, as it is necessary for
their successors not just to present evidence for a site, and to interpret and
contextualise it, but to justify how and why Western structural criteria are
irrelevant. The need to do this is not borne solely from the fact that previous
research accepted and used such principles, but also because this framework is still
a pervasive, if unconscious, tenet in archaeology. This issue has been recognised
elsewhere. McNiven, for instance, has argued that such perceptions are a
consequence of Western ethnocentrism (2013: 561).
Similarly, Brück has argued against the deliberate attempt to identify ritual in the
material record because ritual is ingrained and the boundaries between the two are
often indistinct (1999: 314, 317). Discussing materiality, Joyce has likewise argued
that archaeologists need to distance themselves from the notion that “material
things stand as vehicles of cultural meanings, waiting to be decoded and to yield
their singular sense” (2008: 26). This issue of singularity has been central to the
ritual/ domestic divide.
The use of object biography within this thesis is an endeavour to refute this
singularity. Indeed, according to Kopytoff’s notion of the “biographies of things” it is
not possible for an artefact to have only a ‘singular sense’, or to be entirely
understood from examining only one element of its existence (Kopytoff 1986: 66).
Instead, all “processes and cycles of production, exchange and consumption had to
be looked at as a whole” (Gosden and Marshall 1999: 170). In this thesis, the
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concept of object biography is manifest not only via the chaîne opératoire, which,
as is evident in Chapter 4, has been used as a means of structuring analysis, but also
via the social and other networks that the YK10/11 pottery was embedded in,
experienced, and accumulated.
The chaîne opératoire, is, by definition, a sequence; but whilst the pottery
manufacturing process may have – broadly – followed a series of typical stages,
such as collecting the clay, processing it, and so on, it is emphasised here that an
object’s biography is not, in itself, a linear entity (Joy 2009: 542). Within each stage
it is possible for several biographies, and for several types of biography, including
technical, economic, social relations, identity politics, and religious biographies, to
exist simultaneously (Kopytoff 1986: 68). Thus, the concept of the chaîne opératoire
is combined with that of object biographies to create a complete picture of the
production process and the wider contexts in which it was set, as well as the
artefact’s subsequent life-history, agency, and human-thing relationships (Joy 2008:
545; Joyce and Lopiparo 2005: 369).
Conversely, Walker has argued that the life of an object is linear and sequential;
following “a unique chain of behavioural events that begins with its acquisition as
raw materials” and “ends when someone disposes of or loses the object, and it
enters the material record” (1995: 64). Yet, this perspective implies that every
object’s biography is set within a linear narrative that has a tangible, and possibly
predictable, start and end. In so doing, it has failed to consider situations which
extend beyond the intrapersonal, such as episodes of conflict, involuntary
movement, and abandonment. This scenario is relevant to the YK10/11 shrine
mound, which the evidence suggests was abruptly abandoned (see Chapters 5.5
and 7.4.4). As Joy points out, artefact biography “does not necessarily have to
follow a coherent narrative” (2009: 545).
Walker’s definition also does not entertain the possibility of artefacts with post-
deposition biographies, but ends with the point at which “it enters the material
record” (1995: 64), which, incidentally, heralds the beginning of the archaeological
process and the archaeologist’s involvement. It is argued here that an object’s
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biography does not end with its deposition. Indeed, how should (or could) artefacts
made purposefully for deposition be conceptualised, if this were so?
Further, it is maintained that a deposited artefact continues to sustain its biography
– whether as a contributor to a larger entity, or as an accumulator of historical
narrative in its own right (Gosden and Marshall 1999: 176) – for as long as it is
remembered. The act of deposition itself has often been perceived as a deliberate
act of memory-making, or conversely, of forgetting (Joyce 2008a: 25, 32; Mills 2008:
82). In British Bronze Age contexts, Jones has argued that the concealment of an
artefact through deposition may have been a deliberate act to draw attention to it
(2010: 117). Thus, deposition was not necessarily an act designed to silence,
negate, or conclude an artefact’s biography. Archaeologists should also consider
whether the context in which an artefact was deposited indicates whether it was
intended to be a temporary or terminal deposition place.
Fragmentation and enchainment have also been linked to memory-making
(Chapman 2008). In this context, fragmentation (usually) describes the deliberate
breakage of an artefact, and enchainment, the process of fragmentation for the
purpose of socially – and spatially –meaningful dispersal of that artefact within/
throughout a landscape (Chapman 2008: 188). This may involve curation and
circulation practices, in which fragments “follow separate biographical pathways”
and act as a mnemonic for the whole object (Chapman 2008: 199). In Chapter 6.5,
these concepts are expounded and have been used critically to think through the
accidental and deliberate fragmentation of the pottery sherds and figurines, and
the relationships been this material and the YK10/11 shrine. Accidental breakage is
not a concept that Chapman’s enchainment theory has addressed, but it is used in
Chapter 6 to do so.
2.4 Archaeological approaches to ceramics in the West African Iron Age
Koma Land’s early archaeological and art historical narratives were a microcosm of
the topics and issues that have defined historic attitudes and approaches to
ceramics in West African archaeology. Thematically, many early West African
historical syntheses believed in sweeping change – of peoples, cultures,
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technologies (Ashley 2013: 77; Brandt and Fattovich 1990: 101, 107) – and
discussions of this change inordinately projected West Africa as a static entity
subject only to external influence (Ashley 2013: 78; Davies 1967: 32). This was not a
phenomenon limited to West Africa, but was a major component of many early
archaeological narratives in Europe and elsewhere; see, for example Childe’s
discussion of the urban and agricultural “revolutions” that swept Neolithic Europe
and the Near East with sharp population increases, the creation of urban centres,
and the swift uptake of new technology (Childe 1925: 235, 1950), Cole’s prosaically
titled The Neolithic Revolution (1959), or Piggott’s comparison of the “phases” of
advancement of societies in Mesopotamia and Europe (1970: 64), of Greek “centres
of higher civilisation” that expanded outwards (1970: 107) and his lexicon of
“transmission”, “movement”, and “change” (1970: passim).
Evidence of change or of population movement was provided by discontinuities and
variations in material assemblages (including pottery). This was a fundamental
precept of culture history, which, as discussed in Section 2.2.3, used stylistic
variations between material assemblages as proof of the existence of distinct
ethnocultural identities (Jones 1996: 73). Anquandah was working within this
perspective; the lack of variation between the Bulsa and Koma ceramic styles – the
lack of change – was sufficient evidence to conclude that the Bulsa were the
“missing link” with Iron Age Koma Land (1998: 111). In ethnographic contexts,
however, pottery styles often transcend one specific ethnic group (Druc 2013: 487;
Insoll 2015: 219), which in any case, may be distinguished by how the pottery was
used rather than its form or decoration, actions that are invisible in the material
record (Insoll 2015: 219; Sterner 1992: 178). Additionally, as discussed in Section
2.2.3, concepts of ethnicity were themselves often fluid (Stahl 1991).
The value attributed to pottery in early interpretations of West African history and
archaeology, as a vehicle for identifying and understanding cultural entities, has
been heavily offset by the fact early publications on West Africa often ignored or
examined it only superficially (Bellis 1972 [1978]: 12; Connah 2007; Garlake 1974:
148; McIntosh and McIntosh 1980: 16). Again, this is a criticism that has been
levelled at the early analyses of pottery from Koma Land (2.2.1).
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Universally, pottery sherds are almost always the most abundant type of artefact
excavated from post-prehistoric sites (Horejs et al. 2010: 9; Orton and Hughes
2013: 3), and the West African Iron Age is no exception (Anquandah 1987b: 174;
York 1973). Ironically, this is almost certainly why it was disregarded by
archaeologists. “Figurine essentialism” (Bailey 2005) was again at work, and it
seems relevant here to quote Kopytoff – “partly this is a matter of noticing the
exotic and taking the familiar for granted” (1986: 77) – not as to the archaeology,
but the attitudes of the archaeologists themselves. In the 1970s, Bellis had already
made this argument (1972 [1978]: 5-12), accusing archaeologists in West Africa of
succumbing to “the lure of [the] magnificence of grandeur” and following their own
particular interests and agendas rather than producing systematic and balanced
archaeological syntheses (Bellis 1972 [1978]: 10).
Some detailed examples illustrate this point. Research on figurines and potsherd-
pavements from Ile-Ife and related Middle Iron Age sites in southwestern Nigeria
began after the first excavations there in 1912 uncovered fired-clay figurines
(Garlake 1977: 57), and, later, potsherd-pavements (1974: 57). Yet, it took until the
1974 edition of The West African Journal of Archaeology for discussion of the
copious pottery assemblage to materialise (Eyo 1974; Garlake 1974: 57), although
this was only brief, and accompanied by the addendum that:
The attention of this report has perhaps focused too greatly on the more
alluring material recovered. This is no new occurrence: indeed, no studies of
the ordinary ceramics of ‘Classical’ Ife period have ever been published [sic]
(Garlake 1974: 148).
The early focus on figurines, and pot-sherd pavements, overlooked the simple fact
that the sherds, vessels, pavements, and figurines were made of the same material.
Currently, an excavation summary, including details of its pottery analysis, has been
published for excavations at Ile-Ife undertaken in 2010 (Babalola 2010: 36-42).
Research into Central Nigeria’s well-known Nok Culture, spanning at least 200 BC to
AD 500, can be similarly criticised (Rupp 2010: 67). Historical oversight of the
pottery vessels, in favour of human and anthropomorphic figurines, has meant that
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only in the last decade have archaeologists begun to conduct pottery-related
research on a complex the West African archaeological community has been aware
of for almost a century (Rupp 2010: 67). Recent thin-section analysis of pottery
sherds excavated from the same contexts as figurines revealed the two have a
“slightly different” material composition (Rupp 2010: 72), demonstrating the
importance of prompt, comprehensive studies on ceramics, and the valuable place
of archaeometric investigations in these.
The lack of pottery studies has also made it difficult for researchers to identify new
Nok sites (Rupp et al. 2005: 284). Currently, it is only possible to confirm a site is
part of the Nok Culture-complex if it contains the distinctive, easily identifiable
figurines; sites containing only pottery (and/or other types of non-figurine
material), are potentially being missed (Rupp et al. 2005: 284) because this material
has never been thoroughly characterised. There are clear repercussions to ignoring
parts of an assemblage.
Whilst a Koma Land site (YK10 settlement Mound D) without figurines has
successfully been identified (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 126), it was discovered in very
close proximity to – and probable association with – other figurine-producing sites
excavated during the YK10 field season (Insoll et al. 2010). As the archaeological
Koma Land region encompasses an area of approximately 150km2, a full
understanding of the pottery is necessary to prevent the same issue with the Nok
Culture repeating itself. Certainly, awareness of some Koma sites has been the
product of local inhabitants bringing figurines to the attention of archaeologists in
the region, and their excavation prompted by the same (e.g. Anquandah and Van
Ham 1985). As such, it is possible that other non-figurine sites have remained
unnoticed. A detailed pottery catalogue is an essential tool in these circumstances.
In other examples, the space Shaw devoted to describing various pot-types from
Igbo Ukwu in Nigeria fluctuated noticeably depending on how interesting he
perceived them to be (1970: 207-224). The anthropomorphic pottery, for example,
received detailed study, and the categories of plain sherds only one or two
sentences, resulting in an inconsistent analysis. Darling (1988a, 1988b), described
only the decorated sherds collected from the Kano State area of Nigeria. There was
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no mention of the plain sherds, (such as quantity, or fabric description), except for
the admission that some had been uncovered. When discussing anthropomorphic
pottery vessels from Obalara’s Land, also in Nigeria, Garlake placed them in the
same category as the figurines, and treated them distinctly from the remainder of
the pottery assemblage (1977); something that Anquandah, Cocle, and Scheutz et
al. have also done with Koma Land’s (dubious) examples of human and
anthropomorphic ‘vessel-figurines’ (Anquandah 1998: 182; Cocle 1991: 17-182;
Scheutz et al. 2016: 188-190; see Chapter 6.6).
As such, the research-culture pervading the early literature could fairly be
characterised as ad hoc. Firstly, many site reports were not officially published, but
were instead circulated in private work notes (Flight 1978a, 1978b, 1979) or in
closed-circle, subscription-only newsletters. For the best part of a decade, the
majority of West African site summaries, updates, and methodological and
theoretical discussions were circulated in brief articles in The West African
Archaeological Newsletter (1964-1969), which embargoed outside discussion or
publication of the contents to enable the contributors to develop their ideas, and to
publish (Shaw 1964: 2, 19, 1967: 1; this newsletter was the direct forerunner of the
West African Journal of Archaeology). Unfortunately, some never did, leaving brief
reports and summaries as successive researchers’ only sources. In other instances,
entire publications in prep never materialised, for example, Willett’s analysis of
Nigerian Ife pottery, as mentioned in Garlake (1977: 73). Non-publication has been
an issue of some duration; of 94 excavations conducted between 1933 to 1969,
Calvocoressi and York observed that whilst 50 had been published as “brief notes”,
at the time of writing, a further 36 were entirely unpublished (1971: 90-93).
Secondly, site explorations were not necessarily comprehensive or systematic. This
was a consequence not only of the medium of publication, but of individual
approaches, which included, but were not limited to, figurine-predilection. One of
the only recorded archaeological surveys in Liberia, for instance, was reported in a
four-page summary and had taken place in the archaeologist’s spare time (Atherton
1969). Neumann’s assessment of the forms, functions, and decorations of sherds
collected from across Sierra Leone concluded that the entire country contained only
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two or three pottery traditions (1966: 22); an assessment also restricted to four
pages, and without a published methodology. These are not atypical examples
(Anquandah 1987b; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985; Breternitz, 1968, 1975; Darling
1988a, 1988b; Eyo 1970, 1974; Garlake 1974, 1977; Momin 1989; Shaw 1970).
Of course, not all pottery analyses from this era can be so criticised. Crossland’s
comprehensive analysis of pottery from 15th century AD Begho-B2 in Ghana, for
example, was exemplary (1989), as was York’s examination of New Buipe and
surrounding sites in Ghana’s Gonja region (1973); an analysis so detailed that at the
time, York felt the need to justify his “somewhat detailed account of the pottery”
(1973: 1; emphasis added). Similarly, McIntosh’s and McIntosh’s wide-ranging
methodology and detailed analysis of pottery from medieval Jenné-Jeno,
Hambarketolo, and Kaniana, all in Mali (McIntosh and McIntosh 1980; McIntosh
1995), set something of a precedent for cataloguing ceramics (e.g. Insoll 1996,
Insoll, MacLean et al. 2013).
Nevertheless, the implications of this ad hoc approach still resonate, and the most
pivotal issue is that of standardisation, or, rather, the lack of it. Standardisation – of
methods, and of terminology – “is a sine qua non for any meaningful inter-regional
comparisons between ceramic assemblages” (Haour et al. 2010: 3), which
“increases the likelihood of correct attribution [of pottery types] by others” (Barclay
2001: 2). Historically, archaeologists in West Africa have been concerned with the
consistency of their terms and methods (Myers 1965; Willett 1967; York 1967), with
comprehensive and systematic practice (Aleru 1993; York 1967), and with the
suitability and reproducibility of their recording methods (Hewes 1969; Myers
1965).
Conversely, this contrasts with the practices evident in numerous historical and
contemporary Iron Age West African pottery analyses, which use a variety of terms,
without always defining them. For example, Petit identified the presence of “rocker
stamping” in north western Benin (2005: 54), Park recorded “rocker-combed”
decoration in Timbuktu (2010: 8), and in Ghana, York noted the presence of
“dogtooth” patterned pottery (1973). In each instance, the reader was left to
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determine the term’s meaning without the benefit of illustrations, photographs, or
definitions.
At the most basic level, the failure to define terminology creates a situation in
which (a) the same type of decoration could exist under several different names; (b)
variations in a decorative technique might go unnoticed because it has not been
thoroughly documented; (c) the reader’s interpretation may differ considerably
from the writer’s intended meaning; and (d), the lack of standardisation means
there is no framework in place to orientate and contextualise new pottery research,
hindering the ability of researchers to contribute information on the ceramics they
have analysed to the collective understanding of Iron Age West Africa. Historically,
these points have plagued understanding of roulette decorated sherds in West
African (and wider) contexts (Haour et al. 2010: 182; see also Hurley 1979 and
Soper 1985); an issue which has been discussed in Chapter 4.7.1; see also Appendix
14.
It is beyond the scope of this thesis to address all of these issues, and it is also
acknowledged that the desire for methodological standardisation is often
juxtaposed by the realities of working in the field. Here, the successful resolution of
methodological issues and obstacles may require a non-standard response, and,
indeed, an ad hoc approach. Nevertheless, this thesis has endeavoured to remain
understandable and transparent. To this end, Chapter 1 has offered a candid
discussion of the challenges that arose during fieldwork, and the modifications that
these issues led to. Further, Chapter 3 presents a detailed examination of the
methods used in this thesis, and the rationale behind them. Finally, throughout this
thesis, definitions of nomenclature, and illustrations, have been included.
2.5 Summary and conclusions: understanding past and present approaches to
Koma archaeology
The value of early archaeological research into Iron Age Koma Land was obscured
by the problematic theoretical approaches used to interpret it. These comprised
tenets of art and culture history that privileged the visual, the interesting, and
which wholly-defined entire cultures on the basis of particular artefact-categories.
Historically, the draw of figurines was undeniable; not just in Koma Land, but
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throughout West Africa. The implications of this practice still resonate, with studies
of pottery and figurines from the same sites disproportionate to one another, as
case studies above (Babalola 2010; Garlake 1974; Rupp 2005) have demonstrated.
This thesis’ purpose is to contribute to redressing this balance, via the analysis of
the YK10/11 pottery assemblage. Further, its purpose is to put the point already
repeatedly made in this thesis – that all types of ceramic artefact should be
analysed concurrently – into practice. Thus, the analysis of the YK10/11 pottery
assemblage (Chapter 4), and its uses, artefact-relationships, and deposition
contexts (Chapter 5), is reintegrated with the figurines in Chapter 6.
The figurines’ forms and functions are not privileged in Chapter 6, however, but are
comparatively analysed with the pottery in terms of their fabric, manufacturing
techniques, and depositional contexts. To further contextualise the YK10/11
assemblage, it is then critically compared in Chapter 7 to all of the known Koma
Land pottery assemblages (Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Nkumbaan 2016); with the
endeavour of both producing a wider characterisation of the pottery, and
determining whether the pottery from shrine and settlement contexts, their uses,
and treatments, can be differentiated.
Introducing or justifying archaeological research in West Africa with the observation
that no other work of its type has ever been conducted is a familiar refrain of
publications (Connah 1981: xv, 77; Davies 1967: 277; De Barros 1985: 20, 22; De
Corse 2012: 278; Dueppen 2012b: 115; Effah-Gyamfi 1985: 6; Insoll, MacLean et al.
2013: 13; MacEachern 2005: 459; McIntosh 1995: 130; Petit 2005: 1-2; Posnansky
1994: 373; Stahl 2001: 13). Nevertheless, it remains a fact that the comprehensive
analyses in this thesis – of the YK10/11 shrine mound pottery, of the pottery and
figurines, and of pottery from known shrine and settlement contexts – are the first
to be conducted for the Koma Land region.
Despite previous criticisms of the lack of pottery syntheses in West African
archaeology, it is apparent from the availability of current publications that this is
being rectified. In response to McIntosh and McIntosh, who in 1980 made the
complaint that “in many areas of West Africa, almost nothing is known of in
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developments of material culture, economy and technology during the two
millennia from c. 1000 BC to AD 1000” (McIntosh and McIntosh 1980: 16), over a
hundred publications relating to West African archaeological sites excavated in the
last three decades have been encountered during research for this thesis, the
majority of which contained ceramics analyses. An encouraging start; and one this
thesis has been able to contribute to.
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Chapter 3: Methodology
3.1 Introduction: research objectives and rationale
To recapitulate: the central research question was ‘what conclusions can we draw
about the motivations and identities of the Koma Land pottery and figurine
makers?’ and to complete this objective the following secondary questions were
devised:
1) What types of pottery vessels were being produced, in what quantities, and
what techniques were used to create them?
2) Does the choice of material and temper remain consistent across the
pottery assemblage?
3) Are the same sources/ types of clay chosen for both the pottery and the
figurines?
4) Was the same level of sophistication, and were the same stylistic choices
granted to both the pottery and the figurines?
The primary research question was deliberately open-ended because it was initially
unclear what could be expected from the YK10/11 pottery assemblage. As the first
analysis of its type, there were few other published Koma pottery sources that
could be referred to. Thus, the thesis’ aims could not be too specific. Open-ended
objectives, if used correctly, create a scenario in which the data directs the research
direction and design, because the project’s framework is shaped by the data rather
than the data being structured to fit the research objectives.
Granted, this approach was not entirely organic because there were questions in
mind from the outset, but the benefit of being open-ended here was that (a) these
objectives could be expanded and adapted, as occurred with the title of this thesis;
(b) it was easier to adapt the methodology in the field as the pottery assemblage,
its characteristics, and its limitations became known entities (and as was necessary;
see Chapter 1); and (c) it encouraged expansive data collection, which, whilst time
consuming, meant that analysis was not hindered or confined by the absence of
whole data categories that might later be found relevant, but which had not been
collected.
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Point (c) took inspiration from Crossland (1989), and McIntosh and McIntosh
(1980). The former kept every sherd excavated from Begho-B2 in Ghana, foresight
that later enabled him to rectify inaccuracies caused by students who had
incorrectly identified certain decoration techniques (Crossland 1989: xiii). The latter
regretted not identifying the locations of decoration on sherds and vessels from
Jenné-Jeno, as any patterns or significance with this could not later be commented
upon (McIntosh and McIntosh 1980: 115).
Elsewhere, Dueppen, who conducted the first detailed ceramics analysis of pottery
from Iron Age Kirikongo in Burkina Faso, deliberately documented every possible
facet of every sherd, using the logic that he did not know what data would be
relevant until he began analysis once he had left the field (Dueppen 2012b: 116). As
the data collection scenario for the YK10/11 assemblage was very similar to
Dueppen’s, the same rationale was applied. Whilst it was not possible to retain the
assemblage, as Crossland had (1989: xiii), the lesson to be thorough was
appreciated.
The secondary research questions focused on the pottery’s materiality, the
processes through which they were created, and the potential material
relationships they shared with the Koma figurines, their contextual and
chronological contemporaries. The purpose of questions one and two was to gain a
thorough understanding of the pottery assemblage and its composition, providing
the foundation for further analysis. Producing a catalogue meant developing an
understanding of the types of vessels in the assemblage, from which possible
functions were identified. The techniques used to produce the pottery, and the
consistency of the clay and temper across the assemblage were established through
macro-analysis, but also with the assistance of exploratory X-ray fluorescence (XRF),
p-XRF, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques (see Section 3.2.2.2).
For comparative purposes, clay and rock samples were also assessed using these
methods.
The third and fourth questions were designed to satisfy the point that analysis of
different types of ceramic should be integrated. Understanding whether the pottery
and figurines were produced using the same materials, similar techniques, and
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whether they were finished to a comparable level of quality offered valuable insight
into the potential uses and meanings of both types of artefacts, as well as the
relationships between them and their makers. Further, it gave insight into the
makers’ understandings of, and interactions with, clay as a medium for expressing
social and religious values. Although found together in shrine mounds, this type of
combined analysis has never been attempted. Until now, the relationships between
the pottery and figurines have only briefly been explored (e.g. Kankpeyeng et al.
2013: 482).
As with any methodology, the purpose of this chapter was to critically explain and
justify the methods used to fulfil the objectives of this research. The following
structure was thus adopted. A detailed review of the data sampling and collection
strategies (including alterations) employed in the field has been provided. This
includes the strategies employed for the YK10/11 pottery assemblage, the exported
YK10/11 pottery sherds and rock samples, and the exported YK16 clay samples. The
archaeometric techniques are then examined and justified.
3.2 Methods
3.2.1 Sampling
Prior to fieldwork, the plan was to employ McIntosh’s and McIntosh’s “mix-and-
divide sampling method”, whereby the sherds are piled onto a flat surface, and
after being thoroughly mixed by hand, are divided “approximately into halves with
a wooden board” (McIntosh and McIntosh 1980: 113-114). This is then repeated,
and “two of the resulting four piles were re-bagged and kept for recording”, with
the aim of achieving as close to a 50% random sample as possible (McIntosh and
McIntosh 1980: 113-114). Developed by McIntosh and McIntosh during their
excavations at the Iron Age site of Jenné-Jeno in Mali (1995: 133), this site, as with
Koma Land, had had no previous comprehensive ceramic analysis conducted at it
(McIntosh and McIntosh 1995: 130). The mix-and-divide method is designed to
make large pottery assemblages more manageable in cases where because of
constraints with funding, time, and transportation, the pottery must be analysed in
the field (McIntosh and McIntosh 1980: 113). Whilst the YK10/11 sherds had
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already been excavated and were in storage awaiting analysis, these issues were
still relevant. Time, transportation, and funding, was limited.
Thus, the mix-and-divide method was chosen as the most efficient way of
producing a random sample that was statistically useful, but spatially and
temporally manageable. Firstly, the YK10/11 assemblage was split between two
storage sites, which were at the opposite ends of the country; after excavation, a
small portion of the YK10/11 pottery was sampled and transported from the field –
the village of Yikpabongo in Northern Region – to the archives at the DAHS at the
University of Ghana in Legon to await analysis. The remainder stayed in on-site
storage in Yikpabongo.
Secondly, the duration of fieldwork in Yikpabongo was limited. Every January,
University of Ghana’s archaeology students and staff travel to Yikpabongo for a
two-week field school and research excavation. My fieldwork season was designed
to coincide with the field school, to safely and conveniently travel to site. In
consequence, time was limited. Travel by road from Legon to Yikpabongo took 48
hours each way, leaving a ten-day period to analyse the excavated YK10/11
ceramics stored there. Travel by road in the harmattan season with challenging
road-quality and conditions, combined with the pottery’s weight, meant there
were, by necessity, severe restrictions as to the amount of pottery I could transport
back to the University for more leisurely examination.
Thirdly, original estimates had placed the pottery assemblage in the region of
55,000 sherds (pers comm. B. Kankpeyeng, May 2015). Cataloguing 55,000 sherds in
eight weeks was not deemed feasible; consequently, a robust, but efficient and
resource-minimal sampling strategy was required. In reality, the combined total of
YK10/11 pottery at both storage facilities was 9692 sherds (see Chapter 4.1). The
reason for the overestimation was not explained. It was typical practice in the DAHS
to discard undecorated body sherds, but it is unlikely that this accounted for all
45,000 absentee sherds. Further, both portions of the assemblage did contain
significant numbers of undecorated body sherds.
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The assemblage at both sites was stored in context-labelled finds bags. The quantity
of pottery from each year of excavation (2010 and 2011) varied at the two sites; on-
campus there were fewer than 300 YK10 sherds, as the remainder were in
Yikpabongo. Overall, one-third of the whole assemblage had been stored on-
campus.
Thus, the entire on-campus YK10 assemblage was assessed, because it was
miniscule, and only the YK11 portion of the on-campus assemblage was sampled
using the 50% mix-and-divide method originally planned. In Yikpabongo, it proved
impossible to carry out the mix-and-divide method because of challenging
environmental conditions and inadequate space to accurately sample the pottery in
this manner.
Instead, the pottery was organised and separated first by context number, and then
by sherd type, with separate piles for rims, decorated body sherds, undecorated
body sherds, perforated sherds, bases, handles, lugs, and other. YK10 and YK11
were catalogued individually (because they were bagged individually). All non-
sherds that had inadvertently been stored with the sherds were placed in the
‘other’ category. This included one eroded but otherwise-complete figurine, eight
figurine fragments, one piece of glass, 22 querns, 25 pieces of quartz, and nine local
rock pieces. All artefacts in this category were re-bagged, labelled, and given to
Head of the DAHS for appropriate storage. The decorated body sherds were further
separated into the following categories: grooved/ stamped/ incised decorated
sherds (some displayed all three), roulette decorated sherds, and a third category
for sherds displaying both roulette and grooved/stamped/incised decoration.
The purpose of sorting the sherds in this manner was to prioritise in the face of a
significant time constraint. Rims, bases, handles, lugs, perforated sherds, decorated
body sherds, and undecorated body sherds were the order of priority, with this final
category only considered when all of the categories ahead of it had been exhausted
for both YK10 and YK11. This simple, improvised method proved effective, and
allowed all of the Yikpabongo YK10 and YK11 rims, bases, handles, lugs, perforated
sherds, and decorated body sherds to be completely catalogued.
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Conversely, it did mean that a significant portion of the undecorated body sherds
were not fully recorded. In total, 4.49% (n=245) of the undecorated body sherds for
YK10 and YK11 combined were fully recorded using the criteria set out in Table 4.
This amount was not deliberately selected, but simply represents the quantity of
undecorated body sherds that were able to be fully catalogued in the time
available. The remainder were counted, and were examined on their edges for
evidence of surface treatment, which if present, was recorded. This surface
treatment primarily took the form of slipping, the colours of which were again
identified using a Munsell soil chart.
3.2.2 Data collection
3.2.2.1 The YK10/11 assemblage
As Chapter 3.1 outlined, data collection was deliberately comprehensive. Data was
collected for all sherd types: rims/ necks, decorated and undecorated body sherds,
perforated sheds, bases, lugs, and handles, in up to 19 categories, and was collated
in a database. The 19 categories have been illustrated in Table 4. For relevant
categories, the descriptions and criteria set out by the Prehistoric Ceramics
Research Group (PCRG 2010) were utilised. For a description of each data category,
see Appendix 1.
Diagnostic Sherd
Type
Rim/ neck Decorated
Body
Undecorated
Body
Base Lug Handle
Information
Illustration
Number? X X X X X X
Sherd ID
X X X X X X
Context
X X X X X X
Description (sherd
type/ shape/
function)
X X X X X X
Diameter (cm)
X X
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Average rim
Thickness (cm) X
Average Sherd
Thickness (cm) X X X X X X
Condition of Sherd
X X X X X X
Firing Condition of
Sherd X X X X X X
Clay Hardness
X X X X X X
Clay Colours(s)
X X X X X X
Fabric Type
X X X X X X
Inclusion Frequency
(%) X X X X X X
Description of
Inclusions X X X X X X
Inclusions Well
Sorted? X X X X X X
Decoration(s)?
(If so, type) X X X X X
Location of
Decoration(s) X X X X X
Surface
Treatment(s)? (If
so, type)
X X X X X X
Location of Surface
Treatment(s) X X X X X X
Table 4: The information captured for each diagnostic sherd type.
3.2.2.2 Archaeometric samples
Thirty-three samples were collected and exported from Ghana to the UK in January
2016 with the kind permission of the Ghanaian Museum and Monuments Board.
The sample size was fairly small because of funding and export constraints. It
consisted of:
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a) Three clay samples collected during the field school in Yikpabongo in
January 2016 (and thus designated YK16).
b) Three YK10/11 rock samples (two sandstones and one quartzite).
c) A piece of daub from the YK10/11 assemblage.
d) Twenty-five YK10/11 pot sherds.
e) A piece of tile from the YK10/11 assemblage misidentified in the field as a
pot sherd (unanalysed).
The samples were exported with the explicit understanding that they would be
subject to scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray fluorescence, that analysis may
be destructive, and that none were required to be returned to Ghana at a future
date. Respecting the wishes of the Head of the Department of Archaeology and
Heritage Studies, who kindly wrote a letter of support for the export permit, only
undecorated body sherds, or body sherds with very eroded decoration, were
selected as samples. No other sherd-types were selected.
3.2.2.2.1 Clay
The three clay samples (CS1, CS2, and CS3) were designated YK16 because they
were sampled during the January 2016 field school in Yikpabongo following the
directions of local informants as to the area’s clay sources, and with verbal
permission to collect samples. Each of the three clays was sampled from a different
source. The clay beds were approximately 28m from the periphery of the village
and were all within 30m of one another. Around 2kg of each clay type was sampled,
and to reduce contamination by litter, surface soil and organic debris, each was
excavated from a depth of 30cm, measured precisely with a ruler, and using a
cleaned mattock, before being labelled and stored in three layers of aluminium foil
protected in a heavy-duty finds bag.
CS1: The colour of this clay sample was 7.5YR 5/3 in the Munsell system and the
fabric contained granules: white, brown, black, and some semi-transparent
inclusions measuring 0.25cm and less. The inclusions made up less than 15% of the
sample and were angular to sub-rounded.
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CS2: The colours were a mix of 2.5YR 5/4 and N3 and the fabric contained coarse
sand to very coarse sand sized inclusions (0.5cm-1cm) in red-brown, white, and
black. Very rarely, mica was present. The inclusions were sub-angular in shape and
made up approximately 20% of the sample.
CS3: The colour was 7.5YR 4/2. The fabric contained angular inclusions in red-
orange (0.15cm and less), red-brown (0.1cm and less), and white (0.5cmand less).
These constituted less than 15% of the sample.
All three clay samples contained roots and plant debris. Sample 3 also contained a
few small pieces (approximately 0.2cm) of snail shell.
Local informants explained that Yikpabongo had not had its own potter for some
years and that the nearest was in Fumbisi, around 40km away. I was advised that
the clay sources I had sampled were now only used by the village’s older
generations, who collected clay and used it in cooking for (unspecified) medicinal
purposes; selecting a lump (of unspecified size) and adding it to the food being
cooked.
3.2.2.2.2 Rock
Three representative samples were selected from the rock pieces in the YK10/11
assemblage. Unworked pieces were found within the shrine mound during
excavations, (Insoll et al. 2010; Insoll et al. 2012: 36) so it was evident these were
not likely to have been accidentally introduced to the finds bags. These samples
were analysed using XRF to explore whether it was possible to determine whether
they were used as temper. The samples (Figure 4) were as follows (pers comm. D.
Gelsthorpe, Manchester Museum, April 2016):
Sample R4: iron rich sandstone;
Sample R8: quartzite (medium grained sandstone);
Sample R21: weathered sandstone.
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Figure 4: Sample R4, R8, and R21.
3.2.2.2.3 Pottery
The 26 pottery sherds were sampled with slightly greater difficulty because of the
split-site storage issue (see Section 3.4). Samples were chosen in Yikpabongo by
spreading out the YK10 and YK11 sherds randomly, without reference to their year
of excavation or context. A variety of sherds were chosen by touch and by visual
inspection of clay colours, hardness, and inclusions. These samples were labelled
and bagged and were returned to campus. Here, they were compared with the
selection of YK10 and YK11 pottery stored in the Department, and additional,
unrepresented sherds were added to those already selected. As mentioned in
Section 3.2.2.1, only eroded/ undecorated body sherds were chosen.
3.3 Archaeometric techniques
Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray fluorescence were conducted for the
purpose of gaining compositional data about the YK10/11 assemblage’s fabric and
slip. P-XRF was conducted at a later date to create a larger sample of compositional
data. All of these methods were ‘non-destructive’; even when a sherd was
destroyed (or partially destroyed) to create a sample, the sample itself remained
intact, and can be stored and reused in future analyses. Similarly, these methods do
not affect or change the samples’ chemical composition.
In total:
a) Seventeen YK10/11 pot sherd samples, a piece of daub, and the three YK16
clay samples were analysed using SEM. This was undertaken in the
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Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Environmental Sciences at the
University of Manchester with guidance from Dr. Bagshaw.
b) Four YK10/11 pot sherd samples, the three YK16 clay samples, one
sandstone sample, one iron rich sandstone sample, and one quartzite
sample, were analysed using XRF conducted remotely at the University of
Exeter.
c) Nineteen pot sherd samples and the three clay samples, were analysed
using p-XRF in the Department of Archaeology at the University of
Manchester.
3.3.1 Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
Scanning electron microscopy functions by a focusing a “high beam of
light…through a series of magnetic lenses” onto a tiny area on the surface of the
pottery sample (Barclay 2001: 25). The “patterns of electrons which bounce off the
specimen” are captured as an image (Barclay 2001: 25). The light beam can be
manipulated to move across the sherd and analyse different sections of it, and is
very precise; particular areas of interest to the researcher can be chosen, and
examined. The area can be magnified up to 100,000+ to focus on minute details
such as single inclusions (Barclay 2001: 25).
The value of SEM is its ability to provide compositional data about the surface of a
sherd, as well as to produce microscopic high-resolution images of that surface,
which can also be used to examine clay particle size, inclusions, details of slips,
paints, and glazes (Barclay 2001: 26; Frahm 2014: 6487; Orton and Hughes 2013:
182). The limitations of this technique are its inability to detect some trace
elements, (Orton and Hughes 2013: 182) and the fact that it is labour intensive and
time consuming (Orton and Hughes 2013: 182).
The SEM facility available for use for this research did not require the use of thin-
sections, as is typical of many SEM analyses (Orton and Hughes 2013: 182), but
used whole sherds. Beyond ensuring the sherd was small enough to be set into the
vacuum-sealed holding chamber, (which was achieved by breaking a 2cm to 3cm
piece from large sherds, with a hammer), and securely attaching the sherd to the
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chamber’s base plate with a single-use adhesive pad, no other sample preparation
was required.
As with the p-XRF analysis, below, the most significant variable was the need for a
flat, even surface on which to concentrate the light beam. This issue was offset, as
far as possible, by selecting the most even side of the sherd, and by securing and
stabilising it within the instrument’s holding chamber with clamps designed for that
purpose. The nature of this technique – examination of the sherd’s surface – also
meant that the presence of surface treatments, such as slip, would inform the
results. The results and discussion of the SEM data has been presented in Chapter
4.4.1.
3.3.2 X-ray fluorescence (XRF)
XRF irradiates a sample with X-rays, which:
Displace electrons from the inner orbits of the constituent atoms, which are
then filled by electrons from the outer levels. The energy released in this
process is emitted as secondary or fluorescent X-rays, the wavelengths of
which are unique to each element and form the basis for the identifications
(Bozzola and Russell 1999: 373).
The value of lab-based XRF is its accuracy and its ability to detect a variety of
elements (Rice 2015: 302); however, it is often time consuming and expensive.
Indeed, the expense of XRF meant that only ten samples were analysed using this
method. This was kindly funded by Professor Insoll.
The XRF samples were prepared and analysed at the University of Exeter in a
Bruker-AXS S4 Pioneer X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (WDS XRF), with the use of
the semi-quantitative analysis programme provided by the manufacturer (Anon
2017: 2). Five grams of each sample was used in a pressed-powder pellet (Anon
2017: 2). This method used WDS XRF, or “wavelength dispersive” XRF, which
accurately measures “+15 elements (including major, minor, and trace elements)
per sample” (Barclay 2001: 20). It is more accurate than energy dispersive XRF (ED
XRF), which is also commonly used by archaeologists (Barclay 2001: 20), and
indeed, was the p-XRF method in this thesis. Loss on ignition – which is performed
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by heating the sample to allow volatile compounds (e.g. organic material) to be
extracted – was undertaken for all samples, and the loss measured (Anon 2017: 2).
Currently, the only other known application of XRF to Koma Land material is
Asamoah-Mensah’s (2013) X-ray fluorescence spectrometry study of clay samples
from Fumbisi (a village near Yikpabongo where there is still a potting tradition), and
soil and pottery samples from the YK10 settlement mound (Mound D; Chapter 7.3).
The clay and soil were tested whole, whilst the sherds were made into pellets
(Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 66). In total, five soil samples and ten pottery sherds were
assessed (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 66). The number of clay samples was
unspecified. The results were normalised and analysed using Pearson’s correlation
coefficient. From this analysis, Asamoah-Mensah concluded that the fabric of the
settlement mound’s pottery was homogenous, and that the strength of the positive
correlation (0.62 correlation coefficient) between the Fumbisi-clay samples and the
Koma pottery “indicate that the vessels were imported or produced at Fumbisi”
(2013: 117).
Features shared by Asamoah-Mensah’s XRF analysis and those in this thesis are the
small sample sizes, and the use of different sample-types. Critically, however,
Asamoah-Mensah does not acknowledge these variables, or their influence on her
conclusions. As such, the interpretations above should be treated circumspectly. It
is stressed here that the YK10/11 analysis is exploratory and would benefit from the
support of further XRF analyses and larger samples.
3.3.3 Portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF)
P-XRF was used on the basis of availability, time, cost, and the need for a larger
sample size to strengthen the insight provided by the exploratory XRF analysis. P-
XRF was available at no cost to this project and minimal cost to the Archaeology
Department at the University of Manchester. Twenty-two samples were prepared:
19 sherds, and three clay samples. The repetition of the XRF analysis of the clays
using p-XRF was deliberate, to allow a modicum of comparison between the two.
The results of the p-XRF are presented in Chapter 4.4.2.
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Energy-dispersing X-ray fluorescence was undertaken using a Thermo Scientific
Niton XL3t 980 GOLDD+ portable XRF instrument in the Archaeology Department
(Campbell 2017: 2). Samples were prepared for p-XRF in two different ways,
dependent on their form. Already-powdered samples were measured into plastic
XRF cups to a depth of approximately 1cm, and sealed with a cellophane membrane
to prevent contamination and leakage. With p-XRF, “critical penetration depths are
in the 1-10mm range” (Potts 2008: 5), necessitating a sample-thickness of at least
0.7cm (Campbell 2017: 2). The whole sherds were simply measured on their
exterior surface with no further preparation. All were clean.
The variables in this procedure were:
(a) The two sample types (powdered and whole), which had different
thicknesses and densities;
(b) The presence of slip on some of the sherds;
(c) The curvature or uneven-surface of some sherds.
Fifty-six percent (n=13) of the samples were pressed-powder, and the remainder,
whole sherds. Comparing the results of pressed-powder and sherds are typically
within acceptable error margins, “but not for some heavy elements”, such as iron
and titanium (Liritzis and Zacharias 2011: 136). The analysis in Chapter 4 has
considered this.
Seven of the whole sherds were slipped (see Appendix 7). A thick coating, e.g. of
slip, glaze, or paint, will produce readings for that coating and not the sherd’s
matrix (Holmqvist 2017: 363). For whole sherds, the flattest surface and – if
possible – the surface without slip were selected. A flat, smooth surface provides a
more accurate reading than a curved one because there is no air-gap between the
sample and X-rays (Holmqvist 2017: 364; Liritzis and Zacharias 2011: 133). Each
sample was measured twice, for 80 seconds each time, and the mean of each
sample provided the final dataset (Campbell 2017: 2).
The p-XRF results were expressed as elements in parts per million (ppm).
Comparatively, the XRF results had been recorded as oxides and trace elements and
were expressed as percentages (%). To facilitate readability of the two datasets, the
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oxides were converted to elements, and all were converted to ppm. The oxides
were converted using the following standard formula:
𝑎 (𝑝𝑝𝑚) =𝑏
𝑐𝑓× 10000
Where a is the element expressed in ppm, b is the oxide (%), and cf is the
conversion factor. The XRF trace elements were simply expressed in ppm using the
following standard formula, in which a is the element expressed in ppm and b is the
element expressed as a percentage:
𝑎 (𝑝𝑝𝑚) = 𝑏 × 10000
To account for the high variation within the XRF and p-XRF datasets – which was
simply caused by some elements being present in large quantities, and others only
traces – both were normalised. When a dataset contains different units of
measurement that create issues with scale, normalisation removes the unit of
measurement by transforming the data to a scale on which it is comparable. This
was achieved using Microsoft Excel’s standardisation function, which calculates
normalised values using the mean average and standard deviation for each
element’s dataset. To prevent the data being skewed by uncalibrated, trace, or
unstable elements (such as calcium), the sherds were assessed on the basis of their
copper (Cu), lead (Pb), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), rubidium (Rb),
strontium (Sr), zinc (Zn), and zirconium (Zr) content.
Each normalised dataset – for XRF and p-XRF – was then assessed using principal
components analysis (PCA). PCA is a descriptive form of statistics that analyses and
aids the visualisation of variation in a dataset by combining correlated data into
values – or factors, or, components – which can then be plotted. The first two
factors were calculated for each dataset using SPSS software and then visualised
using scatter graphs (Chapter 4.4.2).
The advantages of p-XRF are: it is cost- and time-efficient, as sample-preparation
procedures are minimal, and the data-processing is rapid, and it can be entirely
non-destructive. All of these factors were taken advantage in this thesis. Despite
legitimate criticisms of the inability to compare p-XRF data obtained from different
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makes and models of instrument (and for the same reason, with data obtained
from XRF instruments), because of different calibration systems (Killick 2015: 244),
data from different makes and models of XRF equipment are subject to the same
issue (pers comm. S. Campbell, September 2017). In this study, the p-XRF data was
calibrated using known international rock and soil standards, and only elements
that were over the limit of detection were calibrated (Campbell 2017: 2).
3.4 Summary and conclusions
The research methodology was designed to be as comprehensive as possible. It was
known from the outset that, archaeometric samples aside, the majority of the
YK10/11 assemblage would remain in Ghana. Nine weeks of fieldwork – with eight
weeks of data collection time – was inadequate to complete data collection and
start analysis. The pottery itself was an unknown entity. Whilst it had been
mentioned in a few publications (Insoll et al. 2012; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011, 2013), it
was not described anywhere in detail. Insoll’s notes (Insoll et al. 2010) were
valuable, but only described a small portion of the 2010 excavation and
assemblage. The only other excavation of Koma Land, in 1985 (Anquandah 1998;
Anquandah and Van Ham 1985), had an unclear pottery methodology, and a
pottery analysis that was incomplete and contained errors (see Chapter 2.2.1).
For these reasons, and accepting the lessons learnt from the experiences of other
archaeologists studying pottery in West Africa (Crossland 1989; Dueppen 2012a,
2012b; McIntosh and McIntosh 1980), the decision was made to be as
comprehensive with data collection as time, and the pottery itself, would allow. The
fieldwork was not without challenges that affected the data and methodology (see
Chapter 1.2.5), but as Section 3.2 makes evident, every effort was made to ensure
the data collected was comprehensive and consistent. The pottery analysis, which is
the focus of Chapter 4, used every data category (see Section 3.2.2.1) to produce as
detailed an account of the YK10/11 assemblage as possible.
The decision to use archaeometric techniques was made to enhance the
conclusions that could be drawn from the fabric analysis. SEM and XRF were
selected as compatible, complementary techniques that had a long ‘tried-and-
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tested’ record within archaeological science (Malainey 2011: 488; Orton and
Hughes 2013: 169). Often, “social” archaeologists (i.e. those without a science
background) are discouraged by scientific techniques (Joyce 2011: 193). Following
arguments by Joyce (2011) and others (Jones 2002), a deliberate attempt to
integrate archaeometric techniques was made in this thesis in order to create a
stronger dataset and build more convincing interpretations.
Macro-analysis of the fabric was not neglected, however. Whilst time consuming, it
is inexpensive and easily provides an overview of the fabric of an entire
assemblage. It is also accessible; archaeometric techniques may change, develop, or
become obsolete, and are not accessible to all researchers. Further, the data quality
is not affected by any other variable than that of the consistency and quality of the
data collection. As such, both micro- and macro-analysis are used in Chapter 4.
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Chapter 4: The YK10/11 pottery catalogue
4.1 Introduction to the YK10/11 pottery assemblage
Having introduced the theoretical (Chapter 2) and methodological (Chapter 3)
background of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage, Chapter 4 catalogues it on the
basis of forms and forming techniques, macro- and micro-analysis of fabric,
decorations and surface treatments, firing techniques and conditions, use wear,
functions, and raw materials analysis of six locally-sourced clay and rock samples.
Chapter 4’s structure follows the chaîne opératoire. Fabric analysis included macro-
analysis of the pottery based on visual examination, and micro-analysis in the form
of scanning electron microscopy, and both portable and laboratory-based X-ray
fluorescence. The decision to include both macro- and micro-fabric analysis was
made to enable the identification and characterisation of future Iron Age Koma
Land pottery assemblages, regardless of the resources available.
The assemblage consisted of 9692 sherds from both excavation years. The YK11
assemblage in the DAHS’s archives was 50% sampled (see Chapter 3.2.1). This left
7452 sherds for analysis. All sherds under 2cm were discarded as inadequate
providers of useful diagnostic data. For rim sherds, at least 2cm of the rim had to be
present and reasonably uneroded for useful data about diameter and form to be
retrieved. Sherds smaller than 2cm could not accurately be measured using a rim
diameter chart. The bases, lugs, and handles were all 2.5cm, or greater, so it was
unnecessary to specify any further diagnostic criteria for these. Two thousand and
four sherds were discarded during this process. Five thousand, four hundred, and
forty-eight sherds remained; the analysis of which is presented here.
Sherd type Number Percentage total (%)
Undecorated rim/neck sherds 685 12.57
Decorated rim sherds 265 4.86
Undecorated body sherds 2,191 40.21
Decorated body sherds 2,267 41.61
Bases 35 0.46
Handles 3 0.05
Lugs 2 0.03
Table 5: A summary of the sherd types in the YK10/11 assemblage.
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As outlined in Chapter 3, some portions of the assemblage were affected by time
constraints. Consequently, roulette decorated sherds with decoration too eroded
for the specific roulette motif to be identified were afforded lower priority. These
were only counted and catalogued, by context number, as “eroded roulette”, and
their fabric was not examined. This affected 20.01% (n=454) of the decorated
sherds. A further five eroded roulette sherds were also samples selected for micro-
fabric analysis; their fabric was examined (see Appendix 7 for a full list of sherds
selected for micro-analysis). For the same reason, a sample of 245 (4.49%)
undecorated sherds were selected randomly from those available. These were fully
analysed, to determine fabric, whilst the remainder were counted and catalogued
by context number and presence of surface treatment, only. The 245 sherds include
the 20 undecorated body sherds that were selected for micro-analysis.
Sherd type Fully analysed Partially analysed
Decorated rim sherds 265 0
Undecorated rim sherds
685 0
Decorated body sherds 1,813 454
Undecorated body sherds
245 1,946
Bases 35 0
Handles 3 0
Lugs 2 0
Totals 3,048 2,400
Table 6: A summary of fully- and partially-analysed sherds.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, 13.87% (n=756) of the assessed assemblage
was in poor condition, and a further 26.89% (n=2004) sherds had already been
discarded as undiagnostic. Many more sherds were only just of diagnostic size. As
such, no attempt was made to estimate vessel numbers. The sample was not
weighed. Table 6 is a full breakdown of the number analysed. All rim sherds, bases,
handles, and lugs were fully assessed.
Within the undecorated rim, decorated body, and undecorated body sherd
categories, there were also 47 perforated sherds. Unlike in Asamoah-Mensah’s
(2013) and Nkumbaan’s (2016) Koma Land pottery methodologies (see Chapter
7.3.2), in this analysis perforations were treated purely as a functional, not a
decorative, element. They were subsumed into the appropriate sherd category and
only counted as decorated if one was present. Perforated sherds are discussed in
Section 4.2.4.
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4.2 Typology
4.2.1 Rims
Nine hundred and fifty rims were analysed. The rim diameters ranged from 6cm to
61cm, but 78.73% (n=748) clustered between 15cm to 34cm, as Figure 5
demonstrates.
Figure 5: A graph showing the size-distribution of YK10/11 rim diameters
See Appendix 2 for the full rim diameter data table, and Appendix 4 for data on
vessel circumference. The circumference of the smallest vessel was 18.85cm, and
the largest 191.64cm. The circumference of each rim sherd, and its frequency in the
YK10/11 assemblage, has been calculated and is presented in Figure 6, below. The
average sherd thickness of the rims ranged between 0.4cm and 2.8cm (see
Appendix 5). The mean rim sherd thickness was 1.14cm.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260
Indeterminate
0cm-4cm
5cm-9cm
10cm-14cm
15cm-19cm
20cm-24cm
25cm-29cm
30cm-34cm
35cm-39cm
40cm-44cm
45cm-49cm
50cm-54cm
55cm-59cm
60cm-64cm
No. of rims
Dia
met
er (
cm)
Frequency of YK10/11 rim diameters (cm)
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Figure 6: A visualisation of the frequency of the rims in the YK10/11 assemblage by circumference.
101
The rims were characterised by everted, inverted, and straight types, which
produced closed vessels with everted rims, closed vessels with inverted rims, and
open vessels with straight rim profiles. Everted rim types were most frequent, at
78.42% (n=745), followed by inverted rim types, at 14.63% (n=139), and finally,
straight rim types; 6.84% (n=65). There was also one neck (0.1%) in the assemblage.
The rim types have been organised by vessel form – closed, open or straight – and
variations in rim shape were identified for each using sub-categories, which have
been illustrated and described below.
4.2.1.1 Closed vessels
Figure 7: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage.
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Closed Lipped (CL1-CL17): an everted rim shape with a pronounced lip and
outwardly-sloping walls, producing a closed vessel form. There were 17
subcategories.
Closed Flat Lipped (FL1-FL3): an everted rim style with a flat-lipped profile and
outwardly-sloping walls, producing a closed vessel form. There were three
subcategories.
Closed Squared Lipped (SL1-SL2): an everted rim style with a squared lip profile,
and outwardly-sloping walls, producing a closed vessel form. There were two
subcategories.
Figure 8: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage.
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Closed Squared (CS1-CS2): an inverted rim shape with a squared profile and
outwardly-angled walls, producing a closed vessel type. There were two
subcategories.
Closed Flat (CF1-CF2): an inverted rim shape with a flat rim profile and outwardly-
angled body walls, producing a closed vessel form. There were two subcategories.
Closed Rounded (CR1-CR12): an inverted rim shape with a rounded profile and
outwardly-angled walls, creating a closed vessel form. There were 12 subcategories.
4.2.1.2 Open vessels
Figure 9: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage.
Open rounded (OR1-3): An open vessel form with a rounded rim and inwardly-
sloping walls. There were three subcategories.
Open flat (OF1-3): An open vessel form with a flat, tapered rim and walls inwardly-
sloping walls. There were three subcategories.
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4.2.1.3 Straight vessels
Figure 10: Rim profiles in the YK10/11 assemblage.
Straight Rounded (SR1-SR3): a straight rim shape with a rounded edge, and straight
walls, producing an open vessel form. There were three subcategories.
Straight Angled (SA1-SA3): a straight rim with an angled/ tapered profile, and
straight-sided walls, producing an open vessel form. There were three
subcategories.
Straight Flat (SF1): a straight rim with a flattened profile, and straight-sided walls,
producing an open vessel form. There was only one category.
4.2.2 Bases and legs
Bases formed only 0.6% (n=35) of the YK10/11 assemblage. Five base types were
identified:
Type B1a: Deep concave pedestal base. This made up 2.9% (n=1) of the base
sherds.
Type B1b: Concave pedestal base. This formed 8.6% (n=3) of the base sherds.
Type B1c: Flat pedestal base. This constituted 42.8% (n=15) of the bases.
Type B2: Flat bases formed 37.1% (n=13) of the bases in this assemblage.
Type B3: Pot-stand legs made up 8.6% (n=3) of the base types.
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The base sherds’ fabric was analogous; medium-fine micaceous fabric, with
predominantly white, some black, and, generally, well sorted, inclusions. Base B1a
was the exception. Its fabric was fine, and it contained very well sorted white, black,
micaceous, and occasional pink-coloured inclusions. Its sherd thickness was very
even and consistent and it was in very good condition; indicating that it was made
more recently. One other base also contained occasional white quartz pieces of
0.3cm and smaller. Whilst some of the bases had been slipped, none had been
decorated.
The bases’ diameters ranged between 4cm to 15cm, although the majority
clustered between 6cm to 10cm. Two bases were too eroded for their diameter to
be accurately measured. The pedestal bases typically had larger diameters (7cm to
15cm) that the non-pedestal types (4cm to 9cm). The average sherd thickness of
the bases ranged between 0.7cm to 2.7cm; the mean average thickness was
1.56cm. Three examples of Bc1 had complete profiles; as such, these were
confirmed as shallow bowls/ plates.
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Figure 11: Clockwise from top left: a flat base (11a), a pot-stand leg showing the curvature similar in
design to the figurines’ ‘ball-and-socket joint’ (11b), a flat base (11c), a flat pedestal base (11d), a lug
(11e), and a concave pedestal base (11f).
11e
11a
11b
11c
11d
11f
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Pot-stands were not found in the YK10/11 assemblage, but the presence of pot-
stand legs confirms their existence. The legs were hand-formed and had been
affixed using a technique that Insoll et al. had observed in the figurines and
described as reminiscent of a “ball and socket” joint (Insoll et al. 2013: 14; see
Figure 11b for an example). The technique was used for figurines to affix their
limbs, particularly arms, to the body (Insoll et al. 2013: 14). This technique and its
implications have been discussed in Chapter 6.3.1.
4.2.3 Handles and lugs
Handles and lugs formed a miniscule proportion (0.08% combined) of the YK10/11
assemblage. Potentially, this reflects aesthetic choices, vessel function(s), and/ or
deposition practices.
The three handles measured between 2.5cm to 3.5cm in thickness. All were of the
same fabric, shape, and style. None had any fragments of body sherd still attached.
Their size and thickness suggest they were made for large vessels. The surviving
edge of one of the three handles was scored with a deep incision down its length,
at the point the handle would attach to the vessel body. This appears to be
evidence of the forming technique, in which the clay was rolled into a cylinder,
which was flattened and then folded in half down its width to create a thick, sturdy
handle.
All handles exhibited use-wear on their exterior surface; most exposed to use and
touch, the slip here had eroded away, and the surface was coarse and pitted. Only
one was decorated, with irregularly applied medium braided strip roulette. From a
functional perspective, this could have been to assist with grip.
There were two lugs. Both were raised areas that had been smoothed and flattened
out at the top (see Figure 11d). One lug was approximately 5cm in diameter and
had been left deliberately undecorated on a pot sherd whose exterior was
otherwise covered with strip roulette. The second lug was of the same type, but
slightly smaller at 4cm in diameter, and undecorated.
All of the handles and lugs exhibited traces of red slip (see Section 4.6).
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4.2.4 Perforated sherds
Perforated sherds formed 0.8% (n=47) of the assemblage. Perforated sherds have
circular holes pierced through the sherd’s body, usually multiple times (see Figures
12 and 13). The perforations were 1cm or smaller, usually averaging 0.5cm. The
mean average sherd thickness of the perforated sherds was 1.21cm, but this varied
between 0.6cm and 2cm. With the exception of one undecorated rim sherd, all of
the perforated sherds were decorated (59.57%) or undecorated (38.29%) body
sherds.
Sherd type Perforated (n=) Decorated perforated (=n)
Rim 1 0
Body 18 28
Base 0 0
Table 7: A breakdown of the perforated sherds, by sherd type.
Of the 28 decorated examples: four could only be identified as eroded roulette, one
sherd had incised line decoration, two exhibited braided strip rouletting, and the
remaining 21 sherds exhibited thin cord roulette.
There were distinctive blackened areas on 38.3% (n=18) of their interior or exterior
walls, possibly indicating use over a fire. In a further 23.4% (n=11) of sherds, this
discolouration extended to the sherds’ matrix; a consequence of firing. Only ten
perforated sherds were slipped.
The perforated sherds’ fabric was homogenous. Their fabric almost exclusively
contained white, grey, and micaceous inclusions. The homogeneity suggests their
production from the same source, if not batch, of clay. The variety of sherd
thicknesses, and the variety exhibited in the thickness and neatness of the roulette
applications made clear that none of the sherds were from the same vessel. None
could be refitted.
One of the perforated sherds had four pieces of 0.4cm-sized pink quartz
intentionally inserted into its circular perforations (Figure 12). This appeared to
have been achieved post-firing. It was the only example of this practice in the
YK10/11 assemblage.
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Figure 12: A perforated sherd with deliberately inserted quartz pieces (scale in cm).
Figure 13: Examples of perforated sherds. Possibly, the shape of the right-most sherd has been
modified, post-breakage.
In West Africa, archaeologists have often termed perforated sherds ‘colanders’
because of their similarity to this utensil. Ogundiran, for instance, recorded 97
colander sherds from his Iron Age Ílàrè District excavation in Yorubaland, Nigeria
(2002b: 97). “Colanders, sometimes with cob impressions” were recorded at Gonja
in northern Ghana in the early first millennium BC by Davies (1980: 223). Other
West African archaeological and ethnographical evidence records their use in food
preparation, either as strainers, steamers, or food-smokers (Crossland 1989: 14;
Kelly et al. 1992: 2; Insoll et al. 2010: 29; MacLean 2000: 73).
Perforated vessels excavated from Iron Age Gao in Mali were termed couscousiéres
in reflection of the cuisine they were used to prepare (MacLean 2000: 73). In some
areas of modern Ghana, similar vessels are used for smoking meat to preserve it
(pers comm. C. Diku, 10/01/16). The historic practice of this in northern Ghana has
also been recorded from local oral histories (Insoll et al. 2010: 29). In contrast,
perforated vessels from the 17th and 18th century AD Huedan area of Savi in
northern Benin, initially interpreted as strainers, were late reinterpreted as
yaoitcha pots, or vessels containing hot coals used in “divination rites and
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ceremonies that test the resolve of practitioners”, based on local ethnography and
oral histories (Kelly 1999: 4). Further discussion of the Koma Land perforated
sherds, their potential uses, and meanings, can be found in Chapter 5.
4.2.5 Identification and discussion of YK10/11 vessel forms
Despite Anquandah’s (1998) Koma Land pottery analysis, the forms here have been
produced solely from interpretation of the YK10/11 rim profiles. Anquandah’s
pottery forms were identified from vessel shapes and styles used by the modern
Bulsa (1998: 110-113), a practice problematised in Chapter 2, and as such, his
analysis is not used comparatively here. Together, examination of the rim and base
types in the YK10/11 assemblage has led to the identification of closed and open
vessel forms. Analysis of the diameter and circumference of each rim sherd, as well
as the rim profiles produced above, makes it evident that closed vessels were the
most frequent type of vessel form in the assemblage, and that everted rim shapes
were the most frequent stylistic choice. Specifically, the vessels identified from the
rims in this assemblage took the form of jars, bowls, and plates.
Figure 14: A representative illustration of rim types in the YK10/11 assemblage.
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More specifically, the following pot forms were realised.
Restricted mouth vessels, of which the following to sub-categories were identified:
Collared/ everted neck jar (C): Typically, a steep-shouldered vessel, possibly
carinated (but this could only be confirmed for one or two examples because the
majority of the rim sherds lacked shoulders) and with a rounded body. This vessel
form has a restricted neck and a flared, everted rim.
Greater restricted mouth vessel (GR): Typically, a steeply curving inverted rim,
creating a restricted vessel mouth. Rounded or spherical body, and non-carinated.
This can be described as a jar.
Lesser restricted mouth vessel (LR): This form is the same as the greater restricted
mouth vessel, described above, with the difference that the vessel neck and
shoulder is less steeply angled, causing the mouth to be less restricted. This can be
described as a jar.
Open/ wide mouth vessels, of which the following were identified:
Wide mouth vessel (WM): This form is an open vessel type and is characterised by
a rounded shape and a wide, unrestricted mouth and is likely to be a bowl.
Deep wide mouth vessel (DWM): As the above wide mouth vessel description, but
evidently deeper.
Wide shallow bowl/ plate (WB): Three examples of this form have been identified
from well preserved fragments that retained sections of both their rim and base.
Unidentifiable: 4% (n=38) of the rim sherds could not be assigned a vessel form
because the amount of neck/shoulder they had retained was too inadequate to
infer it.
Of each vessel form, 63.4% (n=603) were identified as collared/ everted neck jars;
16.7% were restricted mouth vessels, of which 2.21% (n=21) were specifically
identified as lesser restricted mouth vessels, and 0.94% (n=9) as greater restricted
mouth vessels. There were 15.47% (n=148) rims identified as belonging to wide
mouth vessels, of which 1.78% (n=17) were specifically identified as belonging to
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deep wide mouth vessels; both of which are bowl-types. A further three examples,
which were categorised as bases, were examples of wide shallow bowls/ plates
(0.314% of rims; n=3; see Section 4.2.2).
Figure 15: A bar chart showing the distribution of rim diameters by vessel form.
4.3 Fabric macro-analysis
This section presents the findings of the macro-analysis of the YK10/11 fabric
collected by visual examination of the sherds in the field. Fabric was visually
examined and assigned to one of three categories – fine, medium, or coarse –
following the guidelines and definitions set out by the Prehistoric Ceramic Research
Group (2010: 21, 46-48). Of the assemblage, 98.2% was categorised as fine, and
1.3% of the assemblage was categorised as medium. Less than 0.5% of the
assemblage was coarse. The variety of fabric colours, which were examined on the
sherd’s edge and were recorded using the Munsell colour system, was extensive.
For this reason, fabric colours have been classified into fabric groups (Figure 16).
The 7.5YR group incorporates 57.1% of the sherd fabric colours, 5YR contains
21.4%, 2.5YR holds 11.4%, 10YR has 7.4%, and 0.37% of sherds fall into the N colour
grouping. On rare occasions (2.38%), sherds showed two different colours.
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Figure 16: YK10/11 fabric colours, expressed as percentages in a pie chart.
Except for N, these fabric groups were all ‘yellow-red’. Rice observes that red-
coloured pottery is a consequence of the presence of “3% or more” of iron oxide in
the fabric; “1.5-3% will cause light brown or orange”; and “amounts of 1% [of iron
oxide] will contribute a yellowish tone to the fired clay” (2015: 281). The result of
the SEM analysis of the 17 YK10/11 sherds corresponds with these observations, all
17 of which contained iron (Fe), and oxygen (O). Similarly, both elements were also
present in the YK16 clay samples.
Inclusions in 92.7% of the YK10/11 sherds were regular and well sorted. The
remainder – the ones that were not well sorted – were not limited to any one sherd
type, nor were there any other differences to their paste and features observable
by eye. In the assemblage, 98.51% of the sherds were classified as hard and the
remainder medium. Apart from some quartz fragments (see below), the inclusions
were 0.2cm in size or less on average and were rounded. The sherds were
characterised by the presence of white, brown, black, and micaceous inclusions;
88% of all sherds were micaceous. Occasionally, red, orange, beige-brown, and red-
brown inclusions were also present. 0.58% of the assemblage contained sand-like
inclusions, and 5.3% of the assemblage contained voids – the consequence of
inclusions burnt out during the firing process – ranging from 0.1cm to 0.5cm in size.
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Figure 17: A sherd decorated with irregularly-shaped triangles and a piece of quartz.
Visual inspection of the YK10/11 pottery also revealed that significant mineral
inclusions (over 0.2cm) – mostly quartz, in white, and shades of pink, purples, and
red – were also added to just over 9.55% of the assemblage (both rim and body
sherds). The largest quartz inclusions were 0.6cm. More commonly, however, the
inclusions ranged from 0.2cm to 0.5cm. In one instance, a 0.2cm piece of white
quartz had been incorporated into the stamped decoration on a body sherd (see
Figure 17). It is unclear whether this was a spontaneous use of an inclusion
protruding from the external surface of the sherd, or a deliberate insertion into the
design. If the latter, it is possible that the remainder of the sherd’s stamped
decoration also contained quartz pieces. This was the only example of this practice
in the assemblage. Small pieces of quartz up to 0.4cm in size were also deliberately
inserted into the holes of one perforated sherd (see 4.2.4).
These findings contradict the prediction made by Insoll et al. (2015: 50) that large
temper inclusions would be absent from the Iron Age pottery found with the
figurines, although admittedly this pottery temper-type forms only a small
proportion of the overall assemblage. Quartz is an extremely common mineral in
the Koma Land area, as highlighted by Section 4.4. Anecdotally, in the modern
village of Yikpabongo it is used crushed-up as gravel, and for querns, which are
discarded when worn or broken. In the area surrounding the village quartz outcrops
can reach over 2m in height. Surface finds of quartz were recorded during the 2010
and 2011 excavations (Insoll et al. 2010: 2). Quartz pieces – unworked, and worked
as querns, and in a variety of colours including white and shades of pink and purple
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– were found mixed in with the YK10/11 ceramic assemblage when cataloguing and
analysis began in 2015. They have also been recorded in situ in the shrine mound
itself (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). In light of the finding that significantly-sized quartz
pieces were used in some of the pottery and returning to the argument discussed
near the beginning of this section that quartz inclusions in figurines may be
“referencing potent places” (Insoll 2015: 50), quartz provenance studies would be a
useful future undertaking for the Koma Land material and region. The relationships
between the figurines and YK10/11 ceramics are the focus of Chapter 6, and the
quartz is considered in greater detail in Chapter 5.
4.4 Fabric micro-analysis
Section 4.4 contains the results of the SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and (p-
)XRF analyses ([portable] X-ray fluorescence). The details of each sample are in
Appendix 7; but to summarise, they consisted of:
(1) YK16 clay samples x 3
(2) YK10/11 Rock samples x 3
(3) YK10/11 Daub x 1
(4) YK10/11 pottery sherds x 24
Ten samples underwent XRF analysis, 22 samples underwent p-XRF, and 21
samples, SEM. Some samples underwent more than one type of analysis.
Conversely, not every sample was analysed using all the above methods because of
factors including, cost, labour intensity, and the pottery samples themselves; some
selected sherds were too small for XRF, which required 12 to 15g of powdered
sample, whilst others were not large enough to provide enough material for both
types of analysis (see Chapter 3 for methodological details).
Macro-analysis in the field had indicated that the YK10/11 pottery fabric was, for
the most part, homogenous (4.3). Thus, micro-analysis was attempted to
investigate whether the samples’ chemical composition supported these macro-
observations. The greater the assemblage’s homogeneity, the greater the possibility
it was made in the same locale by the same potters; an argument already well-
evidenced by the analysis of the assemblage’s forms (4.2) and decorations (4.7).
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Comparative analysis of the clay samples with the YK10/11 pottery was intended to
explore the possibility that the assemblage was made using resources local to
Yikpabongo. Finally, the decision to analyse rock samples from the shrine was based
on exploring the possibility they were temper. This was based on observations
made during the pottery and minerals’ macro-analysis. Eighty-eight percent of the
assemblage was micaceous, often strikingly so, and this did not appear to be a
natural phenomenon. The sandstone pieces in the shrine were visibly micaceous,
and, particularly with weathered examples, were friable. Handling these samples
left a fine, gritty, residue on the hands. This residue was often very micaceous,
leading to the theory that this property was exploited for the purpose of adding
mica as temper to the paste.
4.4.1 Scanning electron microscopy analysis
Twenty-one samples were examined using SEM: the three clay samples, a rock
sample, and 17 sherd samples. Examination of the surface structure of the 17
YK10/11 sherd samples using scanning electron microscopy with a polarising light
microscope between magnifications of x4000 to not less than x1600 at scales of 5,
10, and 20μm revealed non-clay particle grains of up to 0.2cm in size (following Rice
(2015: 42), clay particles are defined here as those less than 0.02μm in size). The
size of these particles was not matched by those found naturally occurring within
any of the YK16 clay samples. The largest particle size observed in the clay samples
measured 20μm This suggests the larger grains – large enough to be categorised as
sand and gravel (after Rice 2015: 42) – were added as temper. Appendix 11
contains all of the SEM images captured during analysis.
Rodrigues et al. (2016) have recently hypothesised that the presence of
phosphorous in pottery fabric is a consequence of function, namely cooking.
Phosphorous has traditionally been understood by ceramic specialists as present in
archaeological ceramic material because of “its adsorption from the soil in which
the sherds were discarded” (Rodrigues et al. 2016: 224). Experimental archaeology
and subsequent XRD and SEM/ SED analysis of clay samples and the pots formed
from this clay, however, indicates that phosphorous is deposited as a consequence
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of cooking, with the internal pot bottoms of the tested ceramics registering
particularly high levels of the element (Rodrigues et al. 2016: 229).
Significantly, six of the 17 YK10/11 samples contained phosphorous. Conversely,
these elements were not present in any of the three clay samples. This adds weight
to the interpretation that the YK10/11 assemblage is composed of repurposed
cooking and serving vessels. Rodrigues et al. observed that the phosphorous was
identifiable and had not decayed because it was “fixed” by the naturally occurring
aluminium in the fabric paste (2016: 231). As a characteristic element of clay,
aluminium was present within every YK10/11 sherd and was one of the most
abundant elements in the paste of each (see Appendix 7-9).
Evidence of smoothing was present at the microscopic level; smoothed sherds were
characterised by an even, whole, compacted surface in which larger inclusions were
well seated and microscopic fractures in the fabric were minimal (e.g. see Samples
9, 11, and 23, in Appendix 10). As the SEM conducted in this thesis was surface
analysis, it was inevitable that slip would be included in it. Ten of the sherds were
slipped. In instances where only one surface of the sherd was slipped, the non-
slipped surface was analysed. Seven sherds were slipped on both their external and
internal surfaces, and the slip is visible in the microscopic images as distinctively
bright areas on the surface. In scanning electron microscopy with backscattered
electrons – the type used in this thesis – elements with higher atomic numbers
appear brighter because these “have a greater yield of secondary and
backscattered electrons than do elements with lower atomic numbers” (Bozzola
and Russell 1999: 220).
The three representative SEM graphs below demonstrate that the clays’
composition was homogenous; but their proximity to one another means this is not
surprising. Typically, clays are silica (Si), aluminium (Al) and oxygen (O) rich, and
these samples were no exception. There were some minor variations in the
composition of each sample, with Samples 1 and 3 containing calcium (Ca), and
Sample 3 also containing small amounts of barium (Ba).
118
Figures 18, 19, 20: Graphs demonstrating the typical chemical composition of clay samples 1, 2, and
3.
119
As Van Dongen et al. (2011: 285) discovered when analysing medicine clays used in
shrines in the Tong Hills, the chemical compositional analysis did not reveal
anything distinctive or unusual in the clays’ composition that would explain the
selection and use of that specific clay over others in the area. Instead, what
appeared to be significant was the clay’s location and its association with a shrine
(Van Dongen et al. 2011: 299). Conversely, a recent publication by Tiburu et al.
(2017) analysing the chemical composition of clay samples associated with Iron Age
Koma Land remains in Yikpabongo, including with XRF, argued that their high
content of elements, including iron, suggested their medicinal efficacy (Tiburu
2017; Tiburu et al. 2017).
However, clays with quantities of elements essential to the maintenance of healthy
human bodily functions were not necessarily medically efficacious – as an attendee
reasonably pointed out in a recent workshop exploring Tiburu et al.’s findings at the
15th West African Archaeological Colloquium, held at the University of Ghana (July
2017) – because such elements have to be present in a form where their
consumption enables successful uptake and use.
Therefore, such an argument is not made of the clay samples analysed here. Whilst
it may be possible that the clay had medicinal or spiritual efficacy (which
contributed to the decision to use it) and certainly, low-fired clay and daub pieces
were present in the YK10/11 shrine, there is currently insufficient evidence to make
such a claim. These are potentially interesting areas of discovery that require
further investigation.
4.4.2 X-ray and portable X-ray fluorescence
Four sherds, three clay samples, and three mineral samples were analysed using
XRF. Nineteen sherds, and the same three clay samples, were analysed using p-XRF
(see Appendices 7-11). The XRF’s analyses aim was comparative. As such, all
samples are discussed here together. As outlined in Chapter 3.3, the datasets were
normalised and assessed using principal components analysis (PCA).
The p-XRF PCA indicates these pottery samples are fairly homogenous, with most of
the samples clustered between correlation -1 and 0.6 on the x axis, and correlation
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-1.5 and 0.5 on the y axis. There are two distinct sample clusters. This can be seen
in Figures 21 and 23 but is clearest in Figures 22 and 24 with the removal of the
outlying sherds that do not fit this pattern. These two clusters directly correlate
with the sample-type: the sherds clustering at 0.5 on the y axis are the powdered
samples. This is a direct reflection of the sample-preparation procedures. The non-
powdered sherds were more susceptible to surface contamination, such as the
presence of slip. Whilst the clusters may mask other trends, their overall grouping
suggests it is unlikely that more than one fabric was present in this sample.
Figure 21: The variation exhibited in the 19 p-XRF analysed sherds.
Figure 22: The variation exhibited in 16 p-XRF analysed sherds, without the three outliers.
-2.5
-1.5
-0.5
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
Fact
or
2
Factor 1
PCA of 19 PXRF sherds
-2.5
-1.5
-0.5
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
Fact
or
2
Factor 1
PCA of 16 p-XRF sherds, without outliers
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Figure 23: The variation exhibited in 19 sherds (blue) and the YK16 clay samples (orange).
Figure 24: The variation exhibited in 16 sherds (blue), outliers removed, and the YK16 clay samples
(orange).
Figure 25: The variation exhibited in the ten XRF analysed samples. Key: sherds (blue), clay (orange),
and minerals (red).
-2.5
-1.5
-0.5
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
Fact
or
2
Factor 1
PCA of 19 p-XRF sherds and three YK16 clay samples
-2.5
-1.5
-0.5
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
Fact
or
2
Factor 1
PCA of 16 p-XRF sherds and three YK16 clay samples, without outliers
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2
Fact
or
2
Factor 1
PCA of three YK16 clay samples, three YK10/11 mineral samples, and four YK10/11 sherds
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The three outliers visible in Figure 21, and 23, are pot-sherd samples three, 11, and
30. None of these were powdered. Further, in-depth examination of Sample 3
suggested it might be more recent than the remainder of the YK10/11 assemblage.
Samples 11 and 30 were both slipped and had a “good slightly convex surface”
(Campbell 2017: 2). At this stage, why these samples exhibited greater variation,
comparatively, to the others is uncertain. It may be a consequence of slip, or shape,
although other samples with the same traits did not appear as outliers. It is possible
they were made using different clay or had different temper. Alternatively, it could
be a consequence of another element of the chaîne opératoire; e.g. firing or the
addition of a particular temper.
Figures 23 and 24 both distinctly show that the clay samples cluster together. This
supports the SEM analysis, which also demonstrated the clay was homogenous.
Comparative analysis of the clay and sherds clearly indicates their composition does
not correlate. It is not possible, however, to firmly discount the hypothesis that the
sherds were made from local clays on the basis of this evidence alone. Other
variables, such as the small sample sizes, and the fact that the results may differ
because of changes to chemical composition during firing, come into play. Further
analyses with larger samples could resolve this.
Figure 25 also adds support, if it were needed, to the existing evidence for the
homogeneity of the clay samples. It also makes evident that three of the four
pottery samples could be described as homogenous. The fourth, Sample 17 (see
Appendix 7), was markedly different, and the recorded data for the sherd does not
illuminate why. All XRF samples were powdered. Sample R21 – weathered
sandstone – shares the highest correlation with the pottery sherds, whilst Sample
R4, the iron rich sandstone, is the outlier. Unsurprisingly, R4 had a higher content of
iron oxide (Fe2O3) than the other samples. It is still possible that iron oxide,
otherwise known as haematite, may have been used to give the slip used in the
YK10/11 assemblage its distinctive reddish-brown colour (see Section 4.6). Thus,
further analysis is needed; the hypothesis that the YK10/11 sandstone and quartzite
pieces functioned as temper cannot be confirmed or refuted by current evidence.
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The sensitivity of the XRF analysis enabled it to detect the presence of phosphorous
in the measured sherds. This confirms that its detection by SEM was not an
anomaly. Subsequently, this adds weight to the possibility that the presence of
phosphorous in the pottery samples was a consequence of their belonging to
cooking vessels.
The exploratory fabric analysis presented here encourages further micro-analysis of
Koma pottery, mineral, and clay samples. At present, it is not possible to directly
associate the clay and pottery with one another, but additional analyses may add
more insight. It is possible, on the basis of the p-XRF and XRF analyses to tentatively
argue that, overall, the evidence suggests the YK10/11 pottery fabric was fairly
homogenous. This conclusion is also supported by the fabric macro-analysis, and by
the analysis of forms and decorations, which revealed significant stylistic similarities
across the assemblage. Whilst it cannot be confirmed that the pottery was locally
made, homogeneity suggests that the group of potters and/ or production locale
are likely to be one and the same; and of course, future analyses with larger sample
sizes will support or refute this.
4.5 Forming techniques
There was some evidence for the presence of three different vessel-forming
techniques. Firstly, 0.3% of the rim sherds had marks on their internal surface from
coiling (see Gosselain 1992b: 567-569; Orton and Hughes 2013: 126; and Rice 2015:
135-136 for descriptions of coiling). The eroded nature of the assemblage, including
the large number of small sherds, however, meant that it was not possible to
identify the presence of coiling in the assemblage at large. Examination of YK10
sherds by Insoll during the excavation period, to determine forming technique, led
him to make the same observation (Insoll et al. 2010: 24). The second technique
was hand-forming by drawing. The quality and variable thickness of a few potsherds
indicated their creation by drawing (see Rice 2015: 138-139), but these sherds were
the exception rather than the rule.
Finally, the third vessel manufacturing technique took the form of impressed lines
encircling the external underside of 26.73% (n=254) of the everted rims, particularly
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the large everted collared rims. This line was not decorative, but instead appeared
to be a consequence of the potter applying the vessel’s neck and rim to the body of
the vessel, and shaping and defining it. Two further sherds exhibited non-
decorative finger-and/or-thumbprints (see Figure 28).
Figure 26: An example of accidental, slip-created fingerprints.
4.6 Surface treatments
The surface treatment identified in the YK10/11 assemblage was limited to slip. The
eroded nature of many of the sherds, as previously discussed (see Sections 3.3 and
4.1), precluded the identification of burnishing and polishing, for example, because
the surface of many of the sherds was too eroded. In sherds of good condition,
neither burnishing nor polishing was evident.
4.6.1 Slip
Slip is defined here as a deliberate “fluid suspension of clay and water, used to coat
a [vessel] body before firing” (Rice 2015: 162). Numerous archaeological ceramic
specialists have noted that vessels may be slipped to aid vessel impermeability
(Crossland and Posnansky 1978: 88; Orton and Hughes 2013: 251; Rice 2015: 162),
as an aesthetic, or to hide the original and undesired colour(s) of a vessel (Orton
and Hughes 2013: 88). The Koma potters deliberately used slip to produce
distinctive colour-coated pottery, most frequently in shades of reddish-, pinkish-,
and orangeish-brown (see Figure 27 for visualisation). These slips were different
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from the underlying fabric colours but were typically from the same categories in
the Munsell colour spectrum. All colours, and shades thereof, were recorded using
the Munsell colour system.
Sherd type Slipped sherds (=n) Percentage of that
sherd type (%)
Percentage of YK10/11
assemblage (%)
Decorated rim 204 76.69 3.74
Undecorated rim 542 79.23 9.94
Bases 20 57.14 0.36
Decorated body 1807 79.07 33.16
Undecorated body 1415 64.46 25.97
Other 2 40 0.03
Totals 3990 73.2
Table 8: The frequency of slipped sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage, by sherd type.
Sherd type Single slipped
sherds (=n)
Percentage of
slipped sherds (%)
Multiple slipped
sherds (n=)
Percentage of
slipped sherds (%)
Decorated rim 197 4.93 7 0.17
Undecorated rim 521 13.05 21 0.52
Bases 20 0.5 0 0
Decorated body 1671 41.87 136 3.4
Undecorated body 1395 34.96 20 0.5
Other 2 0.05 0 0
Totals 3806 95.36 184 4.59
Table 9: Comparison of the frequencies of single and multiple slipped sherds, by sherd type.
In the YK10/11 assemblage 73.2% of the all sherds were slipped. Of these, 95.36%
were slipped with one colour only. The remaining 4.59% were slipped with two or
more slip colours (multiple slipped sherds). The majority of these were sherds that
had been slipped a different colour on their external and internal surfaces.
Decorated body sherds were most likely to exhibit multiple-slip. The bases, handles,
and lugs did not exhibit multiple-slipping. The poor condition of some sherds had
caused significant erosion to some slips, causing it to fade to a characteristic yellow-
orange in various places. This was considered during analysis, to ensure this issue
did not affect the identification of multiple-slipped sherds.
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Sherd type Internal surface
only (n=)
External surface
only (n=)
Both surfaces (=n)
Decorated rim 33 9 162
Undecorated rim 90 29 423
Decorated body 840 152 639
Undecorated body 428 154 813
Base 4 6 10
Other 0 0 2
Table 10: Comparison of the frequencies of sherds with single/ multiple slipped surfaces.
Figure 27: A pie chart illustrating the top ten slip colours using the Munsell colour system. Each
Munsell colour has been accurately represented using an RGB conversion programme (Geng 2011).
Munsell colour 2.5YR
6/6 2.5YR
7/6 2.5YR
5/6 5YR 6/6
10YR 6/8
2.5YR 7/8
7.5YR 7/4
2.5YR 6/8
5YR 6/8
7.5YR 6/4
Frequency (=n) 1179 816 720 148 116 109 105 72 59 40
Table 11: The top ten most frequent slip colours.
With the exception of a few sherds that exhibited surface-clay additions because of
careless handling (see Figure 28a) of vessels in the leather-hard stage, all slipping
was deliberate. Visual examination of the decorated slipped sherds revealed that, in
many cases, the slip had been applied after the decoration, regardless of decoration
type. This was evident from the fact that decoration types with surface impressions
(e.g. stamped, impressed designs, and roulettes) contained slip within the
127
depressions (Figure 28c-28d). The practice of post-decorative slipped meant that
the decoration on some sherds has been partially obscured by the addition of slip.
On other sherds, decorated areas were deliberately left unslipped, and only the
undecorated section was slipped (Figure 28b).
Figure 28: Clockwise from top left: an example of a sherd accidentally slipped through careless
handling (28a); an example of slip deliberately applied to only undecorated areas of the sherd (28b);
slip applied in thick layers post-decoration, thus obscuring the decoration (28c-28d).
4.7 Decoration
Decoration is defined here as an addition(s) or modifications(s) to the surface of a
vessel to produce a pattern or design that may wholly, or partially, cover the
external and/ or internal surface.
There were 2,535 decorated YK10/11 sherds in total, which consisted of:
- 265 rim sherds
- 2,267 body sherds
- 1 handle
- 1 lug
28a
28b
28d 28c
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Table 12: A breakdown of the decorated assemblage, by sherd type.
The list above shows there were comparatively few decorated rim sherds. Only
27.89% (n=265) rim sherds were decorated, in comparison to 50.89% (n=2267)
body sherds (Table 13). Only one handle and lug were decorated. No bases were
decorated. Analysis of vessel sizes (using rim diameter and circumference) revealed
no statistically-significant relationship between the two. There was also no
correlation between the type of sherd and the type of decoration it had. The
remainder of this section will discuss each decoration type in turn.
Decoration type Frequency, of all decorated sherd
types (=n)
Percentage frequency, of all decorated
sherds (%)
Incised lines only 416 16.41
Grooves only 316 12.46
Roulette only 1517 59.84
Mat impressions only 9 0.35
Stamping only 17 0.74
Rectangular banding only 130 5.12
Multiple types 123 4.81
Embossed only 3 0.11
Table 13: A summary of the decorated sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage, by decoration type and
frequency.
4.7.1 Roulettes
Roulette-only decorated sherds accounted for 59.84% (n=1517) of all decorated
sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage. Including roulette sherds with other decoration
types, this frequency increases to 63.23% (n=1603) of the decorated assemblage. Of
the latter, 4.17% (n=67) are rim sherds, 95.69% (n=1534) are body sherds, and
0.12% (n=2) are ‘others’; one handle and one lug. The different types of YK10/11
roulette have been described below and were identified with the aid of Haour et
al.’s handbook African Pottery Roulettes Past and Present (2010). See Figure 29 for
examples.
Sherd type Percentage frequency decorated, of that sherd type (%)
Rim/ neck 27.89
Body 50.89
Base 0
Handle 33.3
Lug 50.0
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Of the sherds with roulette, 38.15% (n=615) were too eroded for the specific
roulette motif to be identified. This included the 454 eroded roulette sherds
partially analysed during the Yikpabongo field school. For a further 2.91% (n=47)
sherds, identification of the overall roulette category was possible – for instance, a
strip roulette, a cord roulette, and so on – but pinpointing the specific type of
roulette – braided, twisted, etc. – was not. The roulette type of 0.85% of sherds
with roulette (n=13) was not recorded. These had only been described as
“roulette”.
Of the identifiable roulette motifs, 0.64% were clogged. Clogging occurs when the
tool used to create the roulette gets particles of clay lodged in it (Soper 1985: 31).
Typically, this is most likely to happen if the roulette tool is applied before the
unfired pot has sufficiently hardened (Rye 1981: 92). As this clogged tool continues
to be applied across the vessel’s surface, the particles of stuck clay obscure the
tool’s structure, so the resulting pattern is less regular and well-defined (Livingstone
Smith 2010: 122; Soper 1985: 31). Small pieces of clay from the clogged tool may
also be deposited on the vessel’s surface as it is applied, further blurring the design
(Soper 1985: 33).
Roulette type Frequency of roulette types (=n) Percentage frequency (%) of roulette
type
Strip 448 29.53
Cord 456 30.05
Carved wooden 23 1.51
Unidentified/ eroded 590 38.89
Table 14: The frequency of the roulette types in the YK10/11 assemblage.
All roulette decorated rim sherds were examined to try and understand the
application process and whether there was any preference as to the direction the
roulette was orientated on the vessel. Roulette decorated rim sherds were only a
small portion of the decorated rim sherds, which was not a large category (see
Section 4.7). Nevertheless, of the 67 roulette decorated rim sherds, the roulette ran
perpendicular in 46 instances (68.65%) and ran obliquely for the remainder
(31.34%). From the rim edge, the obliquely-angled roulettes ran left to right in 75%
of cases, and right to left in 25%, regardless of the type of roulette. In comparison,
no preference for direction was observed on rims with other decoration types.
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Figure 29: YK10/11 roulette (and multiple) decorated sherds. Clockwise from top left: knotted strip
roulette (29a); thin braided strip roulette and very thin twisted cord roulette, with multiple incised
lines (29b); simple twisted cord-wrapped stick roulette (29c); roll cord-wrapped roulette with incised
lines and grooves (29d); medium braided strop roulette (29e); carved roulettes (29f-29g); and twisted
cord roulette with impressed thumbprints and a groove (29h).
29a
29b
29e
29d
29c
29f 29g
29h
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4.7.1.1 Strip
Braided strip roulette (BSR) dominated the strip roulettes in this assemblage. It
accounted for 96.87% (n=434) of the strip roulettes. The remainder consisted of
five examples of strip roulette that were too eroded for the specific strip motif to
be identified (1.11%), four examples of knotted strip roulette (pers comm. A. Haour
July 2016; 0.89%; KSR); and one example of folded strip roulette (0.22%; FSR).
Variation in the BSR category was observed: 0.74% were thick BSR (each strip above
1cm in width), 33.33% were medium (1cm or less), 56.79% were thin (0.5cm or
less), and 9.13% were very thin (0.3cm or less).
Braided strip is at present not widely recognised in West Africa; but this is because
it is “poorly documented”, and because it has historically been described by an
excessive variety of different names, rather than because it is rare (Haour et al.
2010: 182). Indeed, braided strip roulette is particularly distinctive; and whilst (as
with any roulette) there are numerous variations, it typically takes the form of
“sawtooth”-like, “concave impressions” – also described as like the steps in a set of
stairs – which occur in parallel rows (Mayor 2010a: 181). Excavations from the past
decade or so at sites in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria dating
between 2000 BP and the 18th century AD, have successfully identified the presence
of braided strip (2010: 182-183). Appendix 14 provides photographs of the braided
strip roulette found in this assemblage to aid future research and identification.
4.7.1.2 Cord
Six types of cord roulette were identified: single twisted cord roulette (STCR),
double twisted cord roulette (DTCR), three variants of cord wrapped stick (CWS) –
untwisted (UCWS), twisted cord wrapped stick (TCWS), and simple twisted cord
wrapped stick (STCW) – and roll cord-wrapped roulette (RCW). STCR and DTCR are
examples of cord roulette created using simple tools; that is, the impressions from a
length of twisted cord, only (MacDonald and Manning 2010: 145). The remaining
four variants are examples of composite tools, involving a twisted cord wrapped
round a core (MacDonald and Manning 2010: 145).
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As with braided strip roulette, any instances of very thin/ thin/ medium/ and thick
twisted cord roulette were noted. Of the twisted cord roulette, 8.59% were very
thin, 62.44% were thin, 25.56% were medium, and 4.07% were thick. 7.89% of the
cord roulettes were too eroded for the specific cord motif to be identified.
Type Frequency (=n) Percentage Frequency (%)
STCR 217 47.67
DTCR 6 1.33
TCWS 52 11.52
UCWS 9 1.99
STCW 55 12.19
RCW 81 17.73
Table 15: The YK10/11 cord roulettes.
4.7.1.3 Carved wooden
As above, 1.61% (n=26) of the roulette sherds were carved wooden roulette types.
Carved wooden roulettes are typically created by cylinders with designs carved into
them, and a pattern is produced by rolling the cylinder over the pot’s leather-hard
surface (Livingstone Smith et al. 2010: 78). The carved wooden roulette motifs in
the YK10/11 assemblage have been categorised and named by their appearance
rather than by reference to any pre-existing catalogue of carved roulette patterns.
Seven different carved motif types were evident: checked, circles, diamonds, ‘rice
grains’, irregular hexagons, zigzags, and dots (see Figure 29 for examples). Similar
checked carved roulettes have been identified and discussed by Soper, in one of the
first works to categorise and analyse roulettes in Sub-Saharan Africa (1985: 34).
Table 16 offers a breakdown of the carved roulette frequencies by type.
Carved roulette motif Frequency in roulette assemblage
(=n)
Percentage frequency in roulette
assemblage (%)
Checked 13 0.8
Circles 1 0.06
Diamonds 1 0.06
Dots 1 0.06
Irregular hexagons 1 0.06
Rice grains 3 0.18
Zigzag 6 0.37
Table 16: The YK10/11 carved wooden roulettes.
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4.7.2 Mat impressions
Mat impressions, created from imprinting a mat onto the surface of a leather-hard
vessel (Rice 2015: 155) were identified in 0.58% (n=9) of the decorated assemblage,
based on the uniformity and regularity of the designs (pers comm. A. Haour July
2016). 0.33% of mat impressed sherds were clogged. Mat impressions are
commonly associated with pounding in a concave mould, a pottery forming
technique in which a clay pounder is used to produce a vessel shaped over a
concave mould, such as a mat (Haour 2013: 137; Huysecom 1992: 86). The act of
pounding the clay over the mould leaves impressions of the mat on its exterior
surface (Haour 2013: 137; Huysecom 1992: 86).
4.7.3 Incised lines and grooves
Incised lines and grooves were distinguished by shape and size: lines are flat,
incised depressions less than 0.2cm thick, typically created with a very thin, pointed
tool, whilst grooves are curved depressions 0.2cm in width, or wider. In total, 28.87
% of the YK10/11 decorated sherds exhibited incised or grooved decoration.
Incised line/ groove variety Frequency (=n) Percentage frequency of decorated
assemblage (%)
Incised line only 416 16.41
Grooved only 316 12.46
Incised line and grooved 5 0.19
Incised line/ grooved with other
decoration types
105 4.14
Table 17: The YK10/11 grooved and incised decoration categories.
Figure 30 gives some idea of the variety of patterns created using incised line
decoration. Visual examination revealed the lines were drawn freehand. Lines
veered into one another, the sizes of the spaces between each incised line could be
irregular, and the lines themselves were not always straight. On some sherds lines
were abandoned and restarted, or their angle was corrected part way through the
application process, so they fitted in more neatly to the overall pattern. The most
frequently occurring design-types were multiple incised lines forming horizontal,
vertical or diagonal bands across a sherd; horizontal, vertical, and diagonal bands
that intersected to create geometric patterns, most commonly isosceles triangles;
134
crosshatching; and horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines of different lengths that
formed non-regular latticework designs. The chaîne opératoire step of applying slip
after the decoration meant the lines were at times very faint.
Figure 30: Representative examples of external incised-line decorated YK10/11 body sherds.
Clockwise from top: 30a exhibits a typical series of triangles bordered by long horizontal lines, which
ends with a series of short vertical lines; whilst 30b and 30c are typical examples of the use of long
intersecting lines to create triangles.
4.7.4 Stamped
Seventeen sherds had stamped decoration only (0.74%), and 52 (2.05%) had
stamping and one or more other decoration types. The following motifs were
present:
Dots – 0.3cm or less in width, always found in regular patterns.
30a
30c
30b
135
Irregular impressions – These were repeated impressions forming linear patterns,
but where the impressions themselves did not conform to one shape or size. This
may be a result of the use of different tools or the same tool applied to the sherd
with different amounts of pressure.
Ovals/ circles (entire)/ circles (outline) – 0.4cm-0.5cm circles or ovals stamped into
the sherd at intervals. In one instance, the stamped impression was the outline of a
circle only, indicating it was created using a hollow tube.
Rectangles –0.2cm rectangles regularly stamped across the sherd in a diagonal
pattern, with a thin, sharp tool.
“Teardrops” – 0.3cm-0.5cm in width, these were stamped across the sherd at
regular intervals. This appeared only once.
Thumbprints – 0.9cm-1cm wide impressions linked together in a linear, sometimes
overlapping pattern. This motif appears to be the result of a thumb pressed into the
leather-hard clay before firing and appears only once.
Triangles – 0.2cm or less in width, except for one instance where the impression
measured 0.6cm across. Found in regular patterns, this impression was the one
most commonly combined with other types of decoration, usually incised lines. A
line of triangles may stand alone on a sherd or may be “connected” by their
arrangement along an incised line.
Stamped Frequency (=n) Frequency (%)
Dots 21 40.38
Triangles 19 36.53
Circles (entire)/ Circles (outline) 3/1 6.12/1.92
Irregular Impressions 2 3.84
Ovals 2 3.84
Rectangles 2 3.84
“Teardrops” 1 1.92
Thumbprints 1 1.92
Table 18: The frequency of the stamped decoration types.
Most of the stamped impressions were geometric motifs organised in linear
(horizontal, vertical and diagonal) designs. These stylistic-traits were also visible in
the incised and grooved decoration categories; decorators exhibited a preference
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for the use of multiple horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines to create larger scale
geometric patterns (see Section 5.3).
All sherds decorated with stamped designs exhibited only one type of stamping per
sherd (triangles, or dots, or ovals etc.). Another characteristic of the YK10/11
stamped shreds was the designs regularity. They had almost standardised forms
across all the sherds. What was variable, however, was the frequency of the
impressions. In some cases, the sherd was stamped only once or twice and in
others it was repeated over thirty times. As noted in Section 4.2.4, one sherd with
irregular stamped decoration also contained a piece of white quartz 0.3cm in size.
This was incorporated into the decoration and appears to be a deliberate addition
to the external surface.
4.7.5 Appliqué
Appliqué – the application of material to the surface of a vessel to create
decoration that stands out in relief – was rare in this assemblage. Three instances of
appliqué, taking the form of ovular and circular embossed-shapes varying between
2cm-3cm in thickness and 1-2cm in width, were recorded. Lugs have not been
included in this category.
4.7.6 Banding
Of the rim sherds, 5.12% (n=130) exhibited rectangular banding. Including sherds
with rectangular banding and other decoration types, this increased to 5.68%
(n=144; see Table 19, below). Rectangular banding is a horizontal rectangular band
measuring up to 3cm in width extending around the edge of the rim’s inner surface.
For some larger rims, the banding was very pronounced and sharply angled,
creating a very distinctive profile (see examples CL13, CL7, CL6, CFL2, CSL2, and,
CSL1 in Section 4.2).
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Figure 31: Various representative externally-decorated rim and body sherds from the YK10/11
assemblage. No sherds contained internal decoration. Clockwise from top-left: incised line and
grooved decoration (31a), irregular stamped and incised line decoration (31b), stamped triangles
with incised line ‘guides” (31c), incised lines with stamped circles in outline (31d), deep stamped
triangles with incised lines above (31e), cross-hatched incised line decoration (31f), and irregular
stamped shapes (31g).
31a
31b
31c
31d
31e
31f
31g
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4.7.7 Multiple decorations
The definition of a multiple-decorated sherd is one that featured two or more types
of decoration. This included sherds that had two varieties of the same decoration
type; and in the YK10/11 assemblage, this was only relevant to the roulette
decorated sherds.
Overall, there were 123 instances of YK10/11 sherds with multiple decoration,
4.81% of the decorated assemblage. Of these, there were 20 rim sherds with two
decoration types, and two rim sherds with three; whilst 95 body sherds exhibited
two types of decoration, and four body sherds, three types (see Table 19).
Decoration combination Frequency (=n) Percentage frequency (%)
Carved wooden roulette and incised line 1 0.81
Groove and roulette 10 8.13
Groove, roulette, and carved wooden roulette 1 0.81
Groove and stamp 9 7.37
Incised line and carved wooden roulette 2 1.6
Incised line and groove 5 4.09
Incised line, groove, and carved wooden roulette 1 0.81
Incised line, groove, and rectangular banding 1 0.81
Incised line and rectangular banding 1 0.81
Incised line and roulette 51 41.46
Incised line, roulette, and carved wooden roulette 1 0.81
Incised line, roulette, and groove 1 0.81
Incised line, roulette, and roulette 1 0.81
Incised line and stamp 25 20.49
Incised line, stamp, and roulette 1 0.81
Roulette and rectangular banding 12 9.83
Table 19: A comprehensive summary of the multiple-decorated YK10/11 sherds.
There were no instances in which appliqué was used with another decoration type.
Carved wooden roulette was differentiated from the other types of YK10/11
roulette in this table, to reflect the fact that the Koma Land pottery makers
themselves appeared to have done so. With only a few exceptions, if two types of
roulette were present on a sherd, one of those types was almost always a variety of
carved wooden roulette. There was no preference as to the variety of carved
wooden roulette used, however, nor to the other roulette type; braided strip
roulette, twisted cord roulette, and twisted cord wrapped stick were all used on
sherds with multiple decoration.
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As Table 19 shows, the most common combination of multiple decorations was
incised lines with roulettes, followed by incised lines and stamp decoration. When
incised lines and roulette were used together, the former always overcut the latter.
Practically, the incised lines would be erased if this process was reversed. As it was,
the roulette created a textured background, which contrasted the geometric
patterns created using incised lines (as above, Section 4.7.2). A slight exception to
this rule was the carved wooden roulettes, as in two instances a single impressed
line of this roulette type was used to create a border delineating and/ or
highlighting other areas of decoration. Grooves were similarly used to border other
types of decoration, or to overcut roulette decoration as the incised lines did.
The use of incised lines and stamped decoration together was often characterised
by the use of the lines as a ‘guide’ or marker along which the stamped decoration
would be impressed. This was particularly the case with stamped triangles (e.g. see
Figure 31c and 31e). Rectangular banding appeared most frequently with roulette,
whilst interestingly, there were no examples of carved wooden roulette and
stamping on the same sherd.
4.8 Firing
Firing condition was determined via visual, macro-analysis of each sherd in the
field. Table 20 shows that 86.85% of sherds were fired in an oxidised atmosphere.
The data obtained from the scanning electron microscopy of 17 sherds supports
these observations (see Section 4.4.1); all were oxidised. The fabric colours of the
majority of the assemblage (see Section 4.3) were also those that tend to be the
product of an oxidising environment.
Firing condition
(After PCRG 2010: 34)
Percentage frequency of each sherd type (%) Percentage
total (%) Body Rim Base
Oxidised 59.9 (n=1779) 26.17 (n=777) 0.74 (n=22) 86.85
Unoxidised 1.85 (n=55) 0.1 (n=3) 0.03 (n=1) 1.98
Oxidised exterior, unoxidised core, oxidised interior 0.53 (n=16) 0.7 (n=21) 0 1.24
Irregularly fired (patchy core and surface margins) 5.99 (n=178) 3.5 (n=104) 0.06 (n=2) 9.56
Undesignated/ unrecorded 0.03 (n=1) 0.03 (n=1) 0.3 (n=9) 0.03
Table 20: The YK10/11 firing condition types.
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To date, there is no archaeological evidence that Iron Age Koma Land pottery
makers fired their pottery in kilns. Identifying pottery firing structures and remains
in the archaeological record, however, is recognised across the field of ceramic
studies as a challenging endeavour; firing structures may be mistaken for other
features such as hearths (Orton and Hughes 2013: 136), or the process may be
archaeologically invisible, “thus, lack of evidence is one of the main problems
researchers have to face when studying the structure and fuels used in prehistoric
pottery firing” (Santacreu 2013: 101).
Koma Land is an area of tree savannah grassland, so wood and other plant matter
would have been accessible resources with which to fire pottery. In many grassland
areas in northern Ghana, modern inhabitants deliberately set fires in the bush
annually to clear ground for farming and building, and to produce charcoal for
personal and commercial use (personal observation).
The data in Table 20 implies the YK10/11 assemblage was fired in an open-air
environment, meaning “the pots and fuel are in immediate contact and are
arranged in a stack on the ground or in a shallow depression” (Orton and Hughes
2013: 134), a practice that often creates irregular firing conditions and
temperatures throughout the ‘structure’ and during the firing time (Santacreu
2013: 103). Oxidisation was reached by the largest proportion of the YK10/11
vessels – those vessels likely to have been stacked in the middle of the open-firing
structure – whilst the lower number of partially oxidised, reduced, and irregularly
fired sherds in this assemblage probably belonged to vessels around the edges of
the structure that came into direct contact with the fuel.
Orton and Hughes noted that the requisite chemical changes in clay to harden it to
pottery begin from 550 to 600 degrees Celsius, and that pottery below this level will
disintegrate in water shortly after firing (2013: 134-135). In the field, the YK10/11
pottery were immersed in cool water and washed to remove mud and detritus and
remained intact. As such, the average firing temperature of the ceramics is likely to
be above this figure.
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Kankpeyeng et al. (2013: 492) observed during the YK10 field season that “all
ceramics, including the figurines, are low-fired”. A “possible libation structure”
made of daub was also low-fired (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 36). Some of the
figurines exhibited evidence of exposure to fuel during firing, a circumstance that
suggests the pottery and figurines may have been fired together, or, at least using
the same method. Chapter 6 returns to this idea.
4.9 Use-wear
Nine sherds exhibited internal-surface use-wear. Five were body sherds, four
decorated and one undecorated, and the remainder were rims. One of the three
decorated sherds was perforated. None of the sherds were from the same vessel.
The use-wear took the form of scratched or gouged vertical lines, as though
repeatedly scraped with a sharp, thin tool. Where slip was present, these repeated
actions had eroded it. See Section 4.2.4 for a discussion of the use-wear evidence
for perforated vessel sherds.
The minute number of sherds that showed use-wear means it is not possible to
generalise about use-wear in the assemblage at large. It does, however, show that
at least some of the deposited vessels were not made for that sole purpose, but
had a prior use-life. It is unclear whether the use-wear was a product of shrine-
related activities, or domestic or other activities. There is precedence for the reuse
of pot sherds at this site; a few hundred vessel fragments reshaped into discs have
so far been excavated from the mounds (Insoll et al. 2013: 17). The discs’ purpose is
not completely certain. The excavators have suggested they were bottle-stoppers
akin to those used to seal horn medicine containers (Insoll et al. 2012: 26). Further
investigations of more ceramics from Iron Age Yikpabongo contexts would assist
use-wear interpretations, as would visual and archaeometric analysis of the pottery
discs.
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4.10 Discussion: manufacture, function, and use
To summarise the catalogue: the YK10/11 assemblage was characterised by a
majority of closed rim types and restricted mouth vessels/jars. The rim diameters
ranged from 6cm to 61cm, but the majority fell between 15cm to 34cm. The bases
were comparatively few, but most were of a similar design; pedestal style bases
dominated. The pot-stand legs had technical similarities with the Koma Land fired-
clay figurines, a point Chapter 5 returns to. The quantity of handles and lugs in this
assemblage was miniscule, but the former appeared to have been made for large
vessels.
Perforated vessel fragments, exhibiting signs of use, were also present.
Archaeological and ethnoarchaeological evidence had made clear that typically,
perforated vessels in West Africa have culinary-related functions as means of
smoking, steaming, or straining food (see Section 4.2.4). Interestingly, one
perforated sherd had been deliberately modified by wedging 0.4cm-sized quartz
fragments into the perforations.
Quartz fragments of a similar size were added as temper to just over 9% of the
YK10/11 assemblage. Similar temper was used in the figurines (Insoll et al. 2015: 50;
see Chapter 5 for discussion). The fabric was otherwise homogenous. Overall, the
fabric was classified as fine and the mostly rounded inclusions (white, black, brown,
and red-brown, and usually smaller than 0.2cm) were well sorted, which suggests
the clay fabric was comprehensively processed before use. 88% of the sherds were
micaceous; visually, this was clear. The presence of phosphorous in 35.3% of the
pottery samples analysed using scanning electron microscopy indicated their
potential use as cooking vessels (following Rodrigues et al. 2016: 229).
Slips were a deliberate addition to 73.2% of the sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage
and sherds were most frequently slipped on their internal surface. Just over 50% of
the slipped sherds exhibited the same slip colour on both their internal and external
surfaces and the remainder exhibited either slip on one surface, or multiple slips.
Even accounting for erosion, numerous slip colours had been used, although the
most frequent (see Figure 27) were of similar shades, all in the Munsell ‘yellow-red’
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spectrum. Interestingly, on some sherds it was clear that the slip was a deliberate
coating applied over the top of the decoration.
Roulette was the most frequent decoration type (60.19% of decorated sherds
exhibited roulette) and strip, cord, mat, twisted, and carved wooden roulettes were
present. In the assemblage 28.87% of the decorated sherds were decorated with
singe/ multiple lines and grooves, 5.12% with banding, 0.74% with stamping, and
0.11% with appliqué, and finally 4.81% displayed at least two, and up to three,
types of decoration.
Analysis of potential firing techniques and conditions has led to the conclusion that
the Iron Age vessels were fired in an open-air environment using local organic
resources. This would account for the oxidised nature of most the sherds and the
irregular firing of the minority. It is theorised that the figurines and vessels were
fired in the same conditions, an idea Chapter 6 returns to. Conversely, the small
number of sherds exhibiting signs of use-wear meant it was not possible to theorise
about the assemblage at large from these results. Similarly, forming techniques
have been little commented upon because evidence of these was sparse.
The chaîne opératoire process discussed here indicates that the pottery assemblage
was made using a fairly standardised set of practices that were known and could be
repeated to create vessels whose fabric, forms, decorations, and surface treatment
was comparable and indeed, fairly homogenous. It suggests the pottery was local
and made by the same set of individuals, although whether these individuals could
be grouped by household, or by their status as potters, or in some other way, is
unclear. It has not yet been determined whether pottery production was by
household or by a specialist group, but the overall homogeneity of the pottery in
any case suggests a shared set of learnt practices. This is also supported by the
similarity of Koma Land pottery across the region (see Chapter 7.3). As such, it
would appear the pottery was made locally, using local clay and firing resources.
The evidence of forms and functions indicates the pottery was produced for
domestic purposes. The diameters of the rim sherds, of the bases, and the forms
drawn out from the analysis of the rim profiles indicate the shrine assemblage was
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mainly composed of large, round bodied vessels most appropriate for cooking and
food/ drink storage. Smaller vessels may have been used to serve and consume
food. This interpretation is supported by (a) the presence of perforated ‘colander’
sherds; (b) the (albeit somewhat circumstantial) fact that there were few bases
present, suggesting that rounded bases (undiscernible from body sherds when
fragmented) suited for placing in a fire were favoured; (c) the clear evidence that
some sherds were subject to prolonged contact with fire; (d) the presence of
phosphorous in one third of the pottery samples; and (e) the possibility that slip
was employed to aid vessel impermeability. The authors of the other analyses of
Koma Land pottery assemblages both independently reached similar conclusions
(Asamoah-Mensah: 2013; Nkumbaan 2016). Indeed, as argued at the beginning of
Chapter 2, Anquandah’s interpretation of the Koma Land pottery he unearthed, as
domestic, is not disputed (1987: 174); what was disputed was what ‘domestic’ had
been perceived to mean and represent, and how, as a label, it and other
problematic practices (see Chapters 2.2. and 2.3) inappropriately directed
interpretation and understandings of the Koma pottery.
The presence of domestic material in a shrine mound indicates that the Iron Age
Koma Land community, or individual(s) within that community, recontextualised
‘working’ vessels by incorporating them into the shrine. Going forward, these points
provide a basis for examining the reuse and recontextualisation of domestic
ceramic material in ritual contexts in Iron Age Koma Land, an idea originally
suggested in Kankpeyeng et al. (2013: 484) that can be explored in greater detail in
light of this pottery analysis. At the same time, it is important to be mindful of the
obvious but oft forgotten archaeological fallacy of imposing modern attitudes and
arbitrarily separating ritual from domestic in historic, proto-historic, and prehistoric
contexts. Chapter 5 provides in-depth discussion of the analysis presented in this
chapter and examines the reuse and recontextualisation of the assemblage as
preliminarily outlined here. Secondly, in it the relationships between these themes
and the assemblage’s deposition practices and contexts are considered.
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Chapter 5: Discussion and contextualisation
5.1 Introduction
Anquandah and Van Ham were the first to interpret the pottery excavated from
Koma Land as domestic, after the partial examination of 52,547 sherds excavated
from three mounds (Anquandah 1987b: 187; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985; see
Chapter 2.2). Chapter 4’s analysis, and the discussion in Chapter 5, substantiate that
interpretation. Without going as far as to label the assemblage “kitchen
equipment” (Anquandah 1998: 179), and recalling that the “stone circle mounds”
(Anquandah 1998: 111) have been convincingly reinterpreted as shrines (Chapter
1.2.3; Insoll et al. 2012, 2013, 2015; Kankpeyeng et al. 2008, 2011, 2013), the
essence of their interpretation – that the Iron Age Koma Land population deposited
domestic vessels into non-domestic contexts – appears valid.
Chapter 5’s first objective is to discuss this, using Chapter 4’s analysis. The second is
to go beyond Anquandah and Van Ham’s interpretations to explore the contexts in
which the pottery was repurposed and deposited, and its associations with the
other types of material in the shrine mound. As such, Chapter 5 examines the
possible identities of the Koma Land pottery makers and explores the role(s) and
meanings of the sherds throughout their biographies; as fragments of vessels, as
fragments, and as shrine-constituents. The sherds’ materiality, and their
incorporation of, and interactions with, other materials and substances, is
significant here.
As a reminder, the YK10/11 shrine material included pottery sherds, low-fired clay
structures, pottery discs, figurines, iron objects, querns and grinding stones, animal
remains, fragmented human remains, two small, complete vessels, Cypraea
moneta, the occasional glass bead, and pieces of unworked rock, including quartz.
Both the ceramic and non-ceramic artefacts will be discussed; but the complexity of
the relationships between the pottery and figurines has afforded them their own
chapter, Chapter 6.
The discussion and interpretations in Chapter 5 have been restricted to the data
provided from the YK10/11 assemblage itself, the context information recorded on
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the YK10/11 finds bags, two brief summaries of the YK10 and YK11 excavations
(Insoll et al. 2012; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013), and an article on tomographic scanned
figurine samples (Insoll et al. 2016). Further, a guidebook for a temporary exhibition
of Koma Land material held in Manchester Museum between October 2013 to May
2014 (Insoll et al. 2013) – the exhibit is now housed in the DAHS’s teaching museum
on-campus at the University of Ghana – and a 2010 excavation notebook compiled
by Insoll with plans and finds information for a specific section of the YK10
excavation (Insoll et al. 2010). In Chapter 2.1, this data-scenario was described as a
‘breadcrumb’ trail. It was necessary to follow this trail because the contextual data
needed to fully analyse and interpret the assemblage’s structure, contexts, and
material relationships was not forthcoming from the project’s director (as explained
in Chapter 1.2.5). Thus, full contextual data is available for only 3.7% of the YK10/11
sherds analysed in this thesis. This has hindered some elements of the analysis.
Nevertheless, useful observations have still been made.
5.2 Pre-fragmentation: understanding the YK10/11 assemblage’s origins
Chapter 4 concluded that the YK10/11 assemblage was originally domestic; that is,
characterised by a majority of medium to large, probably rounded vessel forms,
used for the preparation, storage, and serving of consumables. This preparation
included fire-based methods, and cooking techniques (possibly straining, steaming,
smoking, or a mixture) involving the use of perforated sherds, which formed 0.8%
(n=47) of the entire pottery assemblage. It was unclear from the evidence available
whether this was a wet or dry cooking technique (after MacLean and Insoll. 1999).
The condition of the assemblage meant that residue analysis was unlikely to be
successful. Evidence of prolonged use was evident for 38.3% of the perforated
sherds, so they were clearly not made for shrine deposition. The limited use wear
evidence for the non-perforated assemblage demonstrated that some pots were
being used, probably for food processing and/ or cooking. Evidence suggestive of
pottery use for culinary activities from macro- and micro-fabric analysis was
presented, including the presence of phosphorous in 35.3% of the sherd samples’
fabric (Chapter 4.3; Rodrigues et al. 2016: 229).
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The rim types’ stylistic variety was belied by the small number of vessel forms they
produced. In Chapter 4, 80.1% (n=761) of the rim types were shown to belong to
closed vessel forms. The majority of these closed vessel types produced very similar
vessel profiles; a flared, everted lip with a restricted neck, and externally-angled
walls (some sharply angled), creating a rounded or carinated shoulder and body.
The lack of shoulder on the majority of the rim sherds prohibited confirmation of
the comparative frequencies of carinated and rounded vessel bodies.
The remainder of the closed rim types that did not produce this vessel profile were
inverted rim types with squared, flat, or rounded profiles. Examination of the
profile and diameters for these rim categories indicated they were medium to large
jars. Similar styles from 15th to 17th century AD Savi in Benin were interpreted –
based on this form – as suitable for the storage and transport of grain and water
(Davies 2016: 88). In the YK10/11 assemblage 15.47% (n=148) of the rim types
belonged to open vessels, with rim profiles indicating they belonged to bowls and
deep bowls with straight walls and rim types that were rounded, flat, or angled.
Three plates, or very, wide shallow bowls, were also present in the assemblage.
These were characterised by an everted rim type and internally angled, walls gently
sloping to a flat pedestal base.
The majority of YK10/11 bases were pedestal-types. Typically, these were even and
well balanced when placed upon a flat surface. The curvature of the pedestal bases’
foot ring was typically shallow, making it likely they belonged to storage vessels,
due to the impracticality of stabilising them over a fire. Unless, of course, pots
stands were used in support. Those bases with a portion of vessel body still
attached all exhibited round bodies. Other base types belonged to flat – or slightly
rounded – bottomed vessels whose stability was questionable. Finally, pot-stand
legs constituted 8.6% (n=3) of the assemblage’s bases. Although no actual pot-
stands were found, the presence of legs supports their existence, and their form
supports the interpretation that domestic activity was taking place using these
vessels. Here, specifically, fire-based cooking.
The average thickness of the Koma Land pots (between 0.9cm to 1.3cm) suggests
they were robust and could be transported if necessary. The overall scarcity of
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bases suggests that most were rounded, as would suit those placed within a hearth.
Excavated settlement mounds have revealed hearths, layers of burning, and a
dearth of bases, leading the researchers at those sites to also conclude rounded
bases dominated (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 103; Nkumbaan 2016: 124). A full
comparative analysis of the YK10/11 pottery with the pottery excavated from
settlement and shrine mounds in Yikpabongo and Tando Fagusa (Asamoah-Mensah
2013; Nkumbaan 2016) is presented in Chapter 7.3.1.
Whilst made for domestic purposes, the available contextual information
demonstrates that the YK10/11 assemblage did not remain within this sphere. The
deposition of sherds from vessels made for domestic purposes within the shrine
demonstrates this. Further evidence is the deliberate modification of domestic-
made sherds for shrine-related activities. Reports by Kankpeyeng and Insoll on the
2010-2011 excavation noted the presence of a large vessel within the shrine
mound, modified by a deliberate hole in its base and as such interpreted as an
earth-libation feature (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). Kankpeyeng et al. also reported “small
ceramic gourd objects” (2013: 482), an intriguing example of skeuomorphism, and
the meaning(s) of which are not currently known. Pottery discs, created from pot
sherds by the deliberate rounding and smoothing of their edges, were deposited
within the shrine (Insoll et al. 2012: 36, 41; Insoll et al. 2013: 17). The 1985
excavation by Anquandah and Van Ham also reported modified pottery discs (1985:
110).
Only one example of a possibly purposefully produced non-domestic vessel was
discovered in the YK10/11 mound; a small, “flat bottomed pot incised with lines
and dots forming chevron patterns” which was “too small” to have had a domestic
function (Insoll et al. 2013: 21). This pot was not part of the assemblage studied
here because it is housed in the National Museum of Ghana in Accra, which was
closed for the duration of my research in Ghana because of flood damage to the
building.
After discussing the stylistic variation present in the YK10/11 decoration (see
Chapter 1.3.3 for theoretical discussion), Sections 5.4 and 5.5 examine the domestic
sherds’ fragmentation- and post-fragmentation biographies to explore the
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processes by which they were incorporated into the shrine and potential reasons
why. From the beginning of this thesis, the need to integrate understanding of the
pottery and figurines has been emphasised. Whilst Chapter 6 focuses specifically on
the relationships between these artefacts, Chapter 5 sets out a framework of ideas
that Chapter 6 develops. One of the arguments underpinning this thesis is that the
figurines and pottery have been studied disproportionately, to the detriment of the
latter, and to the detriment of their makers. In all likelihood, the pottery and
figurine makers were the same. As well as seeking to understand the relationship
between the ceramics and the shrine from which they were excavated, analysis of
the YK10/11 pottery is used to put forth this argument here.
5.3 Pre-fragmentation: decoration styles
The decorated YK10/11 sherds were characterised by a small set of core design
principles or rubrics. Characteristics shared by the different decoration categories
were (a) repetition; (b) the use of geometric designs (lines, triangles, rectangles);
and (c) the used of incised decoration – both lines, and grooves – to emphasise,
reference, or highlight other selective decoration types. This was most frequently
roulette.
The use of repetitive design elements was most visible in the incised line, groove,
braided strip, and stamped decoration categories. The preference for a limited
repository of reused techniques did not mean the designs themselves were
repetitive, however. The design variety was immense. Roulette tools of different
tightness, length, thickness, and weave produced diverse patterns even within the
same roulette type. The repetition of lines, grooves, and stamps as either single or
multiple decoration categories created multiple configurations. Complex patterns
were constructed on sherds using only one or two types of shapes, such as straight
lines, that were repeated to build up the design. See, for example, Figures 30 and
31.
The majority of the incised and stamped decorations were geometric. Isosceles
triangles were a repeated theme. They were present as a type of stamped
decoration and were also created by the deliberate structuring and intersection of
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multiple incised lines. Individuality was evident in the variety of patterns, and in the
fact that some lines were aborted at their mid-way point and then restarted from
the same place, but at a different angle (Figure 30) as though the maker had been
dissatisfied. Rectangular banding, a stylistic variation that occurred on 5.12% of
YK10/11 rim sherds (Chapter 4.7.5), and which varied in width between 1.2cm to
3cm, could also be classified as geometric, because it created a distinctive, angular
profile.
Having a small repository of pottery-decoration techniques from which seemingly
endless variations are created is not an uncommon concept in Sub-Saharan
ethnography or archaeology (Gosselain 2000: 195, 209, 2014: 467; Haour 2013:
116). The use of a few techniques from which numerous, apparently individualised,
patterns were produced may suggest that pottery-making in Iron Age Koma Land
was a shared, social learning process, in which potters learnt core techniques that
they adapted to suit their own preferences.
The ‘small repository of techniques’ identified in the decoration practices of the
Koma pottery makers should not be compared to, or mistaken for a variant of,
McIntosh’s “symbolic reservoir” theory. The theory posits that societies have a
central collection of ideas and symbols they access when producing and interacting
with artefacts, in order to underscore and highlight their specific communal identity
(McIntosh 1988 [1998]: 16). Haour (2013b: 115), and MacEachern (1994) have also
criticised this concept. Whilst the term itself may be useful to discuss collective,
repeated ceramic styles and practices (Haour 2013: 116), the issue with McIntosh’s
application of it to the archaeological record is that it infers that the community in
question had a solid, unified cultural awareness and identity, when this may not
have been the case. The archaeological remains of the community that produced
the material found in Koma Land extends over an area whose size is as yet
unconfirmed by survey, and who may have had multiple communities, whose
shared practiced resulted from social interactions and spatial-nearness rather than
a single explicitly shared identity.
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5.4 Fragmentation: sherd reuse, discard, and deposition
To understand the processes and actions that informed and influenced the reuse,
discard, and deposition practices of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage it is first
necessary to understand its distribution within the shrine mound. This endeavour
has been hindered by lack of access to the relevant contextual information (as
outlined in Chapter 1.2.4). Nevertheless, useful evidence is available. This includes
the context numbers for the YK10/11 pottery sherds, which for the most part
included the trench square (e.g. P12) and level (depth; e.g. L3) the sherds were
excavated from (as demonstrated in Chapter 1.2.4), one illustration, and written
descriptions of the YK10/11 mound that have already been published (Kankpeyeng
et al. 2013). Each level represented a depth of 10cm, and the surface level was L0.
Using this combination of data, Figure 32 was created. All squares outlined in red
represent the units excavated in 2010 and 2011, as reported in the published
descriptions of the context records (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481). These were
sourced from Figure 2 in Chapter 1.2.4 (after Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481). They
demonstrate the selection of 100cm X 100cm units for excavation in both field
seasons using a random sampling technique (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481).
All of the shaded blue squares in Figure 32 are those that YK10/11 pottery was
retrieved from during 2010 or 2011. The finds’ bags the YK10/11 assemblage were
stored in were each labelled with a context number. This context number was
recorded in a database as each bag was catalogued for this thesis. It is these finds
bags’ labels that have been used to produce this figure. As the key demonstrates,
the depth of shading indicates the number of sherds present in that square.
The shaded blue squares without red outlines in Figure 32 represent trench squares
with valid, identifiable context numbers in the YK10/11 assemblage database that
were not recorded as being excavated according to the original excavation plan (for
which see Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 481, reproduced in Chapter 1.2.4). Conversely,
the red-outlined squares that have remained grey represent trench squares
recorded as excavated in the trench plan, but which did not match any context
numbers recorded for the YK10/11 pottery assemblage.
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It is unclear from known records whether (a) no pottery sherds were recovered
from these squares; (b) whether any sherds from them were simply discarded/
were not recorded; (c), whether they had been recorded, but were lost, (d) whether
they may be represented by unclear/ incomplete context numbers, or (e) whether
they had been recorded, but were missed during retrieval of the assemblage from
the Department’s on-campus storage facility. The latter seems unlikely; with the
assistance of three colleagues, a whole afternoon was dedicated to locating and
retrieving the YK10/11 pottery assemblage from the archives.
Figure 32: A trench plan of the YK10/11 excavation, comparing pottery concentrations with the
recorded excavated squares. As with Figure 2, each square is 100cm X 100cm.
Figure 32 reveals a concentration of sherds on the mound’s southeast side, as
represented by clusters in trench squares Q10 and Q11, and N10, N11, and M10.
This concentration of sherds was almost certainly associated with the “possible
libation structure”, identified at “a depth of c. 15-18cm from the surface” in square
YK11 O12 (Insoll et al. 2012: 36).
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The libation structure was made of daub and was “arranged in a circular pattern
interwoven with potsherds” (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). Above this feature, a quern and
four figurines were uncovered (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). The pot sherds excavated
from YK10/YK11 O12, from between Levels 1-4, consisted of 33 decorated body
sherds, 11 rim sherds (two of which were also decorated), eight undecorated body
sherds, and one perforated sherd; 53 in total. There were no bases.
The decorated sherds were a mixture of cord and strip roulette, and one instance
each of carved roulette, incised lines, and grooved decoration. Their condition
ranged from fair to eroded (see Chapter 3.2.2.1 for a full description), and their
fabric also showed some variation in terms of colour, firing condition, and inclusion
frequency, as did the slip. Seven sherds were blackened from use. All of the finds
information discussed in this section has been summarised in Table 21.
Square Pottery
sherds
Figurines Querns Quartz Pottery discs Skeuomorph
YK10/11 I13 150 27 Number
unspecified
Number
unspecified
5
YK11 I14
YK11 H13
YK10/11 H14
YK10/11 O12 53 4 1
YK10 3 L13 16 (not
including
small pouring
vessel)
YK10 3 N11 90 1
Table 21: A summary of the YK10/11 artefact types by trench square using all available published
data. A greyed-out box indicates no data was available.
From the adjacent squares YK11 I13, I14, H13, and H14, a concentrated mass of
artefacts was excavated in an area measuring approximately 1.2m by 0.8m (Insoll et
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al. 2012: 36). This consisted of two complete figurines, “15 identifiable figurine
fragments, 12 unidentifiable figurine fragments, spherical stone querns, fragments
of quartz, numerous pot sherds, and five pottery discs” (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). In
total, the “numerous pot sherds” numbered 150, and they were excavated up to a
depth of 60cm. They consisted of: 96 decorated body sherds, 37 rim sherds (six
decorated), ten undecorated body sherds, five perforated sherds, and two bases.
Analysis revealed no correlation between the type of sherd excavated, the depth at
which it was excavated, or the types of sherds associated with one another. As with
square YK11 O12, the sherds exhibited variations in their fabric, decoration, and
slip. Seven sherds exhibited burnt areas consistent with fire-related use. Again,
these sherds were in a mixed condition, ranging from ‘eroded’ to ‘excellent’.
Finally, the excavation summary for YK10/11 reports that,
From the context YK10-3-L13 the rim of a small clay pouring vessel with a
pronounced lip was recovered, and in YK10-3-N11 half a ceramic gourd or
seed was found. The latter was drawn from a single lump of clay (Insoll et al.
2012: 39).
Beginning with the former square, 16 (nine decorated body sherds, five
undecorated rim sherds, and two undecorated body) sherds were excavated from a
depth of 0cm to 20cm. Again, these sherds exhibited variety in terms of their type,
form, fabric, decoration, and slip. The skeuomorphic ceramic artefact uncovered
from YK10-3-N11 was accompanied by 90 sherds, (65 decorated body sherds, 21
undecorated rims, three perforated sherds, and one base) most of which were
again excavated from the shallow depth of 0cm to 20cm. Only five sherds were
excavated below this, from depths between 30cm to 50cm. Of these five sherds,
three were rim sherds and two were decorated body sherds. The condition of the
sherds ranged from ‘good’ to ‘very eroded’. The same sherd variety that had been
previously described was again observed, except for sherd type; in this instance
72.2% were decorated body sherds. The decorated sherds exhibited multiple and
single grooves, single and multiple incised lines, stamped decoration, stamped
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decoration combined with incised lines, and braided, roll cord wrapped, twisted
cord, and eroded, otherwise unidentifiable roulettes.
Layers of potsherds were alternated with layers of figurines to the extent that
archaeologists began to accurately predict the occurrence of one if they found a
layer of the other (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 482). The build-up of layers of ceramic
and other materials suggests that the curators of the shrine intended the structure
to have a degree of permanency, as access to the lower layers of material would
have been almost impossible without disturbing and partially destroying the
succeeding accumulations. Within this build-up of material, however, the presence
of the circular, clay-walled libation structure and the pot-in-place modified through
a hole in its base peps indicated a need to remain connected to the earth (Insoll et
al. 2012: 36).
Although not representative of the entire shrine mound, the picture emerging here
demonstrates, firstly, that the users of the YK10/11 material were depositing
pottery sherds with biographies that commenced long before their ritual
recontextualisation in the shrine. The modification of sherds into pot discs, and
other shapes, which were then re-used, possibly as horn and gourd bottle-stoppers
(Insoll et al. 2012: 36), also supports the idea that the sherds had a lengthy and
diverse biography even after fragmentation.
Secondly, the bulk of the material was deposited not far from the ground surface.
What this says about the assemblage and the shrine mound is not clear. The 2010
field notes observed that the mound’s top had been disturbed by recent activity,
possibly related to house-construction, farming activities, and a nearby
thoroughfare (Insoll et al. 2010: 5-6). The artefact scatters recorded between 0cm-
10cm may thus have been displaced and dispersed by digging (Insoll 2010 et al. 25-
26).
Thirdly, and finally, the sherds discussed here were excavated in a variety of
conditions that extended from being of a very poor, abraded quality to being in an
excellent condition with well-preserved decoration (see Chapter 4.7 for examples).
The sherds’ conditions and the depths at which they had been excavated showed
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no correlation. This final observation warrants a return to and expansion of the
ideas introduced at the end of the previous section. Concepts of fragmentation and
object discard will also be explored.
Any notion that the YK10/11 pottery was simply recontextualised from domestic to
ritual omits a large part of the sherds’ biographies; their fragmentation. As well as
the observation, above, that the excavated sherds were in a mixture of conditions,
in Chapter 4 it was noted that a considerable portion of the assemblage consisted
of very small sherds. Almost 1500 rim and body sherds under 2cm in size were
discarded before analysis began, as inadequate for data collection purposes (see
Chapter 4.1). Whilst the storage conditions of the ceramics may have had some
impact (see Chapter 3), the proportion of small sherds is statistically significant
enough for it to be likely they were deposited in this condition. Insoll made a similar
observation on abraded sherds in his field notes (Insoll et al. 2010: 27).
Furthermore, whilst the record demonstrates that some pots were broken in place,
analysis of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage has established that depositing entire
pots, either whole or fragmented, was not a frequent practice. Less than 1% of the
YK10/11 assemblage could be refitted, and no complete, or even near-complete,
pots were generated from this. Moreover, significant numbers of pot discs have
been recorded at Iron Age Koma Land sites (Beltrami 1992: 427; Insoll et al. 2012:
27, 36; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 482), and more generally, the modification of
sherds into these rounded discs further diminishes the potential to refit. How the
non-shrine deposited sherds were treated is currently unknown. The ability to refit
was likely also affected by the split-site storage of the assemblage, and the logistical
impossibility (because of weight and space issues) of examining the whole
assemblage in the same location.
It is also feasible that refitting was impractical because many of the sherds were so
fragmented, an issue which may affect understanding of deposition activities in the
shrine. For this reason, detailed comparative analysis of the ceramics from an Iron
Age Koma Land house mound (such as Asamoah-Mensah: 2013 investigated) with
the YK10/11 shrine mound would be an extremely useful future undertaking, to
provide the basis for further comparisons, and to add to the corpus of Koma Land
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ceramic material and subsequent knowledge. Further, to examine the use-wear and
condition of non-shrine deposited ceramics in relation to shrine-deposited ones.
Returning to the question of the vessels’ biographies once fragmented, it is
suggested that the abraded condition of many of the YK10/11 sherds, and their
small size, is a consequence of their reuse for other activities post-breakage but
pre-deposition; causing them to erode and fragment further. In this way, the
formulaic domestic-ritual transition is contested. Following Deal and Hagstrum,
reuse is understood here as “the use of an object in a secondary context when it can
no longer serve its original function” (Deal et al. 1995: 111; emphasis original).
Mather’s ethnographic study of settlement compounds, associated shrines, and
artefact deposition among the Kusasi linguistic group in the Upper East Region of
Ghana has shown that broken pots are of value, with sherds used “as lids on other
vessels, to give water and food to animals, to support cooking pots, and to make
termite traps” (1999: 165). Sherds were used for these activities until too
fragmented to be of use, at which time they were removed to a “heap outside the
compound where daily trash walking, and trampling, break them down even
further. Ground surfaces are littered with tiny pieces of ceramic” (Mather 1999:
165). Assessing ideas of fragmentation and ceramic reuse more broadly, others
have similarly observed the use of sherds as tools, animal feeders, game pieces, pot
lids, loom weights, spindle whorls, finials, and roundels (Barley 1994: 24, 73;
Chapman et al. 2007: 81; Deal et al. 1995: 113-117; Insoll et al. 2013: 198, 199).
The uses pot sherds were put to in Iron Age Koma Land are at this stage conjecture,
but the fact that pottery sherds were reused, in any capacity, is supported by the
pottery discs, as previously mentioned (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 482), and also by
the presence of other modified sherds (Insoll et al. 2010: 32). Without desiring to
make any link between the Iron Age Koma Land inhabitants and the modern Kusasi,
the post-vessel use-wear of the Koma Land sherds does support a biography
comparable to that observed by Mather in the Upper East Region (1999: 165).
Potentially, the sherds deposited in the YK10/11 shrine mound were obtained from
settlement mounds such as the one excavated by Asamoah-Mensah (2013). The
idea that ‘middens are rubbish’ has been contested as a misapplication of modern
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world views about materiality, particularly by archaeologists studying middens in
Neolithic Europe; instead of refuse piles, archaeologists have argued they can be
structured sites of curated, meaningful, and (dangerously) powerful material (c.f.
Chapman et al. 2006: 174; Deal et al. 1995: 112; Hill 1995; Thomas 2002: 63, 87,
205). Consideration of what archaeologists persist in thinking of as “ordinary
refuse” as more than relating to the mundane spheres of life has also been called
for in West Africa (Stahl 2008: 160). Although the Iron Age Koma Land evidence
does not point to such a belief – outside of the shrine, at least – it is still facetious
to presume that medieval worldviews about the use-life of artefacts accord with
modern ones.
5.5 Post-fragmentation: structure and concealment
Thus far, this chapter has argued that the sherds belonging to the YK10/11
assemblage were originally from domestic vessels used for the cooking, storage,
and processing of foodstuffs. Once fragmented, these sherds were reused in other
domestic capacities until too abraded to be of use in this sphere – extending the
biography of the sherd beyond that of the pot – after which time they were
discarded. The easily available discarded sherds were subsequently reused within
the shrine. The ‘structured’ nature of some of these pot sherd arrangements has
already been alluded to when analysing the sherds themselves, but what has not
been addressed are the specific ways in which these sherds were structured in
place, and their specific relationships with the other material deposited.
For most of the YK10/11 ceramic assemblage, this is not something that can be
addressed, but the published reports (Insoll et al. 2012; Insoll et al. 2013;
Kankpeyeng et al. 2013) and the 2010 field notes (Insoll et al. 2010) provide some
insight. One repeated use of pot sherds within the shrine was to reference or
highlight another type of artefact (a practice which, interestingly, was also observed
with the incised decoration in relation to the roulette decoration (see Chapter
4.7.2)). For instance: in square YK11 O12, sherds were placed in a circular pattern
around the previously mentioned libation structure. In square YK10 I15, at a depth
of 30-40cm, a stone sphere rested on a “bed of sherds” (Insoll et al. 2010: 13; see
Figure 32), and similar features were also recorded in squares L13 and M13,
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although here, the pot sherds were “deliberately placed on edge to form a
surround” (Insoll et al. 2010: 17). No such associations are recorded from
Anquandah’s excavations, although the space afforded to pottery analysis in his
publications is minute (Anquandah 1987: 174; 1998; 109-111). He does, however,
observe the placement of human remains and pots in relation to one another,
stating that the former rested on the latter (Anquandah 1987: 174).
Human remains have been recovered from Iron Age Yikpabongo in the last decade.
A single human skull was excavated in the YK07/08 field season (Insoll et al. 2016:
27). Human remains were also recovered during YK10 and consisted of a
fragmented skull, long bones, a jaw bone, and 37 teeth (Insoll et al. 2016: 27).
These were all from the YK10/11 mound (Insoll et al. 2016: 27; Kankpeyeng et al.
2011: 210). The teeth belonged to two individuals, a young and a middle-aged
adult, and two teeth belonging to the former had been filed (Insoll et al. 2016: 27).
The skull had been placed into the shrine facedown, and the fragmented long
bones were positioned to the southwest and southeast of it (Insoll et al. 2016: 27).
The teeth had been placed to the east of the skull (Insoll et al. 2016: 27).
Significantly, the facedown placement of the skull mimics how two of the human
and bicone figurines excavated during YK10 were treated, as these were also placed
facing downwards (Insoll et al. 2010: 15). Conversely, other human figurines were
deliberately placed face up (Insoll et al. 2016: 12). No reference has so far been
made as to whether the human remains were associated with any other type of
material, including pottery (Insoll et al. 2016: 27). From these actions, however, it is
evident that facing specific directions could be significant, something that has
already been theorised in relation to the figurine-pots with multiple facing “Janus”
heads, such as Figure 38; with the idea of direction and of “looking”, possibly in to
the past and future, suggested (Insoll et al. 2013: 31). Placing the figurine/ skull
downwards could be an attempt to ‘blind’ the object, or conversely, to facilitate its
return to the earth, as the libation pot discussed in the paragraph below has been
interpreted as doing for liquid offerings through the presence of a hole in its base. If
placing the figurine face down was intended to symbolically blind it, it has the
potential to be associated with onchocerciasis, or, river blindness, which is
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represented by the bulging eyes on some figurines, and which has historically
plagued the Sisili-Kulpawn River Basin (see Chapter 7.4.4). Associations between
the significance of direction and the orientation of burials from Koma Land
settlement mounds have already been made by Nkumbaan (2016: 201); but
Chapter 7.3 has problematised the interpretive framework of these.
Other artefacts found in the shrine included iron points and rings (possibly part of a
harness), an iron razor, a blue glass bead, a quartz lip plug, querns, and grinding
stones (Insoll et al. 2010: 6, 8, 13; Insoll et al. 2013: 27, 33, 35). Anquandah also
recorded a significant number of iron objects, including jewellery and “metal
sculptures” (1998: 123) although no other reference to these is made in the
literature about Iron Age Koma Land, and no archaeological evidence of metal
figurines has as yet been uncovered.
Interestingly, Gosselain reported that Bafia women in Northern Cameroon
processed clay destined for pottery vessels using stone grinders “identical” to those
used to process grain (1992b: 566; Gosselain 2014: 467). Elsewhere, he observed
that many clay processing techniques, firing techniques, and tools are “borrowed
from cooking: grindstones, cooking wheels, mortars, pestles, baskets, industrially
manufactured sifters, winnowing baskets, gourds, etc.” (2010: 196, 203-204).
Similarly, Crossland and Posnansky have commented on the use of iron rings by
modern potters in Begho in Ghana, which are scraped around the inside of the pots
to help ensure the consistency of the fabric’s thickness (1978: 83). Frank (2007: 34)
has also described “a bracelet-like [metal] tool” used to scrape excess clay from
pots in among the Folona in Mali. These examples are useful for understanding
possible relationships between the ceramic and non-ceramic artefacts that made
up the shrine. It may be the case that tools were deposited to prevent their further
use, and it is almost certain that the deposited artefacts had multiple,
interchangeable, and co-existing uses and meanings. In the Tong Hills in
northeastern Ghana, for example, the modern and historic use of grinding stones
and pots interchangeably for both the preparation of food and medicine has been
recorded (Insoll et al. 2013: 201). As with the YK10/11 sherds, the querns, iron
rings, and other artefacts were objects with complex biographies and use-lives.
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Accumulated material at the Tongnaab Yaane shrine in the Tong Hills has been
crucial to the shrine’s performance and power and offers further perspective as to
how the YK10/11 mound might be understood. In the shrine, built into a natural
cleft high up in a rock face (Insoll et al. 2013: 62; Insoll 2015: 272), deposited
materials, “ritual paraphernalia” (Insoll et al. 2013: 64, Insoll 2015: 271) – including
cords, fabric, and leather bags, pottery and gourds, animal parts such as bones,
skins, teeth, and feathers, weaponry including sacrificial knives, iron objects, and
even shea butter, which is applied to/ stored on the natural rock wall the rest of the
material supported by – have accumulated as offerings from supplicants. Yet it is
misleading to talk separately of the shrine and the offerings within it, because these
accumulated artefacts are the shrine. Visitors face this collection when in the shrine
and address their questions and issues to it (personal observation). Remedies may
include elements from the shrine, such as herbal medicine containing shea butter.
These materials and substances, added to the shrine, transcend their initial role as
offerings and become enshrined themselves.
The YK10/11 mound could be analysed from a similar perspective. Its accumulated
deposits of pottery sherds and discs, figurines, iron objects, querns, human
remains, and so on may have transcended the role of a deposited offering and
become part of the shrine itself. That the shrine is mostly constructed of
accumulated layers of materials adds weight to this interpretation. Certainly, the
lower deposits were rendered, as structural elements, invisible to the human eye
by the accumulation of further layers of artefacts over the top. Figure 36, the
camel/horse rider figurine covered over by potsherds (Insoll et al. 2013: 10), is one
such example, and was revealed only through excavation. In British Bronze Age
burial contexts, Jones has examined the deliberate layering and concealment of
material and argued that both practices were essential to the formation of memory
through the act of doing them: “that which conceals also reveals” (2010: 116-117).
Potentially, the gradual layering of material over the libation structure may have
acted as a form of wrapping, which in itself, serves “to conceal and make secret, it
can provide protection, or it can unify an assemblage of disparate substances,
objects or contexts” (Insoll 2015: 103; Richards 2013). Similarly, the Koma Land
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material would have only been ‘accessible’ to those that knew of its deposition,
perhaps suggesting here a link with the shrine formed through the processes of
materiality and memory. These repeated accumulations also show intentionality
and continuity of practice (Joyce 2008a: 28), if not continuity of the meanings
behind this practice.
Of course, the interpretation suggested above for the pottery sherds is not relevant
for the entire assemblage, because the excavation report noted some pots broken
in place within the shrine (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 480). Unfortunately, the ability
to comment on these is restricted because the available contextual information did
not specify which sherds made up these artefacts, and so these cannot be
specifically identified within the YK10/11 assemblage. The decision to deliberately
break pots in place may have been to release the contents of the pot into the shrine
in a safe way, with the pot acting to contain the material until it could be securely
deposited. Similarly, almost complete pots from the shrine site Nyoo in the Tong
Hills, northeastern Ghana, were theorised as symbolising containment, with specific
reference to the pots’ materiality as products of the earth (Insoll et al. 2013: 132).
Or, possibly, these pots in place contained libations that were transmitted to the
shrine by the action of breaking the pot. Potentially, the perception that objects
were ‘offered’ to the YK10/11 shrine is misleading. The relationship between the
shrine, the depositor(s), and the material they deposited is uncertain, and we
should consider the possibility that the deposited material was viewed as a
transaction, a periodic or event-specific necessity, or in some other way instead.
Chapter 1 made clear that the present inhabitants of Koma Land are in no way
connected with the creation of the Iron Age material remains discussed in this
thesis. Although significant relationships have since developed between the local
inhabitants and the prominent local archaeology (see Chapter 1.2.7), Yikpabongo,
meaning “ruins in the forest” (Kroger and Saibu: 2010: 74) was part of an area of
abandoned settlement when the forebears of the current inhabitants migrated into
the district. Further, the argument made both by Anquandah and Van Ham (1985:
11), and Kröger (1983), that the Iron Age Koma Land ceramics are the product of an
unchanging pottery tradition stemming from the Bulsa, a modern community that
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neighbours Koma Land and its Iron Age archaeological remains, has been
thoroughly rejected (see Chapter 2.2.3). What remains is the question of how and
for what reasons the Iron Age Koma Land inhabitants vacated the area. This is
pertinent to ask because the answer affects how the shrine material and context in
which this was deposited, including the ceramics, is understood. In Chapter 7.4.4,
the theme of the abandonment as it related to Koma Land has been set into its
wider West African contexts.
Previous research indicates that the cultural complex spanned a considerably larger
area than that of the modern village of Yikpabongo (Anquandah 1998: 1-3; Kröger
and Saibu 2010: 74), although how large cannot be said without undertaking a
survey. Potential reasons for the Iron Age inhabitants leaving the area, discussed in
greater depth Chapter 7.4.4, included disease and the danger of slave-raids.
Currently, it cannot be fully determined whether this movement was gradual or
abrupt, although the shrine’s material record and structure may offer some insight.
Between the oral histories of the current Yikpabongo population, which date their
foundation of the village to approximately 70-80 years ago, (Kröger and Saibu 2010:
77) and the 9th to 12th century AD radiocarbon dated YK10/11 shrine mound which
is the focus of this thesis, there is a significant time-period where what happened in
the occupation history of the area is unknown. How long the region was abandoned
before the current population reoccupied it – and whether there was occupation in
the interim – is unclear.
Mather has stressed that “abandonment conditions curate behaviour” (1999: 163).
Examining three contemporary abandoned compounds in the Upper East Region of
northern Ghana, Mather observed that whether a shrine was abandoned gradually
or abruptly, and whether the users planned to return, determined “the constitution
of de facto refuse at a site. De facto refuse consists of useable or repairable items of
material culture left behind when abandonment occurs” (1999: 163). Whilst Mather
notes that abandonment of a compound did not necessarily mean abandonment of
its shrine, which may be physically transported to a new compound (or conversely,
the shrine’s spirit consulted via divination and if content to do so, housed in the
new compound’s shrine) he concludes that “abandonment can lead to the discard
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of shrines if it also involves the demise of a residential group” (1999: 167). In these
cases, it is unlikely the shrine will survive de facto artefact curation, damage by
subsequent farming practices, and seasonal rains adequately enough to form part
of the archaeological record; “shrines discarded from systemic contexts are likely to
be destroyed” (Mather 1999: 181).
Using these observations to reflect upon the YK10/11 mound and pottery
assemblage, this may suggest that the mound was abandoned abruptly without its
users being able or willing to curate the shrine and the material it contained,
because the body of the shrine was intact. Another piece of evidence at play here is
the depth of the mound, which did not surpass 1.2m in depth anywhere; at the
same time, most of the pottery sherds were excavated from shallow deposits
(between 0cm-30cm) and the top of the libation structure recorded in the mound
was at a depth of 15cm to 18cm (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). This does not suggest a long
occupation period. Conversely, it has already been established that the mound was
disturbed by subsequent farming and building activities, which influenced the
dispersal of material at the site, and could have led to the removal of part of the
mound.
Furthermore, the shrine was not a static entity, meaning its material was likely to
have been curated, with artefacts removed and reorganised as well as added.
Ethnographic and archaeological observations of shrines in West Africa have
demonstrated that such practices can be a reality (Apoh and Gavua 2010: 224;
Mather 1999, 2009: 107). The fact that few complete vessels were found in the
YK10/11 mound may also be evidence of this practice. This does not in any way
refute the previous interpretation that sherds from domestic vessels reused in
other domestic capacities were then being incorporated in the shrine; to presume
that it does so demonstrates a lack of appreciation for the complexity of human-
material interactions. Further research is required to understand how the religious
features such as shrines fitted in with other types of space and architecture in Iron
Age Koma Land to obtain and understand information about occupation.
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5.6 Identity and gender: who were the Koma Land pottery makers?
The decision to use the term Koma Land to identify the YK10/11 pottery vessel
assemblage (and figurine) makers was a geographical one. The site of the YK10/11
assemblage was in Yikpabongo, a village in the Koma Land region, but similar finds
have been found beyond the village’s periphery (Anquandah 1998: 1-3). The exact
reach of this cultural complex is not yet evident. Anquandah put the reach as far as
encompassing northern Togo; based on comparisons with the pottery of a
neighbouring modern ethnic group, the Bulsa, to resolve the complication that the
current inhabitants of Koma Land have no historical link with their medieval
figuring-making predecessors. Other references go further afield. A publication by
Dagan (1989) discussed Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s 1985 excavation in Koma Land
(1989: 11) but based this solely on a collection from Togo. It is uncertain, however,
whether this was a collection discovered in Togo or simply located there (although
it is likely to be the latter), and the informants Dagan relied on for details about the
pieces in her publication were also not specified. As such, this source has not been
relied upon.
No attempt is made in this thesis to use the pottery as an ethnic-identity marker,
although this is something Anquandah explicitly did in his 1998 report on the Iron
Age Koma Land material, describing the ceramics as “the handiwork of a distinctive
ancient ethnic group” (1998: 101; see Chapter 2.2.3). Set against this practice is the
argument that such terms constrain rather than promote interpretation (Stahl
1991: 268), particularly pertinent here because the current geographical spread of
the cultural complex that is at present defined by the Koma Land figurines is
unknown. Refer to Chapter 2.2.3 for a detailed, critical analysis of ethnicity in Koma
Land.
As such, the term ‘cultural complex’ is used with the understanding that this refers
to an assemblage of contextually-related material whose ceramic components are
technically and stylistically comparable, rather than as the material culture of a
specific ethnicity. Similarly, identifying a Koma Land ‘community’ is not equated
with identifying an ethnic group, but is used here in the sense of a group of people
sharing tangible and intangible social, cultural, and religious behaviours, structures,
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and ideas across a geographical area. Whilst the region would benefit from
comprehensive surveys to clearly identify sites of archaeological interest, and
investigation of these to ascertain whether they could be part of the Iron Age Koma
Land ‘cultural complex’ discussed in this thesis, there is already sufficient evidence
to confidently state that the Koma Land community can be defined in this way (see
Chapter 2).
The presence of parts of a pottery assemblage in a setting that makes clear they
have been recontextualised is a significant reminder of the people behind the pots
and the complex actions and behaviours that led to those pots’ deposition. It is
tempting but also challenging to acknowledge the presence of individuals within
the material record, given its nature. It is also often problematic. Not only must
archaeologists be wary of ‘fixating’ on the ancient individual and individual identity,
a thoroughly modern concept and concern, but they must be wary of making
definitive conclusions about the individual at sites reliant solely on material culture.
This is not an argument against the considered examination of individual identity
nor the importance of individual agency in the archaeological record, but against
prioritising the individual at the expense of the community. In archaeology, it is
often more productive to understand the community first and then to examine the
members that create it, than vice versa, because at some sites, including Koma
Land, the material visibility of collective actions renders that of the individual
almost invisible.
The ability to ‘see’ the individual in the YK10/11 assemblage was limited to two
sherds displaying finger/ thumb print impressions. Both sets occurred because the
potter left distinctive orange-red impressions on the black sherds by picking up or
moving the pot whilst they had slip-covered fingers (see Figure 26). This suggests
either that slip was applied manually without the use of tools, or that hands were
used to smooth the pot, post-slipping. This latter practice was also reported by
Asamoah-Mensah in her investigation of an Iron Age Koma Land settlement mound
(2013: vii). De Rue has investigated the capabilities of pottery-captured finger and
thumb prints for determining details of pottery production (2016: 137), but the
small Koma Land sample size meant this was not attempted here. Individual action
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is apparent in some of the modifications made to the pottery once repurposed, but
this has been discussed in Section 5.4.
Overall, the fineness of the fabric, the well sorted inclusions, the average thinness
of the vessel walls (0.9-1.3cm), the ability to produce vessels of considerable size
(with rim diameters in this assemblage of up to 61cm; see also Asamoah-Mensah
2013: 101-103) and the presence of some complex and varied decorations using
multiple techniques indicates the YK10/11 pottery makers could boast a
sophisticated skill set.
So far, the Koma Land pottery makers have been referred to as just that – pottery
makers – without discussion, firstly, of sex and gender, and, secondly, of whether
the label ‘pottery makers’ should be conflated with, ‘the Koma Land figurine
makers’, as the title of this thesis has done so. Beyond this thesis, the current art
historical and archaeological focus on the figurines has inadvertently restricted the
population of Iron Age Koma Land to this one facet of identity.
As pointed out in Chapter 2.2.3, in contemporary West Africa (and Sub-Saharan
Africa more widely), potters are conventionally women. This statement is
supported by, and founded upon, ethnographic studies of potters in Sub-Saharan
regions and has general academic consensus (c.f. Arnold 1991: 32; Barley 1994: 61;
Casey 2010: 89; Crossland et al. 1978: 82; Gosselain 1992b: 561, 2010: 464). After
studying 900 ethnographic sources for pottery-making in Africa, Gosselain observed
that “at least four-fifths of African potters working today are women” (Gosselain
2014: 464). From a methodological and technical standpoint, however, there is no
logical reason men in contemporary Africa cannot be potters, and indeed Gosselain
also noted that in several areas in Africa, men processed clay and manufactured
pottery alongside women, or else exclusively practiced the craft (2014: 464).
Similarly, there is no logical reason ceramics excavated from pre-, proto-, and
historic sites could not have been made by men as well.
Paradoxically, this argument has (until recently) not been considered in reverse. An
influential article written in the 1990s by Berns argued against the dominating,
androcentric perception in archaeology that accepted men as the creators of
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figurines (specialist producer of sculpture/art; ritual sphere) and women as the
creators of household ceramics (craft specialist; domestic sphere) (Berns 1993:
131); a Western perspective that directly mirrors Durkheim’s absolute division
between the sacred and mundane (2008 [1915]). This androcentric stereotype is
not one the Koma Land pottery has been impervious to. A 1989 review of
Anquandah’s and Van Ham’s findings (1985) observed that the potters were likely
to be women (Dagan 1989: 24). This observation, however, did not extend to the
figurines.
Anquandah tentatively theorised that the Koma Land pottery makers were women
(1998: 103), although he also acknowledged the material assemblage could not
determine this. It is not clear whether he was also including the figurines in this
category. Berns’ has pointed out that where women were traditionally the potters,
they would already have had the pre-requisite skills to experiment with and
develop figurine making, and so were the most likely candidates (1993: 131, 133).
Unsurprisingly, the material record for Koma Land is silent on the matter, and there
are no relevant textual sources or oral histories that can be referred to. As such, no
interpretation on the sex and/or gender of the Koma Land pottery and figurine
makers is formed in this thesis.
What is put forward is the argument that the Iron Age pottery and figurine makers
were one and the same. This interpretation is loosely based on Berns’ argument –
pottery makers of any gender would logically have had the relevant skill set to turn
to non-vessel fired-clay objects – but more importantly, it is based on several
observations made about the YK10/11 assemblage during the analysis of the
previous chapter.
Firstly, the use of the same manufacturing technique for the pot-stand legs as for
the human/ anthropomorphic figurines’ limbs, described in Chapter 4 (Section
4.2.2) as akin to a ‘ball and socket’ joint. The rounded end of the figurine’s limb was
attached to the main body of the figurine, which had been sculpted separately
(Insoll et al. 2013: 13). Although no corresponding pot-stand was present in the
YK10/11 assemblage, the edge of the leg that would attach to the pot-stand was
distinctly similar to the design of the figurine limbs (see Figure 34). Secondly, the
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pottery and figurines shared decorative similarities. Specifically, the use of knotted
strip roulette to produce a checked pattern (Insoll et al. 2013: 3); incised lines, and
appliqué (see Chapter 6 and Table 23).
Thirdly, the pottery and figurines appear to be made of a similar fabric (see Chapter
6). Moreover, 9.55% of the pottery assemblage included quartz temper 0.2cm to
0.6cm in size, and comparably, quartz temper 0.3cm to 0.4cm in size was observed
in the figurines (Insoll 2015: 50). In addition, quartz was added to a further two
sherds. As Chapter 4 described, the decoration on one sherd had incorporated a
piece of quartz in the vessel fabric, which was likely to have been a deliberate
addition (see Section 4.7.3 and Figure 17). A second sherd, one of the perforated
pieces, had quartz of approximately 0.4cm in size deliberately wedged into most of
the perforations (see Section 4.2.4 and Figure 12). Fourthly, the pottery and
figurines were all low-fired (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492), suggesting that both
types of ceramic were subject to the same firing conditions, and were fired
together. Evidence of irregular firing on some of the pottery (dark, burnt patches)
was also present on some of the figurines (see Robinson et al. 2017).
Fifth and finally, some of the ceramic artefacts were pots and figurines (Insoll et al.
2013: 32), although these have not formed part of Chapter 4’s analysis, as none
were in the YK10/11 pottery vessel assemblage, and because they are usually
treated on par with figurines (e.g. see Insoll et al. 2013). The example from the
2010-2011 excavation took the form of a pottery vessel with a functioning lid in the
form of a stylised two-headed human figure with two distinctive sets of eyes and
open mouths, with each head facing in the opposite direction (Insoll et al. 2013: 32;
see Figure 38). This figure had ‘limbs’ that acted as handles, with the roundness of
the body of the lid representative of the torso, and navels were depicted for both
heads. This pottery vessel style is shared by a type of figurine dubbed “Janus-head”
figurines for their multiple, multi-direction orientated faces (Insoll et al. 2013: 12,
14). Collectively, these arguments provide convincing, if not irrefutable, evidence
that the makers of the Iron Age Koma Land figurines and pottery vessels were one
and the same.
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5.7 Summary and conclusions
This chapter used a biographical approach to explore and understand the YK10/11
Iron Age Koma Land pottery sherds, following the chaîne opératoire, their use-life,
and their reuse-life. Beyond the sherds’ functionality, an attempt has been made to
understand how the sherds were “used to construct and maintain social identities”
(Jones 2002: 84), by analysing not only the vessels’ place within Iron Age Koma
Land, but the place of the fragments that they were made of. This is crucial at sites
like Yikpabongo where post-fragmentary modification of pottery sherds, and their
incorporation into different cultural, social, and religious spheres was evidently a
significant element of daily life.
Whilst ethnographic studies of habitus and ceramics in West Africa – including
several in Ghana (c.f. Crossland et al. 1979; Dores Cruz 2011; Gavua 2015; Insoll et
al. 2008, 2011; Mather 1999) as well as elsewhere (c.f. Frank 1994, 2007; Gosselain
1992a, 1992b, 2008, 2010, 2014; Haour: 2013b; Livingstone Smith 2001; Mayor
2010b) – have demonstrated the complex choices and interactions between pots
and people, and in some instances, have drawn attention to the need to study
fragmentation biographically (Gavua 2015; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492; Mather
1999), it is argued here that in general, this topic has been understudied by
archaeologists.
Consequently, although use-life and biography are perceived as distinct notions
that act within different conceptual frameworks by some academics (Gosden et al.
1999: 169; Jones 2002: 84), the two ideas have been used in conjunction and at
times interchangeably within this chapter. As Jones has argued for the greater
unification of archaeological theory and science (2002; see Chapter 2.3 and Chapter
7.4.4) in order to gain the greatest depth of understanding from the widest
parameters, the same case is made here for analysing pottery from both a use-life
and biographical perspective.
The analysis and interpretations made in this chapter were based on the
quantitative analysis in the previous chapter and on the available contextual
information, which took the form of two excavation summaries (Insoll et al. 2012;
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Kankpeyeng et al. 2013), field notes from the 2010 excavation season (Insoll et al.
2010), a museum exhibition programme (Insoll et al. 2013), and the observations of
the first excavators and researchers of Koma Land in the 1980s (Anquandah 1987,
1998; with Van Ham 1985).
In this chapter, it has been argued that the YK10/11 pottery assemblage, deposited
in a 9th to 12th century AD shrine mound, were vessels produced for domestic
(primarily culinary) purposes, including the storage, processing, cooking, and
serving of foodstuffs. Only a tiny portion of the pottery appear to have been made
specifically for deposition (Insoll et al. 2013: 21). In some cases, vessels were
repurposed as deposits in the shrine and broken in place (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013:
482). Theoretically, this could have been to release the contents of the vessel into
the shrine as a form of libation. Without further examination of pottery from Koma
Land, and without residue analysis (not attempted in this thesis because of the
condition of the sherds), however, this can only be conjecture.
Most of the assemblage could not be refitted – less than 1% – although it is
acknowledged the abraded condition of the sherds may have contributed to this
difficulty. Nevertheless, the majority of the sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage were
small fragments. It has been argued that the size of these fragments results from
their reuse in other domestic capacities, and that it is these activities which led to
their abrasion, discard, and consequent reuse in the shrine. Indeed, ethnographic
studies of contemporary pottery practices in Ghanaian communities, and further
afield, have demonstrated that broken pots were frequently reused as other
household implements, including pot lids, stands, animal feeders, and in shrine
contexts (see Section 5.3). Further, West African ethnographical studies have also
observed that ‘domestic’ material may be ritualised, depending on the context it
was placed in (Gavua 2015: 145-146; Insoll et al. 2013: 291; Sterner et al. 2009: 26,
36), creating an idea of ‘contextual agency’.
Recently, Stahl criticised the division between perceptions of “special depositional
contexts” such as shrines, and those that were apparently mundane, “ordinary
refuse” in studies of West African archaeology (2008: 160). Ethnography, Stahl
argued, has clearly demonstrated “the extent to which production is ritualised and
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belief systems materialised in metals, ceramics, and other media” (2008: 160). The
Koma Land material appears to be the perfect archaeological example of this
practice of materialising ritual using ‘everyday’ artefacts.
Historically, the ceramic material from Koma Land has been treated in the way Stahl
criticised, with the figurines described as artworks and sculptures made for ritual
purposes, and the pottery described merely as “kitchen equipment” (Anquandah
1987: 178). This division also separates, whether deliberately or not, the makers of
the two types of ceramic. In this chapter, form, fabric, and analysis of decorative
techniques and surface treatment have been used to argue that the ‘Koma Land
figurine makers’ should be expanded to the ‘Koma Land figurine and pottery
makers’. There is crossover in the techniques used in the production of both types
of ceramic material, the clay sources (and in some instances, the temper) appear to
be the same, and hybrid pot/figurines have been unearthed (Insoll et al. 2013: 12,
14). The relationships between the pottery and the figurines will be examined in
detail in the next chapter, Chapter 6. No attempt to identify the gender(s) of the
potters was made, because there was no way to accurately infer this from the
material record.
Analysis has revealed no specific deposition preferences in terms of fabric, slip
colour, or sherd type. There was, however, a distinct preference for decorated
sherds. No preference was observed for a specific decoration category. As incised
lines and grooves were used to highlight and reference different types of roulette,
so sherds were deposited in arrangements around libation structures and artefacts
or acted as “beds” to the latter (Insoll et al. 2010: 13). Sherds were also found in
alternate layers with figurines (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492). This build-up of
material indicates the shrine was intended to have a degree of permanency and
that its design was deliberate. Such a structured accumulation also suggests that
viewing the pottery (and other artefacts) as deposits within the shrine is inaccurate.
Instead they are interpreted as inseparable from the shrine; they are the shrine.
Once placed, the covering up of earlier deposits by the accumulation of later ones
may have been related to concepts of memory, forgetting, and concealment (after
Joyce 2008a: 33).
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Based on the prolific quantity of excavated material both in Koma Land in general
and this shrine specifically, and lacking evidence of curation, it is suggested that the
shrine was abruptly abandoned. This would accord with theories put forth by
Kankpeyeng (et al. 2012) and Insoll (et al. 2013) that the Iron Age inhabitants were
subject to disease, slave-raids, or vacated the area from the desire to move beyond
the reach of one or both of these issues. Chapter 7 explores this.
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Chapter 6: The pottery and figurines, a comparative analysis
6.1 Introduction
The title of this thesis is Re-piecing the fragments: insight into the motivations and
identities of the Koma Land pottery and figurine makers through ceramics analysis,
and the emphasis on the Iron Age inhabitants of Koma Land as “figurine makers” is
a deliberate commentary on what Bailey termed “figurine essentialism”, in which
figurines “just are important”; a mode of thinking that “has restricted the
intellectual breadth of research and conditioned many scholars to accept figurines
as an easy and simple category of material culture” (2005: 13, emphasis original;
see also Insoll et al. 2012: 42). With respect to the Koma Land material, this issue
has been acknowledged in the literature, with Insoll et al. arguing that studying the
figurines’ context is what “unlocks their meaning” (2012: 42).
Bailey wrote his critique to introduce a book analysing Neolithic Balkan figurines,
but his observation is universally relevant. In West Africa, and Africa in general, the
issue of “figurine essentialism” has at times been complicated by the deliberate
emphasis on proto-historic and historic figurines, at the expense of other types of
contemporary material culture, by art historians and archaeologists seeking to
displace inappropriate historic Western notions that questioned the validity and
value of West African art, culture, and history, or portrayed it as an exotic ‘other’
(Anquandah 2014: 204; Arnoldi 1999: 701; Casely-Hayford 2002: 116; Coombes
1994; Hall 2002: 449, 256; see Chapter 2.2.5). In his earlier works on Koma Land, for
example, Anquandah emphasised the aesthetic value of the figurines using Western
art-criteria, an approach similarly taken by others reporting on the figurines at the
time, and subsequently (Abasi 1991; Anquandah 1987a, 1987b, 1998, 2002, 2003,
2006, and with Van Ham 1985; Barich 1998; Beltrami 1992; Dagan 1989; Schaedler
1987). This is an approach that art historic catalogues of Koma Land figurines held
in private European collections have also actively pursued (Anquandah 2014: 204;
Cocle 1991; Dagan 1989; Scheutz et al. 2016).
Yet, more recently, Anquandah has critiqued the analysis of African material culture
using Western art criteria (2014: 207, 215). He has called for the development of
“ethnoaesthetic” studies in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the investigation of
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material culture using available linguistic and historical evidence to produce
localised, contextually-relevant analyses that understand and document West
African aesthetic concepts (Anquandah 2014: 207, 215).
The proclivity towards “figurine essentialism” – unintentionally demonstrated in
many of the historic publications on the archaeology of Iron Age Koma Land – has
been countered here by the analysis of the YK10/11 shrine mound pottery vessel
assemblage. Indeed, one of the rationales underpinning this thesis was the need to
redress the imbalance created by historic focus on the figurines at the expense of
the remaining material culture, but particularly, the pottery (but see Asamoah-
Mensah 2013, and Nkumbaan 2016, for some analysis of ceramics from Koma Land
settlement and shrine mounds; and Insoll et al. 2010, although this is, as yet,
unpublished).
The imbalance has been both practical and theoretical. The dearth of pottery
studies (Anquandah 1998 [although this is not detailed]; Asamoah-Mensah 2013;
Insoll et al. 2010; Nkumbaan 2016) in comparison to the considerable number of
figurine-related publications (Abasi 1991; Anquandah 1987a, 1987b, 1998, 2002,
2003, 2006, with Van Ham 1985; Barich 1998; Beltrami 1992; Cocle 1991, Dagan
1989; Insoll et al. 2013, 2016; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng
et al. 2011; Kröger 1988; Robinson et al. 2017; Schaedler 1987; Scheutz et al. 2016)
has been historically matched by the simplistic, unconsciously expressed perception
that the figurines and the pottery fall on opposing sides of Durkheim’s sacred/
mundane divide (Anquandah 1987b, 2002, 2003; Beltrami 1992; Dagan 1989).
Designating certain types of material as ritual, symbolic, spiritual, sacred, and
illogical, and others as functional, mundane, domestic, and ordinary, on the basis of
form has been repeatedly problematised by archaeologists and ethnographers both
in Africa and further afield (Bahn 1989; Brück 1999; Evans-Pritchard 1937; Goody
1961, 1970; Insoll 2004; Stahl 2008; Tait 1961; Tilley 1999: 100; but see Chapter 2
for an in-depth discussion). With respect to West African ceramics, multiple
archaeological and ethnographic studies have made plain that the designation of
sacred or mundane – a Western construct – is often irrelevant to the reality (Barley
1994; Berns 1989, 1993; Davies 1967; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 482; Slogar 2007;
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Stahl 2008; Wild 1935). Particularly, Stahl has pointed out that it is often not
possible to separate “religion and ritual from the domain of daily life”; thus,
theoretical attempts to divorce the two are misleading and arbitrary (Stahl 2008:
160). Brück has similarly challenged the view that ritual is anything in the material
record which appears “non-functional and irrational” (1999: 313). The overuse of
the term ritual, and its generic application to anything unusual or unfamiliar, also
risks making it meaningless (Insoll 2004: 3). Further, whilst critiquing the
essentialist, Western thinking that often pervades archaeological theory, Conneller
has highlighted the problematic habit of privileging “form over material” as
deterministic and inflexible (2013: 121), as introduced in previous chapters.
To summarise crucial arguments from Chapter 2, privileging form over material in
Sub-Saharan African contexts has often caused objects to become casualties of the
idea that they fall into a ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ form of art category. Specifically, high art
forms include painting, and sculpture – the production of figurines – and lower
forms include activities designated as craftwork, such as pottery-making and
smithing (Berns 1989; Ravenhill 1987). Berns has argued that these designations are
“arbitrary” and “can prevent, and have prevented, our full understanding of African
material culture” (1989: 34). Ravenhill (1987: 34) made a similar observation: focus
on art has led to the neglect of much else (for an example, see Casely-Hayford
2002).
Such a focus on art has likewise led to gender imbalance, as figurines (ritual,
artistic) are perceived as the male domain, and pottery (domestic, craftwork) are
perceived as the female (Berns 1989: 35; Berns 1993). Beyond this, Nanoglou has
argued that ‘figurines’ as a concept and as a descriptive term – even of those
representing human forms – should be discarded (2005: 146, 2015). Here, the term
is criticised as isolating, restricting the figurines to one facet of their materiality and
ignoring their ability to be performative and transformative objects with context-
dependent meanings and uses (Nanoglou 2005: 146; Nanoglou 2015).
Thus, what must be addressed (as Bailey observed; 2005: 13), is the
characterisation of figurines as a unique and distinct category of material culture. In
the context of this thesis, how figurines have been characterised is misleading. The
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YK10/11 pottery sherds, discs, and figurines are all ceramic artefacts that have in
common production materials, techniques, deposition contexts, and in all
likelihood, their makers. Yet, these factors and the relationships between them
have hardly been considered, and no studies providing an integrated, comparative
analysis of the different types of Koma Land ceramic artefacts have been produced.
Chapter 6 does so.
To this end, Table 22 below provides a brief, comparative summary of where and
how the chaîne opératoire for the Koma Land pottery sherds and figurines
intersect. This includes similarities with their fabric, temper, the techniques used to
form both types of ceramic, decorative techniques, firing conditions, and slip. The
comparative analysis of the pottery and figurines that was initiated in Chapter 5 is
expanded and developed here. Chapter 6 also seeks to contextualise the meanings
and roles of the different types of clay and ceramic material present in the YK10/11
shrine mound. It does this, firstly, by exploring, as far as possible, how the two
libation structures, the complete vessels, sherds, figurines, vessel-figurines, and
discs relate to one another, using fabric, form, and so on, as above. Secondly, by
analysing the relationships created through the ceramic materials’ treatment,
deposition, and distribution.
Some elements of the analysis and discussion sought here surpass the data
currently available. No compositional analysis of the libation structure, for example,
has so far been undertaken, nor is there a publication that comprehensively details
the pottery discs and other modified pottery sherds. Whilst respecting the scope of
this thesis, which first and foremost, is an analysis of the YK10/11 shrine mound
pottery assemblage, discussion of these other elements is included where relevant
to highlight possible artefact-relationships and to signpost future avenues for
research. Analysing these features would be an informative and productive
undertaking.
The pottery discussed here is primarily restricted to the YK10/11 assemblage,
because it is currently the only fully analysed assemblage from a shrine mound.
Asamoah-Mensah’s (2013) investigation of the ceramics and features of a Koma
Land YK10 settlement mound will be referred to for comparative analysis as
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appropriate, and an in-depth comparative analysis of all known Koma Land pottery
is provided in Chapter 7.3 (Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Nkumbaan 2016). The figurines
are taken from a wider range of sources than the YK10/11 material, as in the
literature, selected figurines from all years of excavation (YK07, YK08, YK10, YK11)
have been discussed interchangeably and collectively, and no publication that
catalogues all of the figurines excavated from each field season currently exists.
This action has also been taken because of the lack of detailed contextual
information for the YK10/11 mound. The contextual information used here is
derived from previous publications (Insoll et al. 2012, 2013; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011,
2013; Robinson et al. 2017) and Insoll et al’s. unpublished field notes (2010).
All material discussed here, as throughout this thesis, originates from
contextualised archaeological excavations (Anquandah 1998; Insoll et al. 2012,
Insoll et al. 2013; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013),
with the exception of the vessel-figurines. As elaborated below (Section 6.6), only
one vessel-figurine been legally, archaeologically excavated (Insoll et al. 2013: 32).
All remaining published examples belong to private collections (Cockle 1991;
Schaedler et al. 2016). Unfortunately, it appears likely that the five, non-
archaeological examples were imitations (pers comm. T. Insoll, June 2017).
Consequently, but with a caveat, these examples are included in discussion.
Chaîne opératoire
Stage of production Vessels Figurines
Fabric (6.2) Typically, characterised by fine fabric
that falls within the 2.5YR and 5YR
Munsell colour series (orange-red-
brown). 88% of the assemblage is
micaceous.
The fabric ranges from fine to coarse
(Insoll et al. 2012: 30; Insoll et al. 2013:
15) and is made of orange-red clay;
with one exception, which is instead
made of an unusual grey clay. Visually,
the figurines fall within the Munsell YR
series, but this has not been qualified
further because this observation has
been made using photographs (from
Insoll et al. 2013).
Temper (6.2) 9.55% of the assemblage contains
quartz temper between 0.2cm to 0.4cm
in size. Where present, this temper is
most frequently white. Other inclusions
(white, brown, black, red-brown), up to
approximately 0.4cm in size, are well
sorted. The majority of the sherds have
significant numbers of inclusions (20%
frequency or greater).
An unknown number of figurines
contain quartz temper, colours
unknown (Insoll et al. 2013: 13). Some
figurines are described as containing
gravel, or “gritty temper” (Insoll 2015:
50; Insoll et al. 2013: 16).
Shaping and forming (6.3.1) A small portion of the assemblage
shows evidence of coiling.
The majority of the figurines are made
in one piece, from a lump, but some
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Pot-stand legs are attached to pot-
stands using a ‘ball and socket joint’
technique.
have ‘limbs’ attached using a ‘ball and
socket joint’ technique (Insoll et al.
2012: 29; Insoll et al. 2013: 13).
Surface treatment (6.3.2) Two thirds of the YK10/11 assemblage
is slipped in red or red-orange slip
(2.5YR Munsell colour series). This slip
is generously applied in a layer thick
enough to obscure the decoration on
some sherds.
Some figurines are observed to exhibit
traces of pink-red slip (Insoll et al. 2013:
13).
Decoration (6.3.3) Decorated sherds made up 47.67% of
the analysed YK10/11 assemblage. The
following decoration types were
employed: four identifiable varieties of
roulette, incised lines and grooves,
stamping, rectangular banding (of rims)
and, appliqué. Roulette accounted for
60.18% of the decorated sherds, and
4.81% was made up of sherds with
multiple decoration types.
The figurines, using a sample of 48
figurines (consisting of figurines from
YK07, YK08, YK10, YK11, and one from
Tando Fagusa in 2007) exhibited:
appliqué, incised lines, stamping,
grooves, carved wooden roulette, and
pinching. Appliqué was the most
common technique.
Firing (6.4) Low-fired and is likely a product of an
open firing technique.
Some sherds have been blackened on
their surfaces from contact with fuel
during firing; 9.51% of the assemblage
was incompletely fired, with irregularly
placed burnt patches.
The figurines have been described as
“low-fired” and some exhibit traces of
black/ discolouration (Insoll et al. 2013:
29). Some of this discolouration,
however, may be a consequence of
later burning of the fired figurines in
situ, (rather than from firing) possibly
as a method of ritual deactivation
(Robinson et al. 2017: 17).
Table 22: A comparison of the Koma Land pottery and figurines chaîne opératoire.
6.2 Fabric
The conclusions reached in 6.2 rely on observations drawn, firstly, from visual
analysis of good quality, high resolution photographs of Koma Land figurines from
YK07, YK08, YK10, and YK11 that appear in the 2013 Manchester Museum
Fragmentary Ancestors exhibition guidebook (Insoll et al. 2013), and from other
publications as appropriate (Insoll et al. 2012; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013; Kankpeyeng
and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009). Secondly, from published descriptions of the figurines’
fabric (Insoll et al. 2012; Insoll et al. 2013, Insoll 2015). Thirdly, from first-hand
notes and personal observations of the above Manchester Museum exhibition, and
an exhibition in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies’ teaching
museum on-campus at the University of Ghana. Chapter 4.3 has thoroughly
documented the fabric of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage, so those details will not
be repeated here except where doing so enhances or elucidates discussion.
Both ceramic types had a similar range of red-orange-brown fabric colours; 97.3%
of the YK10/11 sherds fell within the Munsell YR (yellow-red) series, with 57.1% in
the 7.5YR series alone (see Chapter 4.3). Inclusions were abundant (40%+), very
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common (30-39%), or common (20-29%) in 48.53% of the pottery assemblage. A
significant number of the published figurines (e.g. see Insoll et al. 2013) also
exhibited a high frequency of surface inclusions that would fit into one of these
three inclusion-frequency categories, and visually, the sizes, colours, and shapes of
the figurines’ and sherds’ inclusions were very similar.
The fabric of both appears to be typically characterised by the presence of sub-
angular, sub-rounded, and rounded white, black, and brown inclusions, occasional
red-brown inclusions, and mica, of approximately 0.3cm and below. Although, in
some examples the figurines’ inclusions are more angular than those found in the
pottery sherds. Mica was present in 88% of the YK10/11 assemblage, but it is, as
yet, unclear if this frequency is mirrored in the figurines. One example of an
anthropomorphic cone figurine, a common figurine type, was made from grey
coloured clay instead of the typical red-orange-brown clay, indicating either a
different clay source, or that it had been produced elsewhere and brought to the
shrine (Insoll et al. 2013: 16). None of the YK10/11 sherds were made of
comparable clay.
Published descriptions of the figurines’ fabric show it varied from fine (Insoll et al.
2012: 30) to coarse (Insoll et al. 2013: 15). The sherds’ fabric also ranged from fine
to coarse, but, at 98.0%, the former dominated. The sub-angular and sub-rounded
closed pores visible in the fabric of 5.6% of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage –
consistent with those found in low-fired pottery – were also visible in the images
produced from the computed tomography of a selection of figurines (Insoll et al.
2013: 13; Insoll et al. 2016). Reports on the figurines’ temper describe some as
including “laterite gravel” (Insoll 2015: 50, Insoll et al. 2013: 15), others as “gritty”,
(Insoll et al. 2013: 16), or conversely, having no visible temper at all (Insoll et al.
2013: 15). At this juncture, the exact number of figurines with temper – and what
type(s) of temper they contained – is unknown.
What is known is that quartz was used to temper both Koma Land pottery and
figurines. Initially, the excavators theorised that the large size of the quartz temper
in the figurines (0.2cm to 0.4cm) would be unsuitable for the vessels because of the
risk the pots would shatter whilst being fired (Insoll et al. 2013: 13; see Chapter
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4.3). Aside from one almost complete YK08 vessel, which contained quartz temper
of a smaller size than the figurines, and was interpreted as having a ritual function
because “based on modern parallels, it is too small to have functioned for
household cooking, serving, or storage” (Insoll et al. 2013: 23), the excavators were
not aware that any vessels with quartz temper existed (see Insoll 2015: 50). As
such, the interpretation that the quartz temper in the figurines was potentially a
process of “referencing potent places” (Insoll 2015: 50; see Chapter 4.3), did not
extend to the domestic assemblage.
Analysis of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage, however, has revealed not only that
9.55% of the assemblage contained quartz temper, but that it varied between
0.2cm to 0.6cm in size. Detailed study of the sherds (rim and body) with quartz
temper revealed no other factors that would distinguish them from their non-
quartz tempered counterparts. There was no evidence for even weak positive
correlation between quartz size/colour and rim diameter, nor between quartz
size/colour and sherd thickness, rim type, vessel form, fabric colour, decoration
type, presence or colour of slip, and so on. No base sherds, handles, or lugs
contained visible quartz temper, but as the number of these in the assemblage was
minute (40 in total), this is unlikely to be significant. Similarly, Asamoah-Mensah did
not note any distinguishing features in the quartz-tempered ceramics from her
Koma Land settlement mound, although she did only observe the presence of white
coloured quartz and interpreted the quartz (and also the mica) not as temper, but
as inclusions naturally occurring in the clay (2013: 103; see Chapter 4.3 for counter
argument). At Tando-Fagusa in Koma Land, Nkumbaan observed “quartz particles”
in the pottery sherds there but did not specify their size or the percentage of sherds
they appeared in (2016: 132). Apart from this reference, there is no mention of
quartz at Tando-Fagusa, so it is unclear whether any artefacts or unworked pieces
were recovered.
As documented in Chapter 4.3, analysis of the YK10/11 quartz-tempered sherds
revealed a preference for white quartz temper (89.3%), but also recorded pink
quartz (8.7%), pink-red (0.66%) and purple (0.33%). In a further three sherds did
two different colours of quartz – pink and white (1%) – occur together. At this
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stage, it is unclear whether these colour preferences are reflected in the quartz-
tempered figurines, but to find out would be very useful.
Repeatedly favouring a certain colour for a typically non-visible element of the
vessel fabric is intriguing, as is the selective use of quartz temper itself. Unlike some
artefacts in the shrine that were perhaps valued in part for their scarcity, such as
the Cypraea moneta, quartz was, geologically, an easily accessible material (see
Chapter 4.3), which makes the decision to be selective even more intriguing.
The use of quartz in both the pottery and the figurines controverts the excavators’
initial theory that it was present only in ceramic artefacts (the figurines and small
pot) made purposefully for ritual. It is possible that these pots were made for ritual
purpose, and that this quartz temper is what distinguished them; however, it has
already been made clear in this thesis that sherds from domestic pots were
commonly used for shrine activities, and that YK10/11 sherds with quartz temper
could not be distinguished in terms of design, treatment, or condition from those
without it. This limits the suggestion that they were used differently from non-
quartz tempered sherds. It would be extremely challenging for any individual but
the maker to identify a whole, undamaged quartz tempered pot from its non-quartz
fellows, and so, based on the current evidence, this idea is unconvincing.
What is useful at this stage is to examine the preference for white quartz in more
detail. Understanding past meanings of colour has often been viewed as an elusive
pastime in archaeology, particularly when the archaeologist is faced only with
material evidence, causing the topic to remain somewhat neglected (Gage 1999a:
110, 1992b; Jones and Bradley 1999: 112; Taçon 1999: 120). To date, the most
influential and controversial concept of colour in archaeology is Berlin’s and Kay’s
universal study of colour terms, which theorised that if a society’s language had a
few terms for colours, these terms would always be white, black, and red in the first
instance, and in the second instance, other colours would be verbally expressed
only as the language developed (Berlin and Kay 1969). Berlin and Kay have been
rightly criticised because they argued their theory was universally-applicable but
created and tested it using Eurocentric evidence (Chapman 2002: 47; Gage 1999a:
110; Saunders 1995). White, red, and black are well-known as a “quasi-universal”
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triad in Sub-Saharan Africa (Herbert 1984; 278; for examples and discussion see also
Berns 1988: 64; Insoll 2009: 291, Insoll et al. 2009: 48; Jacobson-Widding 1979;
Turner 1985), but the meanings behind their co-occurrence are variable and
context dependent; a nuance that Berlin and Kay did not explore.
They also received criticism for failing to consider aspects of colour beyond hue,
including shine and luminescence that other academics have subsequently shown
to be noteworthy (Chapman 2002; Taçon 1999: 120). See, for example, Saunders’
examination of differing Amerindian and Spanish attitudes towards gold, copper,
and pearls in the 15th and 16th century AD Americas, which allowed him to
demonstrate that the two societies functioned on the basis of different cosmologies
and value systems (1995, 1998, 1999, 2002), and to show how the Spanish
exploited this to construct a prejudiced political narrative about Amerindian
identity.
Saunder’s approach was context-specific and the same approach is advocated here.
To this end, the quartz temper should not be analysed in isolation, but with
reference to the other quartz material from the shrine. The YK10/11 quartz
assemblage consisted of: upper grinding stones, smoothed quartz pebbles possibly
used for fine grinding or burnishing ceramics and/or adobe walls (Insoll et al. 2013:
27), a single quartz lip/ ear plug (Insoll et al. 2013: 33; Insoll et al. 2012: 40), and
several thin, angular, oblong unworked pieces of quartz (personal observation).
Finally, in the YK10/11 pottery assemblage, one perforated sherd (of 47) had been
modified through the insertion of four pieces of purple-pink quartz into the
perforations (see Chapters 4.2.4, and 5.6), and another sherd had had a piece of
white quartz deliberately incorporated into the stamped decoration on its external
surface (again see Chapter 5.6).
Apart from the lip/ ear plug, the number of each artefact type has not yet been
published. The majority of the illustrated quartz artefacts are made from white
quartz (Insoll et al. 2013: 27), but it is unclear whether this is a representative
sample of the colours, or a consequence of the authors’ selection of publication
material. Asamoah-Mensah recorded a number of grinding stones/querns from her
Koma Land settlement mound excavation but did not describe what material(s)
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they were made from (2013: 63, 64, 119). Anquandah observed lower and upper
grinders respectively comprised of “rectangular granitic hollowed stone and
spheroid quartz balls” in his 1985 excavation of four mounds (1998: 93), to the
amount of 1,193 quartz balls, and 1,874 granitic querns (1998: 95). Unfortunately,
he did not specify the quartz’s colour(s).
The quartz grinders were almost certainly used in food preparation, or, perhaps
medicine (Insoll et al. 2013: 27). The presence of species of tree, of grasses/ cereals,
and of plantain/ banana in some of the figurines’ cavities (Robinson et al. 2017: 17)
supports the use of the grinders in food/ medicine processing (some ingredients
may have had roles in both). There is also a possibility that the quartz itself had a
medicinal role – in its capacity as a tool, or unworked – as has been reported
elsewhere in British Neolithic (Arthur and Murray 2014: 6), Irish and British Bronze
Age (Lebour 1914: 133), and Mayan (Conneller 2011: 80) contexts. Perforated
quartz pebbles in Togo and south-eastern Ghana – original purpose and age
unknown – were repurposed in the 20th century for medicinal use, submerged in
water that was drunk or bathed in (Insoll 2015: 194).
The appearance of quartz in Iron Age religious and spiritual contexts is not
restricted to Koma Land. In Ìloyì, a 13th to 16th century AD settlement site in
southwest Nigeria, for example, quartz pebbles, and pottery with “quartz grains
and mica” were excavated (Ogundiran 2002b: 33, 35), and quartz slabs were also
found associated with a human burial (Ogundiran 2002b: 47). In the Mandara
Mountains of north Cameroon and northeastern Chad, quartz pieces and pot
sherds were given as offerings to shrines (Sterner and David 2009: 6). “A mound of
white quartz flakes, demarcated by boulders” was deliberately deposited in the
historically-established but still-venerated Nyoo shrine in the Tong Hills in northern
Ghana (Insoll et al. 2011: 21). At Nyoo, some of the excavated ceramics were also
tempered with white and pink-white quartz pieces up to 0.2cm in size (Insoll et al.
2011: 33); here, the quartz was so poorly sorted it likely did not function as temper,
but was a natural addition (Insoll et al. 2011: 34).
The YK10/11 white quartz lip/ ear plug has been associated with individual ritual
activity, perhaps as a symbolic materialisation of the individual linking them with
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their ancestors (Insoll et al. 2012: 40). Potentially, it is purpose may also have been
for healing. Meanwhile, the purpose of the unworked quartz is unclear. The pieces’
shapes, sizes, and thinness made them unsuitable raw material for grinders
(personal observation). Interestingly, all were white. Fowler has pointed out that in
the British and Irish Neolithic, quartz was rarely used to make artefacts; “instead,
quartz was valued as a substance” and he theorises that white quartz may have
been symbolic of similarly coloured bodily fluids, such as bone, milk, and semen,
possibly used at significant places such as the seashore and mountains at particular
times of year (Fowler 2004: 116).
In archaeological theory, the qualities of luminescence and shininess have been
perceived as intrinsic to quartz’s value in past societies (Conneller 2011: 80; Darvill
2002; Nixon 2009; Taçon 1999: 120). The value of luminescence to the inhabitants
of Iron Age Koma Land is suggested not only by the seemingly prolific use of quartz,
but by the propensity for this quality to appear in other Koma Land contexts. For
example, the presence of Cypraea moneta in the shrine, which have long been
associated with water and valued for their eye-catching luminescence in multiple
historical contexts (Atkinson 2014; Ben-Amos 1973; Hiskett 1966: 340-341;
Hogendorn and Johnson 1986: 6; Renne 1994: 107; Van Beek 1988), and, perhaps
more solidly, the fact that 88% of the pottery sherds in the YK10/11 assemblage
were incredibly micaceous (see Chapter 4.3).
Quartz is also piezoelectric (Gilchrist 2008: 138). In essence, this means that rubbing
or striking two pieces against each other creates triboluminescence, “a faint glow”
(Gilchrist 2008: 138); a glow that Lebour reported to be “almost better” when
struck underwater (1914: 121). It is not clear whether the inhabitants of Iron Age
Koma Land were aware of quartz’s capability for triboluminescence, but given its
ubiquity throughout the region, it seems likely. What meaning they associated with
it, however, can only be guessed at. It is possible that quartz was linked with/
symbolic of water, a popular, well-evidenced association in numerous temporal and
spatial historic contexts, (Arthur and Murray 2014; Conneller 2011; Darvill 2002;
Gilchrist 2008; Lebour 1914) and potentially supported here by Koma Land’s
location in a river basin. Whether the cowrie shells and the quartz in the shrine had
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complementary purpose(s) or meaning(s) is an interesting question to ask, but one
it is unlikely can ever be substantiated.
The hardness of quartz is derived from its natural high silica content, putting it at
Hardness 7 on the Mohs Hardness Scale (Wicander and Monroe 2006: 68). For
comparison, diamond is Hardness 10, and a copper penny, Hardness 3 (Wicander
and Monroe 2006: 68). This hardness makes quartz a suitable material for grinders
(as above; granite is typically between 6 and 7 on the Mohs Scale (Richardson 2001:
9)), but also for fire lighting, if used with an iron object or piece of iron pyrite to
create sparks (Wicander and Monroe 2006: 69). Evidence for in situ scorching of
figurines in Koma Land shrine contexts (see Chapter 6.4; Robinson et al. 2017: 17)
suggests there would be a use for such artefacts in proximity to the shrine, offering
circumstantial evidence that the unworked quartz pieces were used thus. Iron,
softer than quartz on the Mohs Hardness Scale, would not necessarily leave use-
wear marks to indicate the quartz had been used this way. The quartz may then
also have been deposited, or conversely, kept specially within the shrine for such
instances.
Examining the entire quartz assemblage has revealed: (a) a continued (but not
exclusive) preference for white quartz, beyond temper; (b) that the use of quartz
was not restricted to one context or type of artefact; (c) value/ meaning was not
only attributed to worked quartz artefacts, but also the raw material; and (d) haptic
as well as visual experience may have been a significant element of its use and
meaning. This last point is especially relevant to the quartz tempered pottery and
figurines. The collection and processing of clay and the collection and processing of
minerals are not unrelated activities, and the two may have even been carried out
simultaneously. Invisible but not ineffective, the quartz may have been added in the
belief its hardness contributed to the quality or strength of the ceramic artefact.
Still unexplained is the preference for white quartz, even when not visible, and its
selective use in the pottery and figurines. The even more restricted use of pink/
purple quartz also remains unexplained here. At this stage, only inference is
possible, and Chapter 4’s call for quartz provenance studies in Koma Land is
emphasised and repeated. It is possible that the interpretation of using quartz
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temper to “reference potent places” (Insoll 2015: 50) is relevant to both the pottery
and the figurines. These places might include, or be characterised by, particular
quartz outcrops. Further, as Jones and Bradley have rightly pointed out in a
discussion of colour in European archaeology, and as shown above, colour and
other qualities such as texture, hardness, and luminescence, may collectively create
meaning (1999: 113).
Remembering Gosselain’s analyses of pottery-making and the technical and social
choices that produced them, a simple but potentially no less valid alternative
explanation is that the quartz tempered ceramics were the work of a single potter.
Gosselain’s ethnographic studies of pottery-making in West Africa have made
explicit that potters may make technical and stylistic decisions based entirely on
personal aesthetics, the resources to hand, tradition, fashion, or even for reasons
they cannot verbally quantify (Gosselain 1992b: 574; Gosselain 2010: 202;
Gosselain 2016: 60). In ethnographic contexts, such knowledge allows the individual
to be clearly identified from the material record. In archaeological contexts, such
knowledge is ephemeral. What this interpretation could suggest, if true, is that
these quartz-tempered figurines and pottery were the product of one particular
specialist who preferred quartz for aesthetic or symbolic reasons, or both.
The points discussed in this section have made clear the value of integrating the
analysis of different types of fired-clay artefacts. The ability to produce informed
discussion is increased by comparative analysis and by understanding that each
type of material is one component of a whole assemblage; viewing each artefact
type in isolation means this assemblage, and the activities and beliefs that
produced and gave meaning to it, remain obscure and poorly understood. As
Conneller has argued, prioritising form over material is an element of Western
philosophy that perceives artefacts (in this case, pots, and figurines) as rigid entities
with discrete and regulated qualities, leading researchers to treat them accordingly
(Conneller 2011: 19; see also Ingold 2007). Here, fabric analysis has demonstrated
that the pottery’s and figurines’ fabric is analogous, both in terms of the clay itself
and the temper. Again, this supports the view that the makers of the Koma Land
pottery and figurines were the same.
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6.3 Manufacturing techniques
The use of similar if not identical fabric for the Koma Land pottery vessels and
figurines is not, in itself, robust enough evidence to validate the argument that the
makers of both were one and the same. Whilst the selective addition of quartz
temper to both types of ceramic provides a beginning, it is also crucial to assess
how far (and if so, in what ways) the techniques used to produce the pottery and
figurines overlapped. To an extent, the ability to do so is restricted by the condition
of the assemblage and the visibility of the manufacturing techniques. Discussions
begun in Chapters 4.2.2. and 5.6 about the use of a ‘ball and socket joint’ style
technique to attach figurine limbs to figurine bodies, and pot-stand legs to pot-
stands, however, have already demonstrated that there were mutual methods of
manufacture.
6.3.1 Shaping and forming
Two methods of figurine manufacture have been identified; the figurines “were
either modelled as a solid object, or made from different parts fitted together using
precise joints. Arms and legs were sometimes modelled separately and then
attached” (Insoll et al. 2013: 13). These joints were in the style of a human “ball and
socket joint” (Insoll et al. 2012: 29). The use of a similar style ‘ball and socket joint’
to affix the pot-stand legs from Koma Land to the pot-stands has been observed, as
discussed in Chapter 5.6. Evidence for the use of this technique is found in the
shape of the pot legs excavated from the YK10/11 shrine mound. Although, no
whole pot-stands have yet been found to corroborate this either at Yikpabongo, or
at Tando-Fagusa (Nkumbaan 2016). Unlike the figurines, some of the YK10/11
pottery sherds exhibit distinctive marks from coiling (see Chapter 4.5). The two
handles in the assemblage have been identified as drawn from a lump, a technique
comparable with modelling a solid object, such as a figurine, from one piece of clay.
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Figures 33 and 34: The former illustrates the “ball and socket joint” used in the manufacture of some
figurines (Insoll et al. 2013: 13), and the latter is a computed tomography scan of an incision through
the body of a figurine from the top of the head (Insoll et al. 2013: 13).
A significant feature of the Koma Land figurines are the narrow linear incisions
piercing the body, either through the top of the head, through facial orifices in the
human/ anthropomorphic figurines – most frequently the mouth and ears – or
sometimes both (Insoll et al. 2013: 13; Robinson 2017; Figure 34). It is theorised the
rounded cavities were made before firing using bird feathers or porcupine quills,
and the more pointed ones using reeds, grass, or sharp sticks (Insoll et al. 2016: 30).
There is no evidence that any of the pottery vessels received any comparable
treatment. Generally, the size of the perforations in the perforated sherds (4.2.4)
appears to have dwarfed the thickness of the incisions in the figurines. It is possible
that the incised cavities in the figurines may have been created with the use of the
same/similar tools used to create the ceramics’ line and groove decoration.
6.3.2 Decoration
In this section, high resolution images of Koma Land figurines from Insoll et al. 2013
have been examined, providing a sample of 48 figurines excavated from YK07,
YK08, YK10, YK11, and one figurine (No. 43, see Table 23 below) from Tando
Fagusa. This sample is compared with all of the decorated sherds in the YK10/11
pottery assemblage (n=2535). As these sample sizes are disproportionate, the focus
in Section 6.3.2 is a semi-quantitative documenting of which techniques are unique
to the sherds and to the figurines, and which techniques are visible on both, rather
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than a comprehensive quantitative comparative analysis. With future publications,
this will become possible.
Technique Sherds Figurines
Incised lines ✓ ✓
Grooves ✓ ✓
Stamping ✓ ✓
Roulette: strip ✓
Roulette: cord ✓
Roulette: mat ✓
Roulette: carved wooden ✓ ✓
Appliqué ✓ ✓
Rectangular banding ✓
Pinching* ✓ ✓
Table 23: Comparison of the decorative techniques used for YK10/11 pottery assemblage and the
YK07, YK08, YK10, andYK11 figurines. *When the clay is pinched together using the fingers to create
a crest or protrusion. It is different from appliqué, which uses additional pieces of clay that are added
to the figurine, unlike pinching, which moulds clay from the artefact itself.
No. Figurine context number Figurine type Decorative techniques
1 YK08-2-AB8.2 Crocodile Carved wooden roulette, appliqué,
pinching
2 YK08-AB9-L7 (1-4) Rider and mount Incised lines, appliqué
3 YK08-2-A8/B8.6 Large Janus figurine Incised lines, appliqué
4 YK07-2-D1.1 Large clay-cylinder fragment Pinching
5 YK07-2-D4.1 Small winged human/ bird
6 YK07-2-C1.1 Tail and rear body of unknown
creature
Stamping
7 YK08-2-A8/B8.6 Human arm and hand Appliqué, stamping
8 YK07-2-D1.3 Human torso and left arm Appliqué, stamping
9 YK08-AB9-L7 Anthropomorphic cone
figurine
Appliqué
10 YK11-H13/H14/I13/I14 Elongated anthropomorphic
head
Appliqué, incised lines
11 YK11-H13/H14/I13/I14 Combined human/animal head Appliqué, incised lines
12 YK10-I15.3.4 Chameleon Pinching
13 YK07-2-D4.7 Combined human/bird with
pointed base
Appliqué, incised lines
14 YK07-2-D4.1 Standing bird Appliqué, stamping, incised lines
15 YK07-2-D4.1 and YK08-AB9-L5 Fragments of bird (x3) Appliqué, incised lines, grooves
16 YK08-AB9-L7 Body of a bird Stamping
17 YK07-2-A7.1 Clay bicone
18 YK07-2—D3.2 Clay bicone
19 YK11-Q10-L1 Clay bicone
20 N/A Conical figurine
21 N/A Conical figurine
22 N/A Conical figurine
23 N/A Conical figurine Incised lines
24 N/A Conical figurine Incised lines
25 N/A Conical figurine Incised lines
26 N/A Conical figurine Stamping
27 N/A Conical figurine Incised lines
28 YK10-O11.3 Stylised androgynous human
head
Appliqué
29 YK08-AB9-L5 Stylised male head Appliqué, incised lines
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30 YK08-AB9-L6 Stylised male head Incised lines
31 YK07-2-D5.1 Anencephalic head Appliqué
32 YK07-2-B5.1 Reptile/ mythical creature Appliqué, grooves
33 YK10-D11.3 Seated female Appliqué, grooves, stamping
34 YK07-2-D2.1 Torso fragment Appliqué, grooves, stamping
35 YK07-2-O2-1 Janus head Appliqué, stamping
36 YK07-2-D1.3 Stylised human head Appliqué, stamping
37 YK07-2-A3.1 Stylised human head Stamping
38 YK08-A9/B9-L7 Human head with cap/ hair
style
Appliqué, carved wooden roulette
39 YK07-2-01.2 Bearded head Appliqué, stamping
40 YK07-2-B5.1 Large head (crested hairstyle) Appliqué, pinching
41 YK07-2-C4.1 Janus head Appliqué, pinching
42 YK07-2-C4.2 Janus lid Appliqué
43 TD07-1-A1.1 Torso and upper legs with
phallus
Appliqué, stamping
44 YK08-2-A8.6 Stylised Janus head Appliqué, stamping
45 YK07-2-C4.1 Standing anthropomorphic
figurine
Appliqué, grooves, stamping
46 YK08-2-A9-B8.6 Stylised double torso Appliqué, incised lines
47 YK08-2-AB-8.6 Standing female Incised lines
48 YK07-3-O11-L2 Four-faced Janus Appliqué
Table 24: A catalogue of all the of figurines from Insoll et al. 2013 and the decoration(s) they exhibit.
A hard copy was used in this analysis, but the figurines in this table can all be viewed in an online
version of the exhibition guidebook at:
https://issuu.com/manchestermuseum/docs/koma_guidebook [8/01/2017]. If the box is grey, no
decoration was visible.
Table 24 illustrates the types of decoration common to the figurines and the
pottery sherds. Some types of roulette are absent from the figurines’ decorative
repertoire, and unsurprisingly, rectangular banding is a decorative form limited to
the YK10/11 rims. It demonstrates that appliqué was the most common decorative
technique (58.3%) from this sample of Koma Land figurines. It is used to add detail
such as jewellery, weaponry, hairstyles, and clothing to human/ anthropomorphic
figurines, and is used to add texture to some of the animal figurines, for example
the reptile/ mythical creature’s appliquéd spots (Table 24, No. 32). Figure 35,
below, illustrate examples of the range of decorative techniques visible on the
figurines.
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Figure 35: Clockwise from top left: Standing anthropomorphic figurine (No. 45; Insoll et al. 2013: 34);
Combined human/ bird with pointed base (No. 13; Insoll et al. 2013: 18, 22); Combined human/
animal head (No. 11; Insoll et al. 2013: 21); Human head wearing textured cap (No. 38; Insoll et al.
2013: 29, 36); Chameleon (No. 12; Insoll et al. 2013: 21); and Crocodile (No. 1; Insoll et al. 2013: 3).
Comparatively, appliqué made up only 0.11% of YK10/11’s decorated sherds. Both
tables demonstrate that similar techniques were used for both types of ceramic.
Differences in (or omitted) techniques are a consequence of suitability; carved
wooden roulettes may be suitable for adding texture to small areas of figurines (see
Table 24, No. 1 and 38), for example, but roulettes as a whole are more suited to
the smooth, level surface provided by a pot wall than to complex and irregularly
shaped figurines. Incised lines and stamps, which can be of countless forms,
lengths, and sizes, are more flexible and therefore more suited to Koma Land
figurine decoration than roulettes.
Techniques used to decorate the figurines often created texture, as with the
reptile/ mythical creature’s spots, to create the ridges along an animal’s back (Table
45
13
11
38
12
1
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24, No’s. 6, 11, 12, 14, and 15), or around the edge of a figurine (e.g. as with some
of the conical figurines; Table 24, No’s. 23, 24, 27, and 27). In the YK10/11 pottery
assemblage, textured, tactile surfaces are repeatedly created through the use of
roulette decoration. These textured surfaces suggest some of the figurines and the
pottery were designed for haptic as well as visual interaction.
In archaeology, visual experiences have often been prioritised over other types of
sensory experience, including touch, although researchers have been seeking to
resolve this (Gheorghiu 2007: 46; Frieman and Gillings 2007; Gosden 2001;
Hamilakis 2014: 23, 43, 48; Paterson 2007: 3). Particularly, Hamilakis has argued
that the Western prioritisation of vision – “autonomous, de-sensorised” – puts it at
odds with the reality of archaeological sensory understanding; “the fundamentally
sensorial nature of both the object of archaeological enquiry (i.e. material things),
and the archaeological process itself” which is reliant on movement and tactility
(2014: 53). Classen has argued that touch is cultural, “tactile communication" learnt
in childhood (2005: 13), something Paterson has also discussed, stating that touch
can be both a form of communication (2007: 154) and a way to recall information
and experiences through memory (2007: 178).
The relationship between ceramics and tactility is not uncommon. Barley, for
instance, references several Sub-Saharan ethnographic examples in which heavily
textured pots are deliberately created (usually using appliqué) to highlight the
contents, which may be potent or dangerous (Ruwenzori Mountains, Uganda; 1994:
121), to represent and remind the user of a morality or folktale (among the Bemba,
in Zambia; 1994: 106), or to reference local scarification practices (among the Zulu,
in South Africa; 1994: 138). Whilst the whole YK10/11 assemblage cannot make this
claim, the possibility that tactility was part of sensory engagement with the
figurines and/ or vessels should be entertained.
6.3.3 Surface treatment
Slip – most frequently in the 2.5YR Munsell colour series (red, red-orange, pink) –
was present on 73.32% of the YK10/11 pottery assemblage. Published descriptions
of the figurines also observed some with “traces of a red or pinkish clay outer slip”
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(Insoll et al. 2013: 13). Whilst many of the figurines had only traces of slip, the slip
covering the pottery sherds was substantial, indicating either that the slip had been
applied more liberally to the sherds than the figurines, or, that the sherds had
remained in a fairer condition for longer.
The eroded nature of many of the sherds, as Chapter 4.1 has previously remarked
upon, and the fact that the available context information shows that sherds were
often placed in layers around and over figurines (leaving the sherds more
susceptible to wear from shrine activities and later, taphonomic processes),
suggests the former is more likely. Conversely, the figurines may retain only traces
of slip because they were more active shrine-constituents and because they were
handled more frequently. Certainly, the number of YK10/11 sherds (9692) dwarfed
the number of YK10/11 figurines (251, whole and fragmented; see Insoll et al. 2012:
29), indicating they were a much more prolific resource.
The suggestion that slip was more liberally applied to the vessels has been
supported by the fact that (as noted in Chapter 4.6.1) there were a significant
number of decorated sherds in the assemblage with slip that has been applied
thickly enough to all but obscure the decoration, whether this is incised, grooved,
stamped, rouletted, or a combination. Comparatively, the decoration present on
the figurines, the details of clothing and jewellery on the human and
anthropomorphic examples, and the deep/ shallow incised holes that pierce many
figurines, have not been obscured by the over-exuberant application of slip.
This difference in the amount of slip used on figurines and pots may reflect the
practice of slipping vessels both for aesthetic purposes and to reduce vessel
porosity, as opposed to a merely aesthetic application for the figurines. Whilst not
dismissing the possibility that the application of slip to the vessels and figurines had
meaning that extended beyond the practical and the aesthetic, determining this
from the material record alone is problematic. The use of slip colours similar in hue
to the fabric suggests the makers’ intention was to enhance the pre-existing colour
palette of the figurines and vessels.
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6.4 Approaches to fire
All of the clay structures and artefacts excavated from YK10/11 Koma Land contexts
– two clay libation structures (in YK10-3-I15, and YK11-O12), figurines, pottery
vessels (and by extension, the pottery discs), a skeuomorphic clay gourd, and six
fired lumps of clay – were low-fired (Insoll et al. 2012: 36, 39; Kankpeyeng et al.
2013: 482, 492; see Chapter 4.8). It is probable the same type of firing technique
was used for all types of ceramic artefact. Chapter 4.8 theorised that the YK10/11
assemblage was open fired (fuel and ceramics stacked together, possibly in a pit,
with the fuel directly touching the ceramics) and used local, readily-available wood
and plant matter for fuel. Using West African ethnographic parallels, the YK10/11
excavators also identified the figurines as being open fired, described here as “the
bonfire method” (but see Orton and Hughes 2013: 135 for the interchangeability of
these two terms; Rice also called this “mixed firing” 2015: 172), whereby figurines
were “stacked under layers of wood and closely monitored [during firing]” (Insoll et
al. 2013: 13).
What should also be considered is the sensory experience of firing; the assumption
that technical processes were just that, technical, is misleading and divisive, but
also undermines the value of the senses to the technical elements of the firing
process. Gheorghiu’s experience of an experimental firing of Chalcolithic-style
pottery with open firing techniques, for example, led him to conclude that the
processes could be described as “technological-ritualistic actions”, which were
In a direct relationship with the human senses because the colours of the
flames or for the fired objects, as well as the smells and the radiated heat,
inform about the interior process of combustion (2007: 40).
Whilst this is an ephemeral state of being that cannot be captured by the material
record, sensory perceptions have a place in archaeological interpretation.
The use of the same firing technique for all types of ceramic artefact indicates that
the Koma Land pottery and figurines were made by a group with a collective
knowledge of ceramic (pyro)technology. This assertion is supported by the
similarities in fabric and production techniques that the two types of ceramic also
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share, discussed above. It is recognised that it cannot be reliably determined
whether the pottery vessels and figurines were produced from separate or mixed
firing events, nevertheless, if the latter were true, it would add to the argument –
repeated throughout this thesis – that ritual and domestic spheres of activity were
not perceived as divisible entities by the inhabitants of Koma Land.
The ability to discuss firing conditions and techniques is made difficult by the fact
that evidence for them is rarely visible in the material record (Santacreu 2013: 101;
see Chapter 4.8 for discussion). Koma Land was no exception, and this has limited
the possibilities for detailed interpretation in this regard, but what has been
observable in the material record is the use of fire in the treatment of already-fired
figurines. Deliberate ‘scorching’ of a YK08 mounted-rider rider figurine (YK08-AB9-
L7) was confirmed both by its excavation from an area of burnt earth, and by DNA
analysis (Robinson et al. 2017: 17). Swabs taken from the figurine’s mouth cavity
identified Coniochaeta yeast, which were known “early colonisers of post-fire sites”
(Robinson 2017: 17). A YK07 figurine (YK07-2-A4-1) was also scorched (Robinson
2017: 13, 17). The authors interpreted this activity as deliberate deactivation of
spiritually-powerful artefacts possibly imbued with personhood (Robinson et al.
2017: 17).
Figures 36 (left); the mounted-rider figurine (YK08-AB9-L7) in situ in the YK08 shrine mound with
pottery sherds (Insoll et al. 2013: 10); and 37 (right), again on display (Insoll et al. 2013: 11).
In her publication on 26 Koma Land figurines in a private collection, Dagan also
observed that some figurines (number unspecified) were “black with signs of
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smoke, and [had a] black patina on reddish material or clay”, which Dagan
interpreted a consequence of the firing technique (1989: 27). Whilst these figurines
are unprovenanced, the presence of smoke discolouration, on top of the “reddish
material” (which is interpreted here as slip), may provide evidence to suggest that
activities involving the deliberate scorching of figurines were practiced across the
region. This is a suggestion that requires further significant archaeological
excavations and figurine analyses to be accurately determined.
Comparatively, field notes available for a portion of the YK10 pottery assemblage
did not record any scorched sherds or the excavation of any sherds from areas of
scorched earth (Insoll et al. 2010), nor is there any record of scorching of YK10’s
clay-libation structure (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). It is unclear whether any of the burnt
areas present on the YK10/11 sherds could be attributed to this practice, because
for the most part it was not possible to distinguish between burning from firing or
use. Given that fire is already the catalyst that transforms leather-hard clay to
ceramic (Gheorghiu 2007: 27, 40; McInnes 2015: 137), the relationship between the
figurines and their post-fire burning is an interesting one. This practice may indicate
the inhabitants of Iron Age Koma Land had a strong conviction in the transformative
powers of fire. Additionally, it is entirely possible that smoke was perceived as
transformative, or purifying (McInnes 2015: 138). The fact that there is, so far, no
evidence that any pottery sherds were treated in this manner is also intriguing. If
one continued to follow Robinson et al.’s (2017: 17) line of argument – that the
scorching was a method of deactivating the figurines (possibly with the power of
the smoke, as well as the fire itself) – one could surmise that the pot sherds were
not imbued with this type of power. Of greatest significance here, however, is the
evidence that the figurines and pottery sherds were treated differently.
6.5 Fragmentation and deposition
“A total of 251 figurines and figurine fragments were recovered during the 2010 and
2011 excavations of mound YK10-3/ YK11. This included 238 figurine fragments, six
largely complete and seven complete figurines. Fragments dominate the
assemblage. Of these, 240 had old breaks and six new breaks caused during
excavation” (Insoll et al. 2012: 29).
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Vessels and figurines in the YK10/11 assemblage were both fragmented, but where
the fragmentation of figurines was deliberate, the majority of vessels were
fragmented ‘accidentally’, through use, and then deposited (the arguments
supporting this interpretation were set out in Chapter 5, so will not be repeated
here). The minority – the known deliberately fragmented vessels – were those
found in situ in the shrine mound. These vessels were not part of the assemblage
assessed by this thesis (see Insoll et al. 2013: 23). Less than 1% of the YK10/11
pottery assemblage could be refitted, and no more than four sherds belonging to
the same vessel were discovered. In Chapter 5, it was theorised that the pottery
sherds were being sourced from household, possibly midden, sites and then
brought to the shrine. Pottery sherds have proven ubiquitous at all of the Iron Age
shrine and settlement sites so far investigated (Anquandah 1987b: 174; Asamoah-
Mensah 2013: 65; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008: 95), whilst figurines were
sparse in settlement contexts at Tando Fagusa (Nkumbaan 2016: 133), and were
“totally absent” from the YK10 settlement mound (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 126).
The deliberate fragmentation of artefacts has been perceived as an act of
enchainment between people, landscape, and things (Chapman 2000, 2008;
Chapman and Gaydarska 2007; Tilley 1999: 100-101). More specifically,
enchainment can occur when artefacts are deliberately fragmented and then
dispersed across the landscape, “a network of places” that may be natural, cultural,
or manipulated (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 188). With the dispersal of
fragments of an artefact – which may be held in particular locations, or by groups or
individuals – spatially and temporally across the landscape, the fragment becomes a
mnemonic, a method of commemoration, a token of a shared identity that both
links individuals/ communities together, but also acts as a method of recalling or
remembering “absent people, objects, and places” (Chapman 2008: 9; Chapman
and Gaydarska 2007: 187-188, 199).
The concept of enchainment has potential for thinking through the figurines from
Koma Land, and to some extent, the pottery vessels broken in situ, because the
biographies of these artefacts appear to relate directly to the shrine. The majority
of the shrine’s sherds, however, were domestic fragments that were subsumed and
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recontextualised into social and ritual practices, activities, and experiences, after
‘accidental’ breakage. This is a process Chapman (2000, 2008; and with Gaydarska,
2007) has not considered, and Brittain and Harris (2010: 582) have critiqued
Chapman’s theory for failing to fully explore the connections between enchainment
and accumulation. The process of enchaining a fragment is defined by the act of
creating that fragment, and by the knowledge that fragment is (was) part of a
whole. The act of deliberate fragmentation is a memory making process, and
arguably, the act of remembering the event of fragmentation, or of knowing that it
is a fragment of an artefact, gives that fragment social agency.
Bailey has also recently critiqued Chapman’s and Gaydarska’s fragmentation
theories, cautioning them against what he describes as “anecdotal explanation[s]”
of figurine breakage, which “suggest function and meaning in ways that cannot be
assessed for accuracy with the evidence available” (2017: 826), and in Chapman’s
and Gaydarska’s case, has seen discussions of figurine breakage reduced to debates
about intentionality (2017: 828).
How then to understand accidental fragmentation? Accidental breakage of a
domestic pot is not necessarily socially or culturally inconsequential, and
understandings of this type of fragmentation need to move beyond the
Westernised belief that a broken artefact – if not broken within a deliberate, and
further, visibly deliberate, framework of ritual or social meaning – is merely rubbish.
In early 20th century AD Nigeria, for example, Igbo women made strong expressions
of grief if they saw another woman accidentally break her water pot whilst carrying
it (Barley 1994: 92).
Discarded material, such as fragmented and worn pot sherds (remembering the
argument in Chapter 5.5 that the YK10/11 sherds had significant post-breakage,
pre-depositional biographies), and the places in which it was deposited (such as a
midden, as has been found in Koma Land Yikpabongo settlement mounds
[Asamoah-Mensah 2013] and a ‘rubbish dump’ excavated at Tando-Fagusa
[Nkumbaan 2016]), may be subject to traditions, rules, and certain kinds of social or
ritual practice to the same extent as other areas of activity (McNiven 2013).
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Certainly, evidence of midden-curation and symbolic practices have been evident
in archaeological contexts further afield. In Iron Age southern Britain, for instance,
complex midden activities at East Chisenbury were interpreted not as rubbish and
unwanted material (which included ceramics, animal and human coprolites, a large
faunal assemblage, metal artefacts, a human skull fragment, and evidence of pre-
midden settlement), but as representative of feasting, and as deliberately organised
and structured material, (Brown et al. 1994: 48-49), possibly as a memory-making
activity.
The activities at this site were not isolated occurrences, but appear to be
comparable with midden activities at other British Iron Age sites (Lawson 2000:
267; McOmish 1996; Parker-Pearson et al. 1999). These midden sites have been
interpreted as deliberate stockpiling of organic material and powerful, noticeable
representations of fertility; not only because of their contents, but their size, shape,
potential to give off heat, and their aroma (pers comm. M. Giles, May 2017).
Returning to African contexts, Insoll has pointed out that organic material used in
West African shrines, medicine, and divination may have been deliberately chosen
for characteristics such as having a strong aroma (Insoll et al. 2015: 49, 363); the
shrine experience was sensory and not one limited to sight and touch. Probable
bells, skeoumorphically represented in clay in Koma Land shrines in Yikpabongo,
and Tando-Fagusa (Insoll et al. 2013: 23) – where an iron fragment of one was also
uncovered (Nkumbaan 2016: 144) – also hint at the importance of sound.
The fragmentation and deposition practices of the recontextualised domestic
sherds exhibit a kind of ‘reverse’ enchainment. The fragmented sherds are already
dispersed in the landscape, potentially already reference a ‘network of places’
through their quantity and pattern of distribution, and as fragments of known
entities, are already embedded in social praxis and habitus. In this way, combining
these fragments into a new whole – the shrine – and depositing them with other
artefacts such as the figurines is another process of accumulation. Sherds (and
other material) sourced from settlement middens and placed in the shrine may
have been representative of those settlement contexts and the individuals that
inhabited them.
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To understand more fully the shrine mound’s process of accumulation and how this
might be interpreted, comparing the ratio of deposited figurines (including
fragments) to pottery sherds is illuminating. The quote at the beginning of this
section makes clear that the YK10/11 assemblage included 251 whole and partial
figurines. For comparison, the YK07/08 assemblage included 923 figurines, of
which, 868 were fragments, and 55 were whole (Insoll et al. 2016: 28; the size of
the YK07/08 pottery assemblage is unknown). The full YK10/11 pottery assemblage,
as recorded in Chapter 4.1, was made up of 9692 pottery sherds. This means that
for every deposited YK10/11 figurine in the shrine, there were 38.61 sherds of
pottery.
Understanding this pattern of accumulation relies, firstly, on whether it is
interpreted as one or two large deposition events, or an unbroken series of smaller
deposition events. Secondly, on how many sherds and/ or other artefacts those
using the shrine brought each brought with them to deposit, and how frequently
they did so. Whilst unique items such as the quartz lip/ ear plug have been
interpreted as representing an individual’s identity (Insoll et al. 2012: 40), it is more
challenging to justify the pottery sherds’ use in this manner, and the ability to
recognise the individual identity in the material record, and indeed, the attempts
to, are increasingly being problematised (Brittain and Harris 2010: 583-586; Conlin
Casella and Fowler 2005: 8; Fowler 2004: 1, 19; Knapp and Van Dommelen 2008;
Robb 2010: 494, 499).
Without looking specifically for the individual in the material record, it is possible to
argue that based on quantity, pottery sherds were more frequently deposited than
figurines, and probably in greater numbers each time. This assessment is based on
the knowledge that layers of sherds were often employed to cover, reference, or
act as “beds” to one or two figurines, and the shrine’s libation structure (Insoll et al.
2010: 13; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492; see Chapter 5 for discussion). Thus, multiple
sherds were utilised with each figurine. Of course, as is argued for the pottery discs
(see Chapter 6.7), it is not likely that the deposited sherds were immutable, and
curation activities may have led to the repositioning or removal of sherds, or
alteration of the shrine’s structure. In comparison, the figurines may have been
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deposited only for particular events, or in special circumstances, such as illness. This
latter concept is based on the fact that some figurines, as previously discussed (see
Chapter 1), realistically depicted illness and medical disorders (Insoll et al. 2013:
26).
6.6 Vessel-figurines
Vessel-figurines are hybrid artefacts that have combined a pottery vessel with
figurative elements. Only one is known of archaeologically, and it was excavated
from a YK08 shrine context. This example is a “Janus” head type – see Figure 38 –
that measures 22.4cm in height, 16.6cm in width, and 16.7cm in length (Insoll et al.
2013: 32). It consists of two stylised human faces looking in opposite directions,
with the following facial features: two open mouths with tongues, noses with
nostrils pierced into the clay, two raised navels, comb-like features on top of the
head (which are likely hairstyles), and four handles/ arms that had been added
separately, although only three now remain (Insoll et al. 2013: 32).
Figure 38: A ‘Janus’ head hybrid vessel-figurine (Insoll et al. 2013: 32).
Cocle, an art historian who described five examples, was the first known academic
to publish a work examining Koma Land vessel-figurines (1988, 1991). All five
examples were sourced from private, unnamed, European collections as part of a
selection of Koma Land material loaned for an exhibition on historic West African
figurative ceramics in Holland, in 1991, titled “Kronkronbali” (Sabbe and Gistelinck
1991: x). All vessel-figurines were interpreted as “spirit pots” (Cocle 1991: 177-179,
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181-182; my translation). The five examples described by Cocle are summarised
below, with illustrations provided where they were present in the literature.
Image (if available) Vessel-figure description
1
43.5cm in height. The lid is a stylised human head,
with nose, eyes and semi-open mouth, a crest-like hat
or hairstyle, and a ridged neck with decoration,
possibly stamped. The body is rounded, with a
pedestal base, a prominent, pointed navel, and two
appliquéd outstretched hands, palm upwards (Cocle
1991: 177).
2
50cm in height. The lid is a stylised human head, with
nose, eyes, open mouth, ears, pointed chin, an
elongated neck, and a cone-shaped hat/ hairstyle with
stamped decoration. The vessel is rounded and has
three legs forming a tripod-base. The body has what
Cocle interpreted as a sword and scabbard (1991:
178-179), but which might be an outstretched arm
and hand, or male genitalia.
3 38.5cm in height. The vessel body has two appliquéd
outstretched hands, palm upwards, and the lid is a
stylised human head and neck, with a necklace (Cocle
1991: 178).
4 48cm in height. A stylised human figure with legs,
feet, navel, nipples, genitalia, arms, and hands,
around what Cocle described as a “suckling child”;
and the pot forms the stand upon which the figure
sits. The lid is a stylised head with elongated neck,
necklace, facial features including prominent ears,
and a hat or head covering (Cockle 1991: 182).
5
30cm in height. This is of a different type to the other
four examples as there is no lid; instead, this example
was made all in one piece, with a hollow ‘spout’;
presumably, the vessel itself is hollow and designed to
contain liquid. The spout’s downwards angle suggests
liquid was designed to drip from it. There is no other
visible opening on the vessel and none was
mentioned by Cocle (the back of the vessel cannot be
seen in the photograph), which may suggest liquid
was also added via the spout. There is a decorated
handle on the spout’s opposite side. This vessel-
figurine exhibits stylised arms with hands resting on
the pot’s body, possible male genitalia, decorated
neck, and stylised human head with open mouth,
nose, prominent ears, and bulbous eyes (Cocle 1991:
181-182).
Table 25: A catalogue of all published vessel-figurines from Iron Age Koma Land without
archaeological provenance.
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Closer inspection of the five examples in Table 25 strongly suggests they are fake.
Stylistically, they do not correspond with the Iron Age figurine types – including the
one, securely-provenanced vessel-figurine – although certain characteristics have
been copied or repeated. Most notably, the facial features, including open mouth
(e.g. see Insoll et al. 2013: 8, 12, 18, 21), which characterises the majority of the
Koma figurines, and the protruding ears (e.g. Insoll et al. 2013: 21, 27), although
these are less frequently depicted. The colour of the second example is also similar
to the clay and slip colours present throughout the Koma Land ceramics (see
Chapters 4.6, and 6.3.3). Closer examination of other types of Koma Land figurines
illustrated in Cocle’s publication leads to the conclusion that some of these were
also imitations (e.g. Cocle 1991: 175).
Unfortunately, Anquandah included images of these other probable imitations in
his 1998 publication (compare Anquandah 1998: 42, with Cocle 1991: 162); as they
are all well-referenced, however, it is easy to attribute these to Cocle. Nevertheless,
whilst the vessel-figurines are unprovenanced, and most likely, replicas, it is worth
documenting them here. Cocle’s Dutch language study in Sabbe and Gistelinck’s
(1991) out-of-print exhibition catalogue provides a valuable, if unfortunate, impetus
to further in-depth archaeological study of Koma Land. The favouritism shown to
figurines has been repeatedly protested in this thesis, but here is a reminder, if one
were needed, that figurines are just as much a victim to ‘figurine essentialism’ as
the types of artefact they supersede.
Anquandah’s 1998 report on the excavation in 1985 described vessel-figurines as
“terra cotta-cum-pot[s]” with a “torso with stylised stomach, lower limbs, genitals,
navel etc.” (1998: 125). He also observed that there were animal-headed varieties
(1998: 125). Yet, Anquandah’s descriptions and images of these “terra cotta-cum-
pot[s]” were entirely derived from Cocle’s publications (1988; 1991; see Anquandah
1998: 125, 127-128, 182). This suggests that Anquandah did not excavate any, and
used only Cocle’s work as evidence of their existence. The ensuing use of these by
Anquandah in his interpretations of the Koma archaeology (Anquandah 1998: 125,
127-128, 182) is evidently problematic; another valuable reason to document them
here, so that future researchers are aware of this issue and can circumvent it. Given
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that the only recorded archaeological example of a vessel-figurine was excavated in
2008 (YK08; Insoll et al. 2013: 32), the question then remains as to where the
inspiration for the imitations of this figurine type, recorded by Cocle in 1991,
originated? Unfortunately, it appears the answer will almost certainly be from real,
looted example(s) of vessel-figurines, whereabouts unknown.
6.7 Pottery discs
Pottery discs were manufactured from pre-existing sherds through deliberate
grinding of their edges to round and smooth them (Insoll et al. 2013: 17). Visible
reminders of the domestic vessels from whence they came exist in the decoration
still visible on their surfaces; of a selection of 27 pottery discs excavated from YK07
and YK10 displayed in an exhibition on Iron Age Koma Land in Manchester Museum
in 2013-2014, most had “varied roulette impressed, incised, modelled and red-
slipped decoration” (Insoll et al. 2013: 21; Figure 39).
Figure 39: Pot discs from Koma Land, and a modern example of a gourd container they were possibly
used to stopper (after Insoll et al. 2013: 21).
The discs in this exhibition varied in size from 0.5cm-0.9cm in thickness, and 3.3cm-
6.7cm in diameter (Insoll et al. 2013: 21). These dimensions concur with those of
the 77 pottery discs excavated in 1985 by Anquandah and Van Ham from Mound
H.310 (the only mound of four to contain discs): 0.4cm-1cm in thickness, and 3cm-
7cm in diameter (1985: 28). The average sherd thickness of the YK10/11
assemblage is also comparable, with the majority of sherds 0.4cm-1cm in thickness.
Again, this supports the already-established view that the discs were modified
sherds.
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The largest recorded pot disc was excavated in YK10, described as a “large ceramic
‘plate’ abraded on its edge deliberately to form a circle” refitted from three sherds
and 2.4cm thick (Insoll et al. 2010: 32). It is unclear whether this fragmentation was
a consequence of a breakage prior to, or contemporary with, its deposition,
taphonomic processes, or accidental breakage during excavation. Also unclear is
the exact number of pottery discs recovered from the YK10/11 mound because this
information is, as yet, unpublished. Only in one instance, during the description of a
specific feature in the YK10/11 mound (discussed below; see Insoll et al. 2012: 36),
were the number of pottery discs – five – specifically mentioned. Interestingly, the
2010 field notes record a further eight sherds that were deliberately modified
through abrasion to their edges, but were “not discs” (Insoll et al. 2010: 32-34).
Their purpose remains unclear.
Archaeologists from the original investigation into Iron Age Koma Land interpreted
the discs as game pieces or gold weights (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985: 28). Later,
Anquandah confirmed that the discs did not conform to any known “Islamic,
Imperial or Traditional” weight system, and instead suggested they were “lids or
stoppers for cups and small jars”, based on ethnographic analogy (Anquandah
1998: 113).
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, pottery-discs-as-gold-weights was a common
theory at West African sites (Crossland 1989; Garrard 1975, 1980: 2, 29-30, 1982;
McIntosh 1995; Stahl 1999), based on Garrard’s comparative analysis of the weight
of pottery discs from the Ghanaian Iron Age sites Begho, Amuowi, and New Buipe
with the Islamic gold-weight system (Garrard 1980). Crossland observed that nine
Begho-B2 discs fitted within the Islamic mitkal and uqiya weight parameters, as
established at Jenné-Jeno, but the remainder did not conform to Garrard’s theory
(1989: 45). Gold gold-weights were thought to be common; but because of their
value they are more frequently found circulating the antiquities market than in
provenanced excavations, making it difficult to fully understand their wider
contexts, and the processes involved in the weighing system (Stahl 1999: 38).
Possibly, the interpretation of pottery discs as gold-weights at Begho may have
been influenced by the fact that Crossland expected to find copper or brass scales
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for weighing gold dust there, but had not, after four excavation seasons (1989: 45).
Thus, Crossland turned to other elements of the material assemblage – the shaped
pot sherds (1989: 45) – as a way to potentially explain this absence of evidence.
Four of eight pottery discs from Jenné-Jeno conformed to the Islamic weight system
with a 5% margin of error; the remaining four did not (McIntosh 1995: 217).
Similarly, Stahl reported that the pottery discs from Amuowi and Begho
“correspond[ed] well” to Garrard’s weight parameters, but that the New Buipe
sample conformed “less clearly” (1999: 39). The 22 pottery discs from Stahl’s own
site of Kuulo Kataa in the Banda region did not fit into the Islamic weights system,
leading to the conclusion that they had another purpose, “or there was greater
variation in weight standards than recognised by Garrard” (Stahl 1999: 39).
The probability that some pottery discs were used as gold-weights is not disputed,
but Garrard can be criticised for omitting discussion of the pottery discs from sites
including Gao and Jenné-Jeno in Mali, and the Ghanaian sites, above, that did not
conform to any of the weight systems (Islamic, Akan, and Roman) he identifies discs
from these sites as adhering to (1980: 457). Only discs whose weights conformed
with a known system were discussed (Garrard 1980: 457, 458).
Alternative interpretations for pottery discs, including for discs at sites Garrard
investigated, have been forwarded. Twenty-one round and oval pot sherds
excavated from three mounds at New Buipe, for example, were interpreted by York
as tools for smoothing the surface of pots as they were being constructed
(Crossland 1989: 98; York 1965). Pottery discs found at sites in Cameroon and Chad
have also been described as pottery smoothers (Verron 1969). At Dawu, a 17th
century AD site in Akwapim in Ghana’s Eastern Region, 23 discs were interpreted as
“gaming counters” (Ozanne 1961; Shaw 1961). A single pottery disc found in Hyena
Cave in Ghana’s Tong Hills could have been a “weight, gaming piece, potting tool, or
amulet”, or possibly a bottle-stopper (Insoll, MacLean et al. 2013: 109).
Multiple modified sherds were excavated from Daima II and Daima III in the Lake
Chad region of northeastern Nigeria (Connah 1981: 159). At this site, Connah
distinguished between what he named a “‘shaped sherd’…a sherd that has been
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chipped into a circular, or other, shape” (Connah 1981: 158) and a “‘utilised
sherd’…a pot sherd that has been ground smooth on one or more edges, or, rarely,
on one or both of its surfaces” (Connah 1981: 159). These re-used sherds, which
made up the majority of Daima’s overall artefact assemblage because, Connah
theorised, local stone was a scarce resource (Connah 1981: 209), may have been
used as tools, such as for “shaping or smoothing wood, pottery, or even mud”, or in
potsherd-pavements, although it was not possible to tell which sherds were used
for what activity (Connah 1981: 159, 189).
At Jenné-Jeno, McIntosh observed that whilst discs may have been used as gold-
weights, it was also possible they were used in pavements, whilst concave versions
were interpreted as pot lids (1995: 147, 217). Similarly, circular concave discs at 10th
to 12th century AD Oursi hu-beero in Burkina Faso were interpreted as pot lids (Von
Czerniewicz 2011: 87). One disc in particular fitted perfectly into a flask’s opening
(Von Czerniewicz 2011: 87). Pottery artefacts from Sou Blama Radji, in Cameroon
interpreted by Rapp as pot lids, “could also be interpreted as pottery buffers”
(Livingstone Smith 2007: 209; my translation).
In the last decade, Kankpeyeng, Insoll, and others, have also concluded that the
discs functioned as bottle-stoppers for gourd and horn containers of liquids –
perhaps medicinal – with grass packed around each disc to ensure a secure fit
(Insoll et al. 2012: 36, Insoll et al. 2013: 21). Gourd and horn are both materials
which do not survive well, if at all, in the archaeological record, and so finding any
physical evidence of them is extremely unlikely. As such, it is not clear if containers
and discs were ever deposited together.
Conversely, there is irrefutable evidence that the discs were deposited as
independent artefacts. In YK07, for example, a feature containing a face-down skull
surrounded by 27 pottery discs was excavated from trench squares D3/D4/C3/C4
(Insoll et al. 2012: 41). In the 2011 season, five discs were excavated from the
YK10/11 shrine mound in association with complete and fragmented figurines,
querns, quartz fragments, and pot sherds (Insoll et al. 2012: 36). Pottery discs were
also recorded in the YK10/11 shrine in less specialised arrangements, mixed in
layers with grinding stones, sherds, and figurines (Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 482).
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These arrangements suggest the discs were used and understood in multiple ways.
The decision to use pottery discs exclusively for one feature, and alongside pottery
sherds in a second, indicates the discs’ meaning(s) and purpose(s) were different
from the unmodified pieces of pottery. Following Fowler’s discussion of partibility
and enchainment (2004: 68), the discs could be perceived as partible artefacts
deposited in the shrine as representative of the container as a whole. Another
interpretation (which may also explain why comparatively few pottery discs have
been excavated in comparison to other types of ceramic), is that the discs – in their
role as stoppers of medicine containers – were active constituents in the treatment
process. Possibly, imbued with the power of the shrine either for the purpose of
helping to contain the potentially powerful/ dangerous substances within the
container, or alternatively, to empower these substances, courtesy of the discs’
prior association with the shrine. In the case of the former view, this may explain
why, in YK07, 27 pottery discs were arranged around the human skull. Indeed, the
discs themselves may have been imbued with medicinal substances (pers comm. T.
Insoll, June 2017), as some of the figurines were (Robinson et al. 2017).
The theory of pot discs as active and mobile shrine-constituents has at its core the
argument initiated in Section 6.5; that placing an artefact in the shrine was not
necessarily a terminal deposition, but a step in an ongoing cycle of the curation and
circulation of its materials. In this role, the previously deposited pottery discs would
be removed as needed to facilitate medicinal treatment, and then returned to the
shrine for secure discard, or for curation and eventual recirculation. As, for
instance, in the Tengzug shrine in the Tong Hills in northern Ghana, shea butter is
brought as an offering to the shrine, and incorporated into it (Insoll et al. 2013: 64,
Insoll 2015: 271; and personal observation). When a specific treatment requires it, a
portion of shea butter is retrieved from the structure of the shrine and is
incorporated into an appropriate medicine, often taken away for use (Insoll et al.
2013: 64). Whilst this specific shea butter is then used up, the supply of it is
constantly renewed by new additions to the shrine in the form of offerings, (Insoll
et al. 2013: 64, Insoll 2015: 271; and personal observation) and the potency of the
shea as a medicinal ingredient and binding agent is a consequence of its association
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with the shrine established prior to use. This ethnographic example underscores
the point that deposition of an artefact into a shrine context does not necessarily
represent the end of that artefact’s life-span, and this is a concept that deserves
wider recognition in archaeology.
With the YK10/11 assemblage, this concept works in two capacities. Firstly, the
potential for artefacts to be removed, re-added, and modified. Secondly, the act of
deposition was not one that consumed the artefact, but one that transformed it. As
argued in both this chapter and in Chapter 5, the artefacts are the shrine, and in
this sense the biography of the sherd was cyclical, as it progressed from being an
intrinsic element of a whole vessel, to a fragment of it, to then being
recontextualised and re-pieced, as a pot-sherd, and as an intrinsic element of the
shrine.
6.8 Summary and conclusions
The primary objective of Chapter 6 was to disabuse the notion that the Iron Age
Koma Land pottery and figurines constituted separate material categories.
Historically, they have been perceived so. “Figurine essentialism” has pervaded
archaeological discourse (Bailey 2005: 13) with figurines, both in West Africa and
beyond it, perceived as ritualistic, artistic, and androcentric, and pottery perceived
as domestic, gynocentric craft-work. Initially, this is how the Koma Land figurines
were perceived, judged using Western art-criteria (e.g. Anquandah 1998; Beltrami
1992; Dagan 1989). Anquandah has since called for archaeologists to research and
understand aesthetics using localised, contextually relevant data (2014: 215).
The consequence of ‘figurine essentialism’ for the Koma material was the lack of
integrated study of the pottery vessels, sherds, and figurines, despite the fact (as
has been made clear) they were made of similar if not identical material and
produced using the same range of techniques. In this chapter, this issue has been
addressed and rectified. Examination of the fabric of both revealed significant visual
similarities, and evidence of the use of similar temper, including the use of quartz
for a selected range of both the pottery and figurines. The use of techniques such
as X-ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction, to examine the figurines’ fabric in a
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consistent manner in microscopic detail, would help determine the validity of this
interpretation. Section 6.3 demonstrated that the pottery and figurines shared
production techniques, including the use of the unique ‘ball and socket’ joint
construction technique for some of the figurines and the pot-stand legs. Whilst the
figurines’ decorative techniques were few in number, they were analogous to the
greater range of techniques used for the vessels. Red slip dominated both types of
ceramic. Both were low-fired, and appear to have been open-fired. Also of
significance was the vessel-figurine, a hybrid artefact combining
human/anthropomorphic figurative elements with a functional pottery element.
Collectively, these factors suggest the figurines and pottery vessels were made from
a repository of techniques shared by the inhabitants of the Koma Land region.
In other words, they are ceramic artefacts made, in all likelihood, from the same
material and using a selection of interchangeable techniques adaptable to different
forms. These observations are not restricted to the YK10/11 ceramic material
assemblage, but are extended to the ceramics from the YK10 Mound D settlement
mound (Asamoah-Mensah 2013), and excavations at Tando-Fagusa (Nkumbaan
2016). The next chapter discusses this in greater detail.
What has also been made evident is that whilst the pottery and figurines were
produced using comparable methods, they were used for different purposes. The
pottery was originally domestic and had a significant post-breakage, pre-deposition
use-life, most likely in secondary domestic contexts, before use in the shrine.
Possibly, the sherds were retrieved from midden contexts. Conversely, the figurines
appear to have been made specifically for shrine activities and subsequent
deposition. Figurine and figurine-fragments were sparse in Koma Land settlement
contexts (see Chapter 7.3), and based on use-wear, appear to have had shorter
biographies. Those that realistically depicted medical disorders (Insoll et al. 2013:
26) may have been specifically created to address those issues. Other clues include
the fact that some figurines were deliberately scorched (see Chapter 6.4), whereas
as the evidence for the vessels indicates all burning was a consequence of firing and
domestic use.
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Therefore, despite being originally created for different purposes, the deposition of
material including iron objects, cowrie shells, pottery discs, figurines, but
predominantly, pottery sherds, in the YK10/11 shrine makes evident that ritual and
domestic were not mutually-exclusive categories in Iron Age Koma Land. Any such
divisions are arbitrary. Further, the concept that these objects were deposited in
the shrine is, to some extent, a fallacy, because the combination of artefacts,
undistinguished and unseparated, was what the shrine was made of.
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Chapter 7: The YK10/11 assemblage and Iron Age West Africa
7.1 Introduction
Relative to the size and chronology of Koma Land, archaeological investigation of it
is still in its infancy. Occupying an area estimated at 150km2, and a chronology of
800 years, the 30 or so publications on Iron Age archaeology in Koma Land, are, to
date, comparatively minute. Many areas of research are as yet unexplored. In each
chapter of this thesis the analysis of the YK10/11 pottery, associated material, and
shrine mound has generated more questions than answers.
The scale of these questions varies from specific queries as to the pottery: were the
pottery vessels definitively made from local clay? For what reasons were quartz
fragments used as temper? Where did shrine-deposited sherds originate, and
where were the remainder of the vessels? To Koma Land more generally: Why was
the region seemingly abandoned in the 14th century AD? Was occupation by the
inhabitants uninterrupted or sporadic? Was the YK10/11 pottery typical of Koma
Land, or is it heterogeneous? How extensive were the region’s interactions with,
and knowledge of, the wider world? The questions generated by one shrine mound
are inexhaustible; future research promises to be both a daunting and exciting
prospect.
Chapter 7’s purpose is to use the analysis of the YK10/11 assemblage and shrine
mound developed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6 as the basis for further comparative
analysis. Comparative analysis, firstly, of the YK10/11 material with the other sites
and assemblages so far excavated in Iron Age Koma Land. Secondly, thematic
analysis of issues and topics that have influenced or impacted Koma Land, and that
are pertinent to, or interlink with, issues in the West African Iron Age more
generally. The main themes have been identified as mobility, trade/ exchange, and
transmission of knowledge, although other concepts may be introduced as
relevant. By examining these issues, it is possible both to gain insight into some of
the questions posed above (and others) and to establish the YK10/11 shrine
assemblage’s wider temporal, spatial, and thematic contexts.
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As a reminder, the West African Iron Age in its entirety spans 500 BC to AD 1400
(Dueppen 2012b: 18), but for brevity, discussion is restricted to assemblages, sites,
and issues that fall within Koma Land’s chronology. Koma Land has been
thermoluminescence and radiocarbon dated to the 6th to 14th centuries AD, and is
located within the Sisili-Kulpawn River Basin in Ghana’s Northern Region
(Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2009: 195-196). More widely, West Africa’s spatial
parameters are delimited by Dakar, Senegal (14.6928˚ N, 17.4467˚ W), Lagos,
Nigeria (6.4531˚ N, 3.3958˚ E), Adrar des Ifoghas, Mali (19.1167˚ N, 1.7500˚ E), and
Lake Chad (13.000˚ N, 14.000˚E); see Figure 40 for visual clarification. Sites
discussed in Chapter 7 are located in modern Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali,
Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo (as discussed in Chapter 2,
knowledge of Iron Age archaeology in West African countries such as Guinea-Bissau
and Liberia is currently limited, if not non-existent).
7.2 Iron Age Ghana
This section is an overview of Iron Age Ghana. The purpose is to contextualise Koma
Land and to highlight potential links and issues shared between contemporary sites.
Table 26 offers an effective visual summary of Ghanaian Iron Age archaeological
sites, and is supported by Figure 40, which maps all Ghanaian Iron Age sites with
geographical coordinates from accessible publications. The sites were listed
alphabetically and were grouped by the modern Ghanaian administrative district
they are located in. All of these sites produced ceramics. The sites in Table 26 and
Figure 40 are not all discussed at length in Chapter 7. Some sites are not directly
relevant, and further, there was not the word count to explore them all.
An alphabetised key was used in Table 26 to identify the site-type(s). Types were
determined using the descriptions from the sites’ own excavation summaries and
reports. In any column, ‘X’ indicates there was no data. Sites with no chronological
data, of which there were 19, were included if the excavators demonstrated they
were confident the site was Iron Age on the basis of material culture comparisons
with other known Iron Age sites in Ghana. For example, the presence of
“Earthworks ware” at known Iron Age sites like Monsa and Batabi, both in the
Ashanti Region (Boachie-Ansah 2011: 20, 21).
215
Figure 40: A map of all published Iron Age sites in Ghana with geographical coordinates available.
Administrative
region
Site name Site-
type
Map Key Chronology References
Ashanti (4) Adansemanso
A X AD 899 +/- 115
AD 980 +/- 119
AD 1265 +/- 55
AD 1324 +/- 47
Shinnie and Vivian
1991; Shinnie 1992;
Vivian 1996
Akrokrowa C X AD 768-907
AD 69-899
AD 1287-1427
AD 800-987
AD 662-828
Chouin and DeCorse
2010
Batabi Earthwork C 2 X Boachie-Ansah 2011:
17, 21; Kiyaga-
Mulindwa 1978
Monsa Earthwork C 3 AD 1382-1552
AD 1397-1651
170 BC-AD 257
Chouin and DeCorse
2010: 131-133;
Kiyaga-Mulindwa
1978, 1982
Brong-Ahafo (27) Adwadie J 4 X Boachie-Ansah 1978,
1986b; Morgan
2013: 32, 35
Akyiraa/ Anyiman B 5 Iron Age Effah-Gyamfi 1985
Amuowi I and II B, F 6 I: 440+/- 70
II: AD 1610 +/- 75
“Predating the
Bono State”
Effah-Gyamfi 1974,
1985
Asantekwa X X Early Iron Age Davies 1972; Morgan
2013
Asekye I B 7 Phase I: AD 1250-
1450
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
27
Banda (Kuulo
Kataa, Makala
Kataa)
A 8 AD 1000-1650 Stahl 2001, 2004,
2008, Stahl et al.
2008
Begho/ Begho B2 A 9 Brong Ahafo
Quarter Site 1: AD
1430 +/-
100;1450 +/- 100;
BAQ Site 2: AD
1450 +/- 100/ AD
1000-1400
Anquandah 1982:
143; Bravmann and
Mathewson 1970;
Crossland 1989
Bonoase B X X Dombrowski 1976;
Morgan 2013
Bono Manso A X AD 1380 +/- 75 Effah-Gyamfi 1974:
219-220, 1985;
Morgan 2013: 29-30
Bonoso A, F 10 AD 710 +/- 90
AD 980 +/- 85
Boachie-Ansah 1976:
27-31, 1985: 41-72
1986b: 53-70;
Morgan 2013: 33
Bui, Gonja A, G 11 AD 800-1600 York 1965
Dewoman B 12 13th-18th centuries
AD
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
21
Dimbia, Gonja A 13 AD 1400
AD 1498-1615
AD 1321-1392
AD 1360-1432
AD 1324-1394
Morgan 2013: 7, 125
Dwommo B 14 Phase I: AD 1250-
1450
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
21, 27
Jema X X X Davies 1972
Kaam B 15 AD 1395-1468 Boachie-Ansah 1978,
217
AD 1387-1428 1986b; Morgan
2013: 32, 35
Kagbrema A 16 Phase I: AD 1250-
1450
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
27
Kokuman B 17 “Pre-dating the
Bono State”
Boachie-Ansah 2007;
Effah-Gyamfi 1985
Kramokrom A 18 Phase I: AD 1250-
1450
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
27
Mumute, Begho B 19 X Agorsah 1986;
Dombrowski 1976;
Effah-Gyamfi 1985;
Morgan 2013: 25
Nyinase B 20 Phase I: AD 1250-
1450
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
21,27
Nkyiraa I B 20 “Pre-dating the
Bono State”
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
21
Nyarko Quarter,
Begho
B X AD 1120 +/- 75
AD 1045 +/- 80
Crossland 1975,
1976: 86; Morgan
2013: 25
Techiman B X Iron Age Boachie-Ansah 2005,
2007
Tiprama B 21 13th-18th centuries
AD
Effah-Gyamfi 1985:
21
Twemma J 22 AD 1440-1524
AD 1418-1446
Boachie-Ansah 1978,
1986b; Morgan
2013: 32, 35
Yeji, Gonja X 23 Iron Age York 1973
Central Region (9) Bantama A, C, G 24 Iron Age Boachie-Ansah 2011:
23; Calvocoressi
1977
Brakwa C 25 X Boachie-Ansah 2011
Brenu Achyinim B X AD 1112 +/- 276
AD 1109 +/- 146
DeCorse 2005: 3
Coconut Grove B, I X AD 560-670
AD 580-680
AD 680-880
DeCorse 2005: 4
Dumpow, Eguafo E X AD 400 -570
AD 650-770
Cook and Spiers
2004: 21-22; Spiers
2007
Eguafo State A X AD 1238 +/- 77
AD 1325 +/- 67
Chouin 2009;
DeCorse 2005: 3
El Mina A X AD 887 +/- 104
AD 1012 +/- 124
DeCorse 2005: 3
Eyim, Eguafo A, G X “Early second
millennium AD”
Cook and Spiers
2004: 24
Ngyeduam B, C, G 26 AD 1442-1631
AD 1305-1431
AD 1305-1431
AD 1436-1626
AD 1414-1480
AD 1445-1632
Boachie-Ansah 2011
Northern Region
(14)
Butie, Gonja B 27 X Flight 1968;
Mathewson 1967
Chuluwasi H 28 Phase 1: “Iron
Age”
Phase 2: AD 1400-
1700
Mathewson 1974
Daboya, Gonja A 29 Lower Level:
50+/- 140 BC; AD
770 +/- 165
Middle Level: AD
Anquandah 1982:
142-144; Shinnie and
Kense 1989
218
1180 +/- 150; AD
770 +/- 165
Jimasangi H 30 Phase 1: “Iron
Age”
Phase 2: AD 1400-
1700
Mathewson 1974
Jumi, Gonja B X AD 1460
AD 1630
Mathewson 1968
Kawlaw, Gonja X 31 Iron Age York 1973: 3
Kisoto, Gonja X 32 Iron Age Calvocoressi and
York 1971 [York
1973: 3]; Mathewson
1968
New Buipe, Gonja A 33 Phase 2: AD 790
+/- 100
Phase 3: AD 1445
+/- 100; 1495 +/-
100
Iron Age: AD 1540
+/- 90; AD 1640
+/- 90
Anquandah 1982:
143-144; Bravmann
and Mathewson
1970; Crossland
1973a: 42; Morgan
2013: 25; York 1973
Ntereso B 34 Kintampo Level:
240 +/- 120 BC
Upper Level: AD
60 +/- 110
Anquandah 1982:
142; Davies 1967;
1973
Sekondi B 35 15th century AD Davies 1967: 293,
310-312, 351
Tando A/B, D X X Zakari 2011
Tando Fagusa,
Koma Land
B, D, G 36 AD 500-900 Kankpeyeng and
Nkumbaan 2009:
199-200; Nkumbaan
2016
Yikpabongo, Koma
Land
B, D, G 37 AD 600-1400 Insoll et al. 2011,
2012, 2013;
Kankpeyeng et al.
2008, 2009, 2011,
2013
Zoboku, Koma Land A/B X X Appiah-Adu et al.
2016: 3, Dartey 2011
Upper East (2) Gambaga
Escarpment
A X Iron Age Kense 1992: 147
Tong Hills,
Gambaga
Escarpment
B, D, G,
H, I, J,
K, L
38 AD 80-1624 Fraser et al. 2012;
Insoll et al. 2011;
Insoll et al. 2013
Volta (1) Agbenu Mountain A X AD 1410 - 1455 Ayipey 2016: 117
Western (1) Asantemanso A, F 1 AD 800 +/- 80
AD 1280-1420
Chouin and DeCorse
2010; Shinnie 1986,
1987, 1988, 2005
Table 26: All known published Iron Age Ghanaian sites. Key; A. Major settlement site (large and/or
multiple occupation phase); B. Minor settlement site (small and/or single occupation phase); C.
Earthwork; D. Shrine; E. Sacred grove; F. Origins myth site; G. Burial site/ cemetery; H. Surface
scatters observed (no excavation); I. Midden (shell/other); J. Iron smelting/ working site; K. Field/
terracing system; L. Rock shelter/ cave.
The dated sites were the product of radiocarbon or thermoluminescence dating. In
some instances, the chronology has been determined using only pottery seriation,
hence descriptions such as ‘Iron Age’ or ‘13th to 15th centuries AD’. This is common
219
with sites excavated before scientific, laboratory-based dating methods became
more widely available in the 1970s. The data in each column is as specific as
possible. All sites with accurate longitude and latitude coordinates have been
incorporated into Figure 40. Finally, references in italics are original excavation
summaries, articles, and reports that have been referenced in discussions in
secondary publications, but which have proven here to be inaccessible, out of print,
or otherwise impossible to locate. Nevertheless, as the original publications, they
have been included for the benefit of future researchers. It is hoped Table 26 will
also be of benefit.
Other publications relevant to researchers interested in the trending ‘big data’
movement, are regional (if somewhat dated) overviews of the West African Iron
Age including Anquandah’s Rediscovering Ghana’s past (1982), which has an
excellent chronology table for all known Iron Age sites in Ghana, Davies’ West
Africa before the Europeans (1967), which has a thorough topographical index and
was invaluable for producing the West African site map, and finally, Calvocoressi’s
and York’s article listing all excavations carried out in Ghana at the time of their
writing (1971: 87).
The most frequent site-types were single and multiple occupations sites, as listed
below, followed by burial/ cemetery sites, and then earthwork sites, which are
regionally specific to the Ghanaian coast and hinterlands (Chouin 2000; Chouin and
DeCorse 2010; DeCorse 2005). As some sites contained more than one feature, the
sites may be counted for more than one category. For example, Yikpabongo
contains evidence of shrines, settlement, and burials, so is counted once for each of
those three categories. Features typically essential to occupation sites (such as
middens) were recorded separately because very few were specifically identified.
This reflects the brevity of many early site reports and is a direct example of the
issues surrounding research publication and dissemination discussed in Chapter 2.
In some instances, the site-type was not even identified (e.g. Kisoto, Northern
Region, Table 26).
Archaeologists identified the origins-myth sites using local oral histories; Amuowi I,
for example, contained a sacred hole with an associated rock shelter, the hole being
220
the place from which the Gyamma people emerged, and thus originated (Effah-
Gyamfi 1974: 219), but the rock shelter was also inhabited centuries before this,
and understandably, no oral histories exist for this earlier occupation. Sacred groves
and shrines were categorised separately because the two are not mutually-inclusive
(Insoll 2007), and similarly, as above, occupied rock shelters and caves may have
performed multiple functions (Effah-Gyamfi 1974: 219; Insoll 2015: 214, 312). As a
site containing (potentially major) occupation, as well as shrines, burials, and
middens, plus considerable material culture, Yikpabongo is evidently a significant
site for Iron Age archaeology in Ghana.
A. Major settlement: 21
B. Minor settlement: 22
C. Earthwork: 5
D. Shrine: 4
E. Sacred grove: 1
F. Origins myth site: 3
G. Burial site/ cemetery: 7
H. Surface scatters: 3
I. Midden: 2
J. Iron smelting/ working: 3
K. Field/ terracing system: 1
L. Rock shelter/ cave: 2
The spatial distribution of sites in Ghana reveals the ad hoc approach historically
taken to archaeological research outlined in Chapter 2.4; a fact apparent even with
the caveat that only Iron Age sites have been included in Table 26 and Figure 40.
Many sites are close to one another, demonstrating the investigative method of
discovering a site and then surveying outward from it. This approach reflects
challenges with accessibility, transport, and the environment, such as heavy brush
cover and road quality, which led archaeologists to favour easily accessible
locations near the roads (Bellis 1972 [1978]: 10). As Bellis observed “when a site
distribution map of Ghana is overlaid with one of the road system…sites appear to
follow roads”, an issue he acknowledged was a consequence of belts of heavy
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rainforest, but one he argued was “not insurmountable” (1972 [1978]: 10). The
consequence of this methodology is clusters of sites – mostly in southern Ghana –
surrounded by vast, archaeologically-unknown entities.
Investigations at some of these sites have been renewed (e.g. Boachie-Ansah 2011;
Morgan 2013), but archaeologists have also turned to traditionally overlooked
areas in the north and east (Ayipey 2016; Insoll et al. 2011, Insoll, MacLean et al.
2013; Zakari 2011), which have until more recently be difficult to access (Appiah-
Adu 2016). Other sites, such as Jimasangi and Chuluwasi, both in Northern Region,
would benefit from renewed interest because they have never been fully excavated
and their only archaeological report is very brief (Mathewson 1974).
An exception to this preference for southern sites was Yikpabongo. The motivation
here was almost certainly the earlier reported discovery of figurines, which sparked
academic interest in the area (Kröger 1983). The Koma Land sites appear to have
been occupied for much of the Iron Age, a chronology matched and even surpassed
by other areas of settlement in Ghana, including Akrokrowa in the Ashanti Region
(Chouin and DeCorse 2010), Bui in the Brong-Ahafo Region (York 1965, 1973),
Daboya (Shinnie and Kense 1989) and New Buipe (Bravmann and Mathewson 1970;
York 1973), both in Northern Region, and the Tong Hills in the Upper East Region
(Insoll, MacLean et al. 2013).
Whilst not providing an in-depth synthesis of the Ghanaian Iron Age it is worth
providing a brief introductory summary. To this end, an overview of the Iron Age –
beginning on Ghana’s south coast and continuing northwards – sets the stage for
the in-depth comparative analysis of the Iron Age sites in the Koma Land region
that follows. To ensure it was manageable, Iron Age sites from Ghana’s neighbours
Burkina Faso, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire were excluded from Table 26, but it is stressed
that colonial-era made national borders had no relevance in this period.
Ghana’s southern, coastal region has been characterised by earthworks or
“entrenchments”; Late Iron Age and pre-Atlantic/ Atlantic occupation sites with
high earthen mounds and deep ditches enclosing the perimeter, traditionally
interpreted as defensive fortifications (Davies 1967; Kiyaga-Mulindwa 1982; Wilks
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1957). An associated ceramic ‘Earthworks ware’ has been identified at multiple
earthwork sites on the coast and in the coastal hinterlands, including: Akrokrowa
(Chouin and DeCorse 2010), Asantemanso (Shinnie 1986, 1987, 1988, 2005), Batabi
Earthwork (Kiyaga-Mulindwa 1978, 1982 [Chouin and DeCorse 2010]), sites in the
Birim Valley (Davies 1967: 287-29; Kiyaga-Mulindwa 1982), Monsa Earthwork
(Kiyaga-Mulindwa 1978, 1982 [Chouin and DeCorse 2010]), Ngyeduam (Boachie-
Ansah 2011), and post-Iron Age site Twifo Heman (Bellis 1972 [1978]). Wilks argued
that the construction of earthworks was a response to European contact and
Atlantic trade in the 15th and 16th centuries AD – a population “big bang” (1993: 94)
– although subsequent radiocarbon dating has disproved this theory (Chouin 2012:
18; see Table 26).
A recent return to the archaeology of southern Ghana has led archaeologists to
dispute early understandings of earthwork sites and their ceramics. Firstly, the view
that the earthworks were defensive features has been dismissed as simplistic, and
empirical, although further investigation is needed to determine their function, and
to understand the political and social structures that enabled such massive feats of
labour (Chouin and DeCorse 2010: 139). Alternative theories for the deep ditches
and large numbers of ceramics includes suggestions that water storage in the dry
season was a priority for local settlements (Chouin and DeCorse 2010: 141).
Secondly, Earthworks ware was not confined to earthwork sites (Chouin 2009: 673).
Excavations at numerous Iron Age settlement sites in Eguafo polity, including at
Eyim (Spiers 2007), Dumpow (Cook and Spiers 2004), Coconut Grove (DeCorse
2005), and Abirpow, Asaba, and Bosomtwi (Chouin 2009) have all produced
Earthworks ware. Consequently, Chouin has reclassified this pottery as Atetefo
ware, a regional Akan term that dispels ambiguity about the ceramics’ spatial
distribution (2009: 673).
The majority of Iron Age Ghanaian sites are in the country’s southern and central
regions. Specifically, the Brong-Ahafo Region, which has 26, the southern half of
Northern Region, which contains 14 (four of which are Koma Land sites), and
Central Region, which contains nine. As above, their distribution reflects site
selection practices, including ease of accessibility. Throughout these regions, major
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multiple-occupation sites have been uncovered. Most prominent are Daboya
(Shinnie and Kense 1989), and New Buipe (Bravmann and Mathewson 1970; York
1973) both in Northern Region, and sites in the Banda area of the Brong Ahafo
Region, particularly Begho (Bravmann and Mathewson 1970; Crossland 1989),
Kuulo Kataa, and Makala Kataa (Stahl 2001, 2004, 2008).
In the trans-Atlantic period, Begho was a significant trade-centre (Stahl 2001: 83),
laid out with quarters housing merchants and artisans (Stahl 2001: 86), the earliest
of which – Nyarko Quarter – dated from the 11th century AD (Crossland 1976: 86;
see Table 26). New Buipe, excavated by the Volta Basin Research Project as part of
a series of rescue excavations of sites under threat (and later submerged) by the
development of Akosombo Dam in the Volta River Basin, has one of (if not the)
longest occupation histories in Ghana (Robertshaw 1990: 148; York 1973). Whilst
interrupted, New Buipe’s occupation chronology spans almost 2,000 years and
contains up to 17 distinct pottery wares (York 1973: 1, 95). Much of the pottery was
red slipped, and roulettes and stamped decoration appeared to dominate (York
1973: 53, 171).
With the exception of the four Koma Land sites, archaeological investigations of
Northern Ghana have been sparse. In northeastern Ghana (Upper East Region), an
Iron Age settlement was identified in the early 1990s along the Gambaga
Escarpment (Kense 1992), a distinctive granitic ridge from the Biriman formation
with an elevation of up to 365m above sea level (Insoll, MacLean et al. 2013: 14).
Between 2004 and 2008, surveys, excavations, and test excavations in the Tong
Hills, or Tengzug, which form part of the Gambaga Escarpment, revealed a dense
network of shrines (some, such as Nyoo, containing standing stones), abandoned
compounds, abandoned agricultural terraces, field walls, iron-smelting and working
areas, natural caves and rock shelters, rock features, a cemetery, a granary, rock
game boards, and purposefully deposited standalone objects such as pots and
quartz pieces in situ; in total, 76 sites over a 3km to 4km area (Insoll, MacLean et al.
2013: 26-27, 93). Fourteen OSL dates revealed occupation and activity at these sites
between the 1st and 16th centuries AD (Insoll, MacLean et al. 2013: 94).
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In north-western Ghana, Swanepoel examined the structure of decentralised
societies (2009), and the effect of slave-raiding on the same (2011), although this
work post-dates the Iron Age. In north-central Ghana, 21 sites listed in two
publications have been identified through field-surveys as potential areas of Iron
Age Koma Land activity. Zakari (2011) has identified 17 sites in a 100km by 100km
area encompassing Ghana’s Northern, Upper West, and Upper East administrative
districts. Comparatively, using data from Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan, Appiah-Adu
et al. (2016: 3) identified 12 potential sites within a 60km area. However, the map
used in this second article locates Yikpabongo and surrounding contemporary
villages in the Upper West Region, which is not correct. All 21 sites identified in the
two publications have been listed in Table 27, with both spellings of the site name
given where they differed.
Site name ✓ Occupied
X Abandoned
Site mentioned?
Appiah-Adu et al. 2016
(after Kankpeyeng and
Nkumbaan 2009)
Zakari 2011
Baranya X N Y
Barisi Y N
Dabozeasi/ Daboziesi ✓ Y Y
Fumbisi ✓ N Y
Gwosi ✓ N Y
Janga Y N
Kpikpirigu X N Y
Kundugu ✓ N Y
Magongu Y N
Nangruma/ Nagruma ✓ Y Y
Tando ✓ Y Y
Tando Fagusa/ Fagusa X Y Y
Tantale/ Tantala ✓ Y Y
Tantuosi ✓ N Y
Tuvuu/ Tovoo ✓ Y Y
Wiesi ✓ N Y
Yagaba Y N
Yikpabongo ✓ Y Y
Yiziesi ✓ N Y
Zoboku X Y Y
Zugkpeni ✓ N Y
Table 27: Sites of archaeological interest for Iron Age Koma Land. The sites in bold italics are the four
that have been partially or fully excavated. A greyed-out box indicates no data was available.
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These sites represent future research possibilities. So far, only four have been
excavated: Yikpabongo (Anquandah and Van Ham 1985; Asamoah-Mensah 2013;
Insoll et al. 2010, 2011; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009), Tando Fagusa
(Insoll et al. 2013; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011, Kankpeyeng et al. 2013; Nkumbaan
2016), Tando (Zakari 2011), and Zoboku (Appiah-Adu et al. 2016: 3, Dartey 2011).
The following section characterises the known settlement archaeology in Iron Age
Koma Land. It offers an in-depth comparative analysis of the settlement and shrine
ceramics, for the purpose of identifying and defining the wider relationships shared
by Iron Age Koma ceramics across the region.
7.3 Koma Land
Yikpabongo was the ‘original’ Iron Age Koma Land site. It was where Anquandah
and Van Ham began excavations in 1985, and it has subsequently received the
greatest attention. At present, it is represented by 13 archaeological publications
(Anquandah 1987, 1998, with Van Ham 1985, Insoll et al. 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016;
Insoll and Kankpeyeng 2014; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng
et al. 2011, 2013; Robinson et al. 2017) as well as an unpublished MPhil dissertation
(Asamoah-Mensah 2013), and this PhD thesis. The remaining three sites were all
investigated with the renewal of archaeological studies in 2006-2007 (Kankpeyeng
and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009). Tando Fagusa, 24km from Yikpabongo, has been
briefly discussed in five publications (Insoll et al. 2013, 2016; Kankpeyeng et al.
2011, 2013; Robinson et al. 2017), and two of 17 known settlement mounds, and
test-pits into two shrine mounds, were the subject of an, as yet, unpublished PhD
thesis (Nkumbaan 2016). Excavations at Tando and Zoboku were reported in two
MPhil dissertations that are currently inaccessible, so the data for these sites is
limited here (Appiah-Adu et al. 2016: 3; Dartey 2011; Zakari 2011). Table 28 briefly
summarises the known information for each of these four sites.
Unlike sites discussed in the previous section, such as New Buipe, Banda, and
Begho, there is currently little, if any, understanding of the political and social
structures that characterised Koma society. At the moment, excavations have
chiefly focused on examining individual mounds. Thus, whilst settlement and shrine
mounds have been successfully identified at the sites discussed below, a discussion
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of the broader regional context in which they sit cannot yet be offered. As argued
elsewhere in this thesis, the region would benefit from surveys.
Site Settlement
evidence?
Shrine
evidence?
Surface
scatters?
Chronology References
Tando Y Y Y Zakari 2011
Tando Fagusa Y Y Y 6th-10th
centuries AD
Insoll et al. 2013; Kankpeyeng et al.
2011, Kankpeyeng et al. 2013;
Nkumbaan 2016
Yikpabongo Y Y Y Settlement: 5th-
7th centuries AD
Shrine: 9th-12th
centuries AD
Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Anquandah
1987, 1998, with Van Ham 1985,
Insoll et al. 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016;
Insoll and Kankpeyeng 2014;
Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008,
2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011, 2013;
Robinson et al. 2017
Zoboku Y Appiah-Adu et al. 2016: 3;
Dartey 2011
Table 28: A summary of the four (partially) excavated Iron Age Koma sites. References in italics were
not accessible or are currently unpublished.
Whilst all four sites contained settlement evidence, only Tando Fagusa and
Yikpabongo have currently produced secure evidence of shrine-based activity. At
present, they are also the only two Koma Land sites with accessible settlement
mound ceramic analyses. As such, Tando Fagusa and Yikpabongo are the focus
here. The purpose of Section 7.3 is to analyse the settlement mound and shrine
mound ceramics from Tando Fagusa (Nkumbaan 2016) and Yikpabongo (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013; YK10/11 assemblage, Chapter 4) to determine: (a) whether the
settlement and shrine ceramics are homogenous; (b) what stylistic variations occur
in the pottery from different areas of Koma Land; and (c) how the settlement and
shrine assemblages’ biographies and deposition contexts compare. Analysis here is
provisional and designed to be a starting point for future research, because these
three objectives are substantial. Satisfactorily fulfilling them would, ideally, require
physical access to the pottery, and to their contextual data; a dedicated research
project on par with, if not larger than, this thesis.
Before continuing, a note on terminology. In Chapter 2 it was demonstrated that
the ‘stone circle mounds’ – a term coined by Anquandah to describe the structure
of Koma Land mounds he interpreted as high-status burials (1987, 2002, 2006) –
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had been convincingly reinterpreted as shrine mounds by his successors
(Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011, 2013, Insoll et al. 2012,
2013; but see Dartey 2011 for a more recent argument in support of Anquandah’s
(1998) burial mound interpretation). Nevertheless, in some of the literature (such
as Nkumbaan 2016, and Zakari 2011), the term ‘stone circle mound’ is still
preferred. Nkumbaan, for instance, has retained this terminology, but has
hypothesised, firstly, that these mounds may have been used as shrines and not
burial sites, as Anquandah and Van Ham first suggested (1985). Secondly,
Nkumbaan argued that the settlement mounds and stone circle mounds were
contemporary with one another (Nkumbaan 2016: 22, 59, 163, 167-8). In this
thesis, both of these points (on the basis of current evidence; see Chapter 2) have
been accepted as true.
Conversely, Zakari (2011) has interpreted the settlement mounds surveyed at
Tando as associated with the area’s current population and has identified only the
‘stone circle mounds’ as relevant to the Iron Age population. However, the dating
of Yikpabongo settlement Mound D to the 6th-7th centuries AD (Asamoah-Mensah
2013: 135) and mounds at Tando Fagusa to the 6th-10th centuries AD (Kankpeyeng
et al. 2011: 109), and the similarities and relationships between the material
culture of both mound types (as this section will illustrate) refutes this idea. In this
thesis, it is maintained that the ‘stone circle mounds’ did function as shrines; and
for clarity, the term ‘shrine mound’ will remain in use throughout.
Shrine and settlement mounds were directly associated with one another at Tando
Fagusa, leading Nkumbaan to conclude that the shrines served settlement
compounds on a familial level (Nkumbaan 2016: 23, 204). If so, it may be the case
that each shrine was the result of generations of sequential activity, rather than
one or two short, large-scale deposition events (in Chapter 6, it was shown that the
YK10/11 shrine evidence was not sufficient to confidently determine the scale and
chronology of its deposition events).
As excavations in Koma Land progress, characterising the structure and material of
a selection of shrines would be invaluable, as it cannot be presumed that (a) ritual
activities across the region were homogenous, nor (b) that each shrine held the
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same meaning and function. Documentation of shrines in an ethnographic and
archaeological study in the Tong Hills in Ghana’s Upper East region, for example,
uncovered 14 shrines in a 5km area that ranged “in size from small personal destiny
shrines to large earth shrines with congregations from multiple sections” (Insoll et
al. 2013: 54, 56). Evidence of disparate ceramic practices in Koma Land has already
been hinted at by the greater preference for human figurines with primary sexual
characteristics at Tando Fagusa, whilst for the most part, human figurines
recovered from Yikpabongo have been androgynous (Insoll et al. 2013: 33).
The contents and structure of the YK10/11 shrine mound have been thoroughly
analysed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6, and so will not be repeated here except for
comparative purposes. The three excavated Koma Land settlement (or house)
mounds, however, will first be described in some detail because they are otherwise
unknown. YK10 Mound D (Asamoah-Mensah 2013), Mound TDF-HM12 2008/2010,
and Mound TDF-HM4 TP2 2010 (Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209-210, Nkumbaan 2016)
were large structures that contained a mixed assemblage of pottery, occasional
whole pots, grinding stones, querns, a few iron artefacts, oyster shells, cattle bones,
and teeth, and at Tando Fagusa, sheep/ goat and catfish bones as well (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013: 51, 54, 57-59; Nkumbaan 2016: 140). Pottery sherds were the most
prevalent artefact type in all three mounds (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 118;
Nkumbaan 2016: 88; see Table 29).
A hearth, burnt daub, charcoal and ash, boulders, postholes, and a midden were
present in Mound D (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 65, 84, 118-119). TDF HM4 and TDF
HM12 appear to have been similarly structured. In HM12, a “dumping area”
identified not as a midden, but as a mud-collection pit for building that was
subsequently used for refuse, was uncovered (Nkumbaan 2016: 76). All three
mounds exhibited hard packed, beaten earth-and-gravel house floors under which
there were complete human burials (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 58, 119; Kankpeyeng
et al. 2011: 209; Nkumbaan 2016: 146). Mound D contained one burial (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013: 118), Mound TDF-HM12, 15 burials, and Mound TDF-HM4 TP2
2008/2010, two (Nkumbaan 2016: 137). It is not yet known whether these burials
predate, are contemporary with, or postdate the settlement mounds: i.e. were the
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structures built deliberately on top of the burials, were the burials dug into the
floors, (and if so, did they represent multiple or single deposition events), or were
they added after the structures were abandoned?
It should be noted that in two other publications discussing the excavated Tando
Fagusa house mounds – TDF-HM12 and TDF-HM4 TP2 – only 11 burials were
reported (Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209, and Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492). Further,
the three publications’ descriptions of the burials’ orientations and placement were
inconsistent (compare Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209, and 2013: 492, with Nkumbaan
2016: 137). In this thesis, Nkumbaan’s (2016) discussion of the burials has been
relied upon because it appears to have formed the primary data source for the
discussions about Tando-Fagusa that took place in these secondary articles, of
which Nkumbaan was also a secondary author (Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209).
Three of the 17 Tando-Fagusa burials were juveniles (Nkumbaan 2016: 139), but the
age-range of the remainder was unspecified. The human remains were on their side
in a flexed position with the knees pointed towards the chin (Nkumbaan 2016: 138).
Assessments of gender were forwarded on the basis of whether the skeleton was
facing to the left or right (Nkumbaan 2016: 201), but this rationale is disputed in the
following paragraphs.
At Tando Fagusa, Nkumbaan observed that the house mound burials had no
specific bodily orientation, but the skeletons all appeared to face either east (or
sunrise) or west (or sunset) (Nkumbaan 2016: 138). It is not clear from Asamoah-
Mensah’s (2013) report how the single set of YK10 settlement mound remains were
orientated.
Studies in parts of Ghana and Nigeria have used ethnographic observations of burial
customs to identify gender based on the direction a body is facing (Ucko 1969: 273;
see also Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492; Meek 1925: 123; Nkumbaan 2016: 201;
Rattray 1932; and Zimoń 2007: 48). Westwards-facing individuals have been
identified as women, and eastwards-facing individuals as men; because their
respective roles in society as preparers of the family evening meal, or as farmers
rising early, specifically associates them with the setting or rising sun (Ucko 1969:
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273; see also Kankpeyeng et al. 2013: 492; Meek 1925: 123; Nkumbaan 2016: 137-
138, 201; Rattray 1932; and Zimoń 2007: 48). This is a custom that has been
recorded throughout contemporary northern Ghana (Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209).
It is this custom that Nkumbaan has put forward as relevant to determining the
gender of the Iron Age burials in Tando Fagusa (2016: 162).
It is not argued here that the burials’ direction is unimportant. In Chapter 5.5,
comparisons were made between the placement of the partible, selected YK10/11
human remains and the figurines. Whilst varying, the directions (both the
orientation, and cardinal directions) of figurines and human remains appeared to
have been chosen with care. The YK10/11 skeletal material was all orientated in a
south/southwest/southeast direction (Insoll et al. 2016: 27; see Chapter 5.5), and
the presence of Janus head type figurines also suggested that direction was
significant to the inhabitants of Koma Land (Insoll et al. 2013: 14). In 1985,
Anquandah had similarly recorded Koma burials orientated with the head southeast
(1987: 174). Interestingly, this southeast orientation has also been recorded for
burials at the Late Iron Age settlement of Kuulo Kataa in Ghana’s Banda region
(Stahl 2001: 136).
The position of the burials is, by itself, not an adequate archaeological determiner
of gender in Koma Land, however. Whilst ethnography has its place as a way to
broaden archaeological insight, directly associating the burial practices of
contemporary northern Ghanaian communities with those of people buried over a
thousand years prior does not. Further, we should not presume that the Iron Age
inhabitants of this region recognised only two genders. The fact that many figurines
were androgynous, for example, suggests that understandings of sex and gender
were not as binary as man/woman, and possibly, that there were some Koma Land
contexts in which sex and gender were irrelevant – at least to the figurines’
meaning and purpose. Joyce has also made this argument for figurines in the
European Palaeolithic (2008b: 9). Indeed, even where figurines do have primary
sexual characteristics, the archaeologist should not take those characteristics, as it
were, at face value (Bailey 2017: 88), or treat the figurine’s form as “self-evident”
(Joyce 2008b: 9).
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Examining the published Koma figurines (such as Insoll et al. 2013), it becomes
apparent that it is facial features, incisions into (mostly facial) bodily orifices, navel
hernias, and bodily ornamentations (such as jewellery, hats, and hairstyles) that
were the most consistently reproduced elements. Particularly, the representation
of the nose, ears, eyes, and mouth, but especially the eyes and mouth, which were
stylistically similar for many figurines regardless of whether human, animal, or
anthropomorphic (e.g. Insoll et al. 2013: 3, 18, 21, 22, 26). The mounted-rider
figurine is an excellent illustration of this stylistic similarity; with the wide-eyed and
open-mouthed expressions of both mount and rider almost comically similar (see
Figure 37 in Chapter 6.4).
Comprehensive osteoarchaeological analysis of the excavated burials would be the
most accurate way to determine each individual’s biological sex. If biological sex did
correlate with the positioning of the burial, it would create grounds for a
stimulating discussion on sex, gender, and Iron Age burial practices in this region, as
Nkumbaan goes on to recognise (2016: 162). Nonetheless, the existence of this
correlation should not be presumed from the outset. On a slightly tangential note,
skeletal analysis would also be valuable for examining whether any of the medical
issues depicted in the Koma Land figurines could be recognised in the burial record.
Grave goods were present in the one settlement burial at Yikpabongo, and in many
at Tando Fagusa, and included pot sherds, iron bracelets and anklets worn on the
bodies, glass beads, and in one instance, “twisted brass and glass beads [worn]
around the neck” (Asamoah Mensah 2013: 54; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011: 209). Many
of the burials (although number unspecified) were covered with large pot sherds
(Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 54; Nkumbaan 2016: 80, 138). These sherds were not
distinguished from the remainder of their ceramic assemblages during analysis, so it
was not clear how, or if, they differed.
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Figure 41: The YK10 settlement burial covered in large pot sherds that appear to refit (after
Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 54).
The sherds from both sites did appear to be larger than the majority deposited in
the YK10/11 shrine, suggesting they had a shorter use-life and/ or were deliberately
fragmented specifically for the burial. Very close inspection of an image from
Asamoah-Mensah’s report (2013: 54; Figure 41) showed that the Mound D burial
sherds were roulette decorated everted rim and body sherds that would appear to
refit. The roulette type seems to be braided strip. An image of pot sherds covering a
Tando Fagusa burial (Nkumbaan 2016: 138) also revealed these to be rim and body
sherds. No decoration could be distinguished from the image, and whilst Nkumbaan
confirmed that the sherds were decorated (2016: 138), how was not specified.
At this stage, it is possible to draw tentative parallels between the use of pot sherds
as house mound burial-covers and the use of pot sherds in the shrine to reference
and cover figurines. Possibly, this practice – interpreted in Chapter 5.5 as a process
of protection and containment – may be mirrored in the use of pot sherds to cover
the settlement burials. Also mentioned in Chapter 5.5 was the fact that Anquandah
recorded the placement of human remains on top of pots (1987: 174), as well as
underneath them. The destruction of a pot, or pots, at the death of an individual is
a well-recorded phenomenon throughout West Africa, although clearly the beliefs
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behind this action were context-dependent (Berns 1988: 73; Herbert 1993: 205;
Insoll 2010: 99; Smith 1989: 61; Wild 1935).
Some burials at Tando Fagusa (number unspecified) were covered by whole pots
and not pot sherds. In these instances, a pot, complete but for a deliberate hole in
its base, was placed upside-down over an individual (Nkumbaan 2016: 114). This
practice mirrors the creation (if not the meaning) of a libation structure in the
YK10/11 shrine by deliberately piercing a hole in a pot’s bottom; although here, the
pot was upright (Insoll et al. 2012: 36).
Pottery discs were associated with human remains in shrine and settlement
contexts (although no pottery discs were found in YK10 Mound D [Asamoah-
Mensah 2013]). Nkumbaan observed that a YK07 shrine contained “a half skull,
turned upside down, at the base of which were placed about 27 ceramic discs”
(2016: 111; see also the original article Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2009). In
Chapter 6.7, this particular arrangement of YK07 material was interpreted as
potentially demonstrating the ability of the discs to contain spiritually dangerous
substances, in an extension of their role as bottle-stoppers.
The YK10/11 shrine mound contained both discs and human remains, as discussed
in Chapter 6.7. These discs were not directly associated with the human remains,
but were part of a mixed assemblage of figurines, pottery sherds, and querns.
Eighteen pottery discs were also uncovered in HM12 and HM4 “in association with
human burials” (Nkumbaan 2016: 111). Conversely, SCM3 TP3 and SCM5 TP4
collectively possessed three pottery discs, but no human remains (Nkumbaan 2016:
111). The inclusion of discs in settlement burials suggested “their possible use in
ritual activity related to funerary rites” (Nkumbaan 2016: 111). What criteria
determined the use of sherds, pottery discs, or whole pots in settlement burials are
not yet apparent.
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7.3.1 Comparative analysis of the settlement and shrine ceramics
7.3.2.1 Sherd frequencies: issues and variables
Six Koma Land pottery assemblages are analysed in the next section. As above,
these consist of two pottery assemblages from Yikpabongo (the YK10/11
assemblage and a settlement assemblage analysed by Asamoah-Mensah (2013)),
and four pottery assemblages from Tando Fagusa – two settlement assemblages
and two shrine assemblages – excavated by Nkumbaan (2016).
The six assemblages were comparatively analysed to determine their composition
(forms, fabrics, decorations, surface treatments), and to understand the similarities
and variations evident in the types of sherds deposited in shrine and settlement
mounds. The assemblages were compared using percentage frequencies to
mitigate the differing sample sizes. Nevertheless, some variable factors remain, and
are discussed below.
Firstly, the sampling and sherd discard practices varied for each project. In the
YK10/11 assemblage, sherds below 2cm were discarded as containing no useful
diagnostic data, and undecorated body sherds were analysed to understand fabric
and surface treatments. Comparatively, in the Mound D Yikpabongo settlement
assemblage sherds under 3cm were discarded, whilst the majority of the
undecorated sherds were treated as undiagnostic and discarded in the field, or
archived (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 25). An unknown number were assessed for
surface treatment and fabric (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 59).
At Tando Fagusa, Nkumbaan examined, recorded and archived undecorated sherds,
but as with the YK10/11 assemblage, time constraints prevented full analysis of
these (2016: 89, 94, 99). It was not clear if sherds below a certain size were
discarded at Tando Fagusa. In practical terms, this has meant that the proportions
of decorated and undecorated sherds in each assemblage has been influenced by
discard practices, and therefore cannot be used as reliable evidence as to whether
the inhabitants of Iron Age Koma Land had a preference as to what type of sherd
they deposited.
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A second, associated factor to consider is how deliberate the action of sherd
deposition at each site-type was. To elucidate; it was hypothesised in Chapter 5
that the deposition of sherds in shrine contexts was a deliberate action as part of
specific ritual activities. Sherds in the shrine were purposefully selected for use
there, and the nature of the sherd (decorated, undecorated, slipped, unslipped etc.)
may have affected whether or not it was chosen. Comparatively, it was
hypothesised that the settlement assemblages were likely to be more randomised
because these sherds represented probable accidental breakages of domestic
material in situ before recontextualisation.
That is not to say these breakages were without meaning. Sherds in settlement
midden contexts or in Nkumbaan’s (2016: 133) ‘refuse’ context – in which figurine
fragments were also deposited – may have had social meaning and been
deliberately accumulated, as argued in Chapter 6.5. Sherds used as burial-covers in
the settlement mounds also situate themselves in multiple, interlinked spheres of
meaning.
In Chapter 4, analysis of the YK10/11 assemblage revealed a slight preference for
decorated sherds over other sherd types and this was interpreted as a deliberate
choice by the Iron Age shrine users. Yet, in light of the above factors, it should be
acknowledged that whilst I had control over the sampling practices used in the
analyses on site and in the DAHS, I did not have control over the excavation and
initial discard practices. Therefore, the preference for decorated sherds in the
YK10/11 assemblage should be re-evaluated and also treated circumspectly, as it
may have arisen from actions taken before the ceramic assemblage became the
focus of this thesis, or from my own sampling practices, as outlined in Chapter 3.
What this brief critical examination has revealed is the need to test the hypothesis
that settlement and shrine mounds in spatial proximity were directly interrelated,
as Nkumbaan theorised (2016: 204). In Chapter 4 it was theorised that the
decorated sherds formed the largest portion of the YK10/11 assemblage because
the shrine’s users and makers had deliberately selected/ preferred this type of
sherd. Is it actually the case that sherds deposited in the shrine mound were
sourced from associated settlement mounds? Were the two directly connected? Is
236
it possible to determine if the selection practices for shrine sherds and burial-cover
sherds were connected?
If directly associated, archaeologists might expect to see a relationship between the
sherd types present or absent in each mound. If not, this poses some interesting
future research questions about the nature and source of the shrine’s ceramic
material. This examination has also prompted self-reflexion on the profound
influence of methodological choices as to how material is understood, but also as to
the issues created by empirical thinking (following Johnson 2011); i.e. initially
accepting without question the Iron Age inhabitants’ intrinsic value of decorated
sherds over other types because, in Koma Land contexts, this has been reflected in
the researchers’ own attitudes and discard practices.
7.3.2.2 Detailed comparative analysis of the six assemblages
After detailing the contexts from which the settlement mound ceramics were
excavated, and highlighting analytical variables, Section 7.3.2.2 now comparatively
analyses the pottery assemblages themselves. All of the available data for shrine
and settlement mound pottery has been briefly summarised in Tables 29 to 38. In
each table, the first column summarises the findings of this thesis, the second the
findings of Asamoah-Mensah (2013) from Yikpabongo settlement Mound D, and
the remaining four columns the findings from Nkumbaan’s 2008 and 2010
excavations at Tando Fagusa in Koma Land (2016). In Tando Fagusa, one settlement
mound (TDF-HM12 2008/10) was fully excavated, a second (TDF-HM4 TP2) was
investigated via a test-pit; whilst two stone circle/ shrine mounds (TDF-SCM3 TP3,
and TDF-SCM5 TP4) in proximity to the settlement mounds were also provisionally
assessed using test-pits (Nkumbaan 2016: 74-82). TDF-HM12 was excavated over
both the 2008 and 2010 field seasons (Nkumbaan 2016: 7). For a complete
explanation of the structure and contents of each table, see the figure descriptions,
and the summary paragraph provided after Table 38.
237
Totals
Pottery
characteristics
YK10/11 shrine
mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/ 2010
TDF-HM4
TP2 2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Percentage (%) of
whole assemblage
100% (ceramics
only)
95.33% 88.80% (all mound types)
Total sherds (=n) 9692 3024 13899 (all mound types)
Total sample/
diagnostic sherds
(=n)
5448 968-1026
(approx.)
999 517 262 654
Total complete pots
(=n)
1 (unanalysed) 1 17
Table 29: A summary of the six settlement and shrine mound pottery assemblages.
Diagnostic totals: number/ percentage frequency (%)
Sherd types YK10/11
shrine
mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/ 2010
TDF-HM4
TP2 2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Rims 949/ 17.41 208/ 20.3 215/ 21.5 7/ 1.35 126/ 48.09 216/ 33.03
Necks 1/ 0.1 16/ 1.56 5/ 0.5 3/ 0.58 0/ 0 14/ 2.14
Decorated body 2267/ 41.61 721/ 70.3 726/ 72.6 505/ 97.7 160/ 61.07 454/ 69.42
Undecorated body 2191/ 40.21 55/ 5.3 241/ 24.1 6/ 1.6 100/ 38.12 196/ 29.9
Indeterminate 690/ 69.07 412/ 79.7 125/ 47.7 295/45.1
Bases (inc.
pedestals)
35/ 0.46 5/ 0.48 54/ 5.4 5/ 0.96 9/ 3.44 27/ 4.13
Perforated 47/ 0.86 13/ 1.27 5/ 0.5 6/ 1.16 2/ 3.23 2/ 0.3
Handle/ lug/ lid/
other
5/ 0.09 16/ 1.56 35/ 3.5 0/ 0 2/ 3.23 2/ 0.3
Rim diameter range
(cm)
6cm-61cm
Sherd thickness
(cm)
0.3cm –
3.4cm
0cm-3.9cm
Table 30: A summary of sherd types in each assemblage by number and percentage frequency.
Fabrics: number/ percentage frequency (%)
Fabric Type YK10/11
shrine mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/ 2010
TDF-HM4 TP2
2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Fine 3087/ 98.28 278/ 27.1 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Medium 41/ 1.3 142/ 13.8
Coarse 16/ 0.5 190/ 18.5 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Very coarse 0/ 0 526/ 51.27 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Table 31: The fabric types for each of the six assemblages.
238
Inclusions/ temper: number/ percentage frequency (%)
Fabric Type YK10/11
shrine
mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/ 2010
TDF-HM4 TP2
2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Quartz 300/ 9.55 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Mica 2767/ 88.09 ✓ 0 0 0 0
Grit 2825/ 89.93 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Grog 0/0 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Sand 18/0.57 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Table 32: A summary of inclusions/ temper for each of the six assemblages.
Manufacturing method(s) number/ percentage frequency (%)
Technique YK10/11
Shrine
Mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/10
TDF-HM4 TP2
2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Coiling 9/0.05 ✓
Drawn from a
lump/ pinched
7/0.12 0/ 0
Other 254/ 4.66
Table 33: A summary of manufacturing methods for each assemblage.
Rim profiles: number/ percentage frequency (%)
Rim type YK10/11
Shrine
Mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/10
TDF-HM4
TP2 2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Everted rim 745/ 13.67 129/ 12.57 130/ 13.01 63/ 12.2 72/ 27.48 122/ 18.65
Inverted rim 139/ 2.55 53/ 5.16 85/ 8.5 34/ 6.57 54/ 20.6 94/ 14.37
Straight rim 65/ 1.19 26/ 2.53 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0
Unidentifiable/
unclear
0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0
Table 34: A summary of rim profiles for each of the six assemblages.
239
Forms
Type YK10/11 Shrine
Mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/10
TDF-HM4 TP2
2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Jars Collared/ everted
neck jar. Steep
shouldered,
carinated, rounded
body. 63.4% of rims
Restricted mouth
vessels (15.47%&. Of
which, greater
restricted mouth and
lesser restricted
mouth vessel, non-
carinated, rounded/
spherical bodies,
were identified.
0.94% and 2.21% of
rims, respectively.
70% of
assemblage
Large -
medium
Globular
shape
Round base
Average rim
diameter
30cm
✓ Large,
medium, and
small vessels
Large,
medium, and
small vessels
Large,
medium, and
small vessels
Bowls Open/ wide mouth
vessels, rounded
shape, unrestricted
mouth. 15.47% of
rims.
30% of
assemblage
Small -
medium
Hemispherical
Flat/ ring base
Average rim
diameter
14cm (small),
24cm
(medium)
✓ Large,
medium, and
small vessels
Large,
medium, and
small vessels
Large,
medium, and
small vessels
Plates Wide shallow bowl/
plate, n=3. Identified
from bases.
None
recorded
None
recorded
None
recorded
None
recorded
None
recorded
Cups None recorded None
recorded
Small vessels
Rim diameter
15cm or less
Small vessels
Rim diameter
15cm or less
Small vessels
Rim diameter
15cm or less
Small vessels
Rim diameter
15cm or less
Table 35: A descriptive summary of each assemblages’ pottery forms.
Surface treatments: number/ percentage frequency (%)
Type YK10/11
Shrine
Mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/10
TDF-HM4 TP2
2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Slipped 3990/ 73.2 80/ 7.79 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Micaceous 292/ 5.35 132/ 12.86
Burnished 0/ 0 197/ 19.2 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Smudged 0/ 0 114/ 11.1 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
None 1458/ 26.76 453/ 44.15
Hand smoothing 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
240
Too eroded to
identify
0/ 0 47/ 4.58
Table 36: A summary of surface treatments for each of the six assemblages.
Decorations: number/ percentage frequency (%)
Type YK10/11
Shrine
Mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/10
TDF-HM4
TP2 2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Roulette 1531/ 28.1 582/ 56.7 542/ 54.3 260/ 50.3 128/ 48.8 374/ 57.19
Incised 416/ 16.41 54/ 5.3 31/ 3.1 17/ 3.28 0/ 0 4/ 0.61
Grooved 316/ 7.63 30/ 2.92 69/ 6.91 68/ 13.25 2/ 0.76 22/ 3.3
Stamp/
punctuation
17/ 0.31 26/ 2.53 13/ 1.3 6/ 1.6 1/ 0.38 44/ 6.73
Appliqué/ pinching 3/ 0.05 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0
Rectangular
banding
130/ 2.38 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0
Notches 0/ 0 0/ 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Multiple
decorations
122/ 2.23 132/ 12.9 3/ 0.3 10/ 1.93 0/ 0 11/ 1.68
Too eroded to
identify type
0/ 0 8/ 0.77 0/ 0 73/ 14.12 0/ 0 0/ 0
Wavy line
impression
(In the YK/11
this is part of
incised
decoration)
0/ 0 5/ 0.5 0/ 0 2/ 0.76 1/ 0.15
Cord marks (In the
YK10/11
assemblage
this is part of
roulette
decoration)
0/ 0 68/ 6.8 77/ 14.89 4/ 1.53 0/ 0
Table 37: A comparative summary of decoration types for all six Koma Land assemblages.
Firing
YK10/11
Shrine
Mound
YK10 Mound
D (Trench 1
and 2)
TDF-HM12
2008/10
TDF-HM4
TP2 2010
TDF-SCM3
TP3
TDF-SCM5
TP4
Type Open fired Open fired Open fired Open fired Open fired
Temperature (low,
medium, high)
Low
Table 38: The firing techniques identified in the six assemblages.
Tables 29 to 38 are summaries of all currently known Iron Age Koma Land pottery
data, including three settlement mounds (Mound D; TDF-HM12; and TDF-TP2
(HM4)), and three shrines, or ‘stone circle’, mounds (the YK10/11 shrine mound;
TDF-SCM3 TP3; and TDF-SCM5 TP4). Every category has been completed in the
241
greatest possible detail. “0” signifies that no sherds of that type/ characteristic
were present at the site, a greyed-out box signifies that this characteristic/ category
was unmentioned anywhere in the text; and a ‘tick’ signifies that the type/
characteristic was mentioned as present in the text, but that no specific data was
provided for that category.
The data has been presented as numbers/ percentages. Cord marks and wavy line
impressions in this thesis would be subsumed by the roulette category, but they
have been listed separately here to reflect how Nkumbaan (2016) recorded them.
Both Asamoah-Mensah (2013) and Nkumbaan (2016) treated pedestals and bases
as two distinct categories, however, here they were subsumed into one. Similarly,
perforations in sherds were treated by both as a decorative technique (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013: 86; Nkumbaan 2016: 94, 99), but in this thesis, they are categorised
as functional. No attempt at comparison of fabric colours or slips was made
because of the highly subjective nature of these data categories and the different
methods used to identify them. Finally, no comparative breakdown of the specific
types of roulette decoration can be provided because specific types were not
identified by Asamoah-Mensah (2013) or Nkumbaan (2016).
It is clear from all of the tables above that different methodological choices and
challenges in the field have meant that comparative analysis of the six assemblages
was not a straightforward process. Interpretations were limited by having only
partial data in some categories. Nevertheless, some valuable observations can be
forwarded. Crucially, as Figure 42 (below) demonstrates, there were no significant
variations in the types of sherd deposited at each site, nor at each type of site.
The sherd discard practices for both shrine and settlement mounds were broadly
homogenous, and the assemblages were all characterised by a plethora of
decorated sherds, and a dearth of bases, perforated sherds, and ‘others’ (handles,
lugs, and lids). This may suggest that perforated vessels, and vessel ‘accessories’
such as lids and handles, were not widely used, or that they were deposited
elsewhere.
242
Typically, rim sherds were slightly more frequent in shrine mounds than settlement
mounds. Overall sherd quantities are somewhat higher in settlement mounds. The
strong preference for decorated sherds in all of the assemblages, and the
comparative lack of undecorated sherds, has been moderated by the awareness –
as outlined in 7.3.2.1 – that sampling practices were selective. However, what was
revealing were the frequencies of the decoration types.
Figure 42: The percentage frequency (%) of each sherd type in the six Koma Land ceramic
assemblages. Blue lines represent the shrine mounds, and green lines, settlement mounds.
At all six Koma Land sites, roulette decorated sherds formed the majority of the
decorated assemblage. In the YK10/11 assemblage, roulette constituted 60.39% of
all decorated sherds, which was dominated by cord roulette (29.88%) and strip
roulettes (29.35%). Braided strip was the most repeated type of roulette; it
accounted for 96.87% of the strip roulettes, including thick, medium, thin, and very
thin varieties (see Chapter 4.7.1.1).
Whilst the types of roulette found in Mound D and the Tando Fagusa sites were
unspecified, I have identified braided strip roulette (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 102,
105; Nkumbaan 2016: 127), different examples of carved wooden roulette
(Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 108; Nkumbaan 2016: 128), as well as twisted cord
05
101520253035404550556065707580859095
100105
YK10/11 SCM3 TP3 SCM5 TP4
Mound D HM12 HM4 TP2
243
roulette varieties (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 108; Nkumbaan 2016: 128) using the
photographs and illustrations provided in both reports.
What in this thesis has been described as carved roulette has been identified as
comb stamping in the Tando Fagusa report (Nkumbaan 2016: 128). These included
sherds with patterns identical to ones in the YK10/11 assemblage (Figure 43,
below). Asamoah-Mensah did not identify any carved wooden roulette or comb
stamping in her assemblage (2013).
Figure 43: The left and centre left images are examples of multiple-decorated sherds from Tando-
Fagusa, “including stamping” (Nkumbaan 2016: 128), and the centre right and right images are
examples of YK10/11 carved roulette sherds.
Individualised incised line decoration was also present at all six sites. Examination
of photographs of decorated sherds from Nkumbaan’s (2016) and Asamoah-
Mensah’s (2013) assemblages makes clear that it would be absurdly difficult, if not
impossible, to take an assortment of decorated sherds from all six Koma Land
locales, mix them up, and then re-sort them by site of origin. Rectangular banding
was only observed in the YK10/11 assemblage, but examination of Asamoah-
Mensah’s and Nkumbaan’s rim profile illustrations suggests it was present, but has
not been identified (see rim profiles three, six, and 11in Asamoah-Mensah 2013:
105; and rim profiles L: T1 (N) L1, X: T (N) L2, and, A1: T1 (N) L3 in Nkumbaan 2016:
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120-121). Notching, or “making short impressions at given intervals, usually a
millimetre apart, on the rim lip” was the only decoration technique unique to a few
sherds from Tando Fagusa, and “sticks or the finger [sic] could be used to achieve
this if the vessel is still wet” (Nkumbaan 2016: 130; Figure 44).
Figure 44: An example of a rim with notching from Tando Fagusa (Nkumbaan 2016: 130)
Everted rims were the most frequent rim type in all six assemblages, followed by
inverted rims. Straight, or ‘direct’ rims were present only in the YK10/11 mound
and YK10 Mound D (see Table 34). Jars were the dominant form in all six
assemblages, particularly large ones. Bowls were also recurrent, with small,
medium, and large varieties identified. Asamoah-Mensah excavated bowls with
pedestal-type bases (2013: 106). Cups, described as small vessels with a diameter of
15cm or below, were recorded at all four Tando Fagusa sites (Nkumbaan 2016: 89,
92). None were present in the YK10/11 assemblage analysed in this thesis, but a
small, mostly complete cup-like vessel was uncovered by the excavators from the
YK10/11 shrine (Insoll et al. 2013: 23). Alternatively, these may be the same as the
YK10/11 straight-rimmed bowls with smaller rim diameters. The YK10/11
assemblage was the only site of the six to include wide shallow bowls/ plates (see
Chapter 4.2.5).
Perforated sherds were present in all six assemblages. Both Asamoah-Mensah
(2013: 111) and Nkumbaan (2016: 129) have categorised the perforations as a form
of decoration as well as functional, but in this thesis the perforations have been
treated as functional only, and they were not included in the YK10/11 total
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decorated sherds count. Both authors interpreted the perforations as being used in
vessels designed for food preparation, such as for washing ingredients, straining
seeds, or smoking meat (Asamoah-Mensah 2016: 106; Nkumbaan 2016: 129). In
Chapter 4.2.4 it was also argued that meat smoking or steaming, or straining (or all
of the above), was the likely function of perforated vessels. In all six assemblages,
vessel ‘accessories’ such as handles, lugs, and lids were in the minority. As, typically,
these elements are the most handled parts of any vessel, this can most likely be
accounted for by daily use-wear.
Bases were infrequent in all of the assemblages, strengthening the argument that
the majority of vessels were round bottomed (see Chapter 4.2.2). The excellent
condition of many of the ceramics at Tando Fagusa allowed this type of round-
bottomed pot to be specifically identified from examples in the field (Nkumbaan
2016: 124). Asamoah-Mensah’s base typology also included a majority of rounded
bases (2013: 103).
The point made in Chapter 4.2.2 of this thesis – that such fragmented, rounded
bases would be difficult to differentiate from body sherds – was also confirmed
(Nkumbaan 2016: 124). In 4.2.2, it was suggested that this type of rounded base
may have belonged to pots used for fire-based cooking; at Tando Fagusa,
Nkumbaan also suggests these were used as storage jars (2016: 124). This issue
with the recognition of rounded bases also similarly affected Crossland’s analysis of
pottery from Begho B-2 in the Brong-Ahafo region (1989: 87), demonstrating this is
not a pottery type or methodological issue restricted to Koma Land. In one whole
storage vessel at Tando Fagusa, 170 animal bones (type(s) unspecified; but cattle,
goat/sheep, and catfish made up this site’s faunal assemblage) were found along
with “a few other objects”, suggesting the use of that particular vessel for the
storage of meat products (Nkumbaan 2016: 141).
Observations during analysis revealed that smaller, narrower, and more pointed
bases have greater structural integrity than pots with large, flat, bases and stability
can be achieved by digging the jars into soft ground. In hot climates, partially
burying pots in the ground would assist in keeping the storage vessels’ contents
cool. In all assemblages, pedestal bases were recorded (Asamoah-Mensah 2013:
246
106; Nkumbaan 2016: 125), and at Tando Fagusa, Nkumbaan observed pot-stand
legs, but no pot-stands (Nkumbaan 2016: 124), as was the case in the YK10/11
assemblage.
The eroded nature the YK10/11 assemblage was discussed in Chapters 3 and 4.
Here, it is mentioned again for comparative purposes. Both the Tando Fagusa
(Nkumbaan 2016) and Yikpabongo Mound D (Asamoah-Mensah 2013) reports
recorded eroded and ‘indeterminate’ sherds in their assemblages. Nkumbaan
defined indeterminate sherds as “non-diagnostic…it either could not be determined
which part of a vessel they belonged to or because they were badly eroded” (2016:
89).
Whilst Asamoah-Mensah does not define this term, it is used in her analysis when
discussing sherd types (2013: 87, 93), affecting 0.97% (n=1) of the assemblage. The
number of sherds labelled as “eroded” from Mound D was also minute (n=62;
Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 86, 89, 92, 95, 99); approximately 6.05% of the diagnostic
assemblage. At Tando Fagusa, 87.54% (n=10011; Nkumbaan 2016: 91) of the whole
2008 sherd assemblage was “indeterminate”, but this term also encompassed
unidentifiable form types, and the shrine and settlement ceramics were not treated
separately.
Comparing the YK10/11 shrine assemblage with settlement Mound D, it could be
suggested that the smaller number of eroded sherds is a result of their having a
shorter post-breakage pre-deposition biography. Alternatively, at the sites in Tando
Fagusa it was observed that the large vessels were mainly reserved for use in
settlement contexts, whilst the shrines (or ‘stone circle’) contexts contained the
majority of the small to medium vessel sizes (Nkumbaan 2016: 102). As such, the
presence of small sherds in the shrine mound may have been because of the use of
smaller vessels in it to begin with. This may bring into question Chapter 6’s
discussion of enchainment, or ‘reverse’ enchainment. On the other hand, this
vessel-size pattern does not explain why the YK10/11 assemblage contained such a
substantial number of eroded sherds. Further excavations will help resolve this
issue.
247
Figurines were rare in the Koma Land settlement contexts. Twenty-five figurine
fragments were found in the sixth and seventh levels of HM12 at Tando Fagusa
from a pit initially dug to obtain material for brick-making and subsequently used
for refuse (Nkumbaan 2016: 133). Currently, this is the only published instance of
figurines recovered from a settlement context anywhere in Koma Land, as none
were found in settlement Mound D (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 126). Conversely, 292
figurine and figurine fragments were excavated from the two Tando-Fagusa shrine
mounds (Nkumbaan 2016: 133). It is unclear why Mound HM12 contained figurines:
were they discarded for technical reasons (e.g. poorly executed, poorly fired), an
offering/ replacement for the earth removed from the pit, as a foundation offering,
to defuse their power, a consequence of ill-health in that household, or for some
other reason? Quite possibly, future excavations of settlement mounds will dispel
the notions that figurines were sparse in these contexts.
To summarise, variations between the pottery assemblages included the discovery
of plates/ wide shallow bowls only in the YK10/11 assemblage, the fact that
notching is a decorative technique currently unique to Tando-Fagusa, the seeming
lack of mica in the Tando Fagusa ceramics, and the variety extant in the vessels’
paste, both across the six sites and within them.
Examination of the fabric using written descriptions and the available images
indicates that all six sites used similar clay probably obtained from a number of
locally-known sources. Whilst the fabric’s fineness/ coarseness varied across the
sites, this is likely a consequence of different potters with varying levels of
experience and slightly different paste recipes. The inclusions and temper used
across all six sites was similar (see Tables 31 and 32), including the use of quartz. It
is not known if mica was included in the Tando Fagusa ceramics because this
information was unavailable in Nkumbaan (2016); but it was reported in the Mound
D assemblage (Asamoah-Mensah 2013).
Coiling was recorded at both Yikpabongo sites, and was the most prevalent
production method for the Mound D ceramics (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 29). This
was also recorded by Anquandah in his Yikpabongo excavation (1998: 110).
Probably, coiling was the method used to make many of the YK10/11 vessels, but
248
the level of erosion, and in some cases, profuse use of slip (see Chapter 4.6 for
discussion) precluded identification of coiling for the majority of this assemblage.
The method(s) of manufacture were not discussed for the Tando Fagusa ceramics.
With the exception of Mound D, for which this was not discussed, it was
determined that the assemblages had been open fired (see Chapter 4.8 and Table
38; Nkumbaan 2016: 154).
Similarities continued with the rim profiles, and for the most part, the vessel forms
identified. In some cases, the rim profiles were identical, even down to the use of
rectangular banding, although this was only recorded as a specific decorative
technique in the YK10/11 assemblage. At all sites, identifiable bases were sparse,
and all three reports independently concurred that this was a result of the majority
of bases being rounded and therefore difficult to distinguish from body sherds (see
4.2.2, Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 103; Nkumbaan 2016: 124). At all six sites, pedestal
bases dominated the recognisable base assemblage (see above). Pot-stand legs, but
no pot-stands, were uncovered at Tando Fagusa (Nkumbaan 2016: 123) as well as
from the YK10/11 shrine (4.2.2).
Slipping, particularly red slipping, was a feature of pottery sherds in all of the
assemblages (see Table 36; Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 123; Nkumbaan 2013: 131).
The use of red slip for pottery is typical at sites across Iron Age Ghana, and West
Africa more widely, including in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Mali (Connah 1967,
2007; Dueppen 2012a, 2012b; Insoll et al. 2000, Insoll et al. 2013; Nicklin 1980;
Ogundiran 2002b; Park 2010; Yo1k 1965).
Burnishing and hand-smoothing were also identified (Asamoah-Mensah 2013: 123,
Nkumbaan 2013: 131). What particularly visually characterised all of the
assemblages were the decorated sherds and the similarities between them;
particularly the use of incised line decoration, which was distinctive and
individualised. With the exception of notching at Tando Fagusa, the decoration
types were all comparable. Roulette dominated all of the assemblages, followed by
incised line and grooved decorative techniques, and then the use of stamping, or as
it was described in the other two reports, ‘punctuation’.
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The aim of Section 7.3.2.2’s comparative analysis of six pottery assemblages from
Iron Age Koma Land was to determine (a) whether the assemblages were of the
same/ a similar ware; (b) what regional variations existed; (c) to examine the
variation in sherd deposition practices between shrine and settlement sites. This
analysis has fulfilled those aims as comprehensively as possible. The variations
between the assemblages have been identified, and it has been confirmed that the
pottery from all six sites was almost certainly of the same ware. The brief
examination of sherd deposition frequencies, meanwhile, revealed overall similar
practices at both site-types. A more detailed analysis of sherd deposition practices
at shrine and settlement sites, using a single, consistent methodology and with
access to all of the assemblages, and full contextual data, would be a valuable
future undertaking.
7.4 Connecting worlds: mobility, trade, and transmission
Having examined the regional contexts into which the YK10/11 shrine may be set,
Section 7.4 turns now to the analysis of its ‘global’ contexts and relationships.
Exploring such global networks and connections, their structure, development, and
influence on past life-ways in West Africa and beyond is of increasing interest to
numerous archaeologists, scientists, medievalists, and historians. See, for example,
Cowrie shells: an early global commodity, a five-year research project tracing the
marine harvesting, movement, and meanings of cowrie shells – particularly the
ever-abundant Cypraea moneta – from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean to the
West African coast and hinterlands during the (pre-)trans-Atlantic period (Haour
2015).
See also recent examinations on the production of identity and the understanding
of outsiders in historic West Africa (Haour 2013), and summaries and syntheses of
particular aspects of African material culture (Barley 1994; Dawson 2009; Gosselain
2010; Haour et al. 2010; Insoll 2015), as well as more general assessments (Chouin
and DeCorse 2010). Further, peer-reviewed journals such as Medieval Worlds, the
more recent The Medieval Globe, and the development of an Arts and Humanities
Research Council (AHRC) research network, involving 33 academics with different
specialisms, aimed at producing non-Eurocentric histories examining how, and how
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far, inhabitants of the medieval era experienced the global world (Holmes and
Standen 2015: 107-108). Finally, researchers have examined patterns of occupation
and site abandonment (Section 7.4.4), to understand how external factors such as
pandemics and environmental change affected populations in historic West Africa
(Chouin and DeCorse 2010; Kelley 2016; McIntosh 2005).
The value of this trend – of analysing historic West Africa’s broader themes,
relationships, and regional connections – is not just its encouragement of
interdisciplinarity. It is also its ability to highlight and cement the role and influence
of West Africa in these wider temporal and spatial historical contexts; a feature also
valuable as a means of showcasing West Africa’s influence, instead of merely
focusing on how it was influenced.
That the YK10/11 shrine had such broad connections is beyond doubt; its material
assemblage contained, firstly, organic substances, including from North Africa
(Robinson et al. 2017; see Section 7.4.1). Secondly, internationally sourced trade
items – glass beads and Cypraea moneta cowrie shells (Insoll et al. 2012: 36; see
Section 7.4.2) – and thirdly, figurines depicting scenes of travel and mobility (Insoll
et al. 2013: 10; see Section 7.4.3). Lastly, a chronology that appears to have
abruptly terminated in the 14th century AD in the same, and probably not co-
incidental, timeframe that multiple other sites in West Africa were also suddenly
abandoned (see Section 7.4.4).
What remains unknown at this juncture is the nature, breadth, and depth of these
wider connections, and where Koma Land, and the YK10/11 assemblage in
particular, sits within them. Thus, this section, using the connections outlined above
to structure it, critically examines how the YK10/11 assemblage was materially and
thematically connected to the wider world in the West African Iron Age. These
themes have been identified as mobility, trade, and, transmission, as manifested in
the material excavated from the YK10/11 shrine.
It also initiates discussion of how far, and in what ways, the Iron Age inhabitants of
Koma Land may have perceived and reacted to such connections, and how such
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‘exotic’ materials originated, and were integrated, into religious and social praxis.
To this end, Chapter 7.4 has been inspired and directed by Kopytoff’s observation
That what is significant about the adoption of alien objects – as of alien
ideas – is not the fact that they are adopted, but the way they are culturally
redefined and put to use (Kopytoff 1986: 67).
It is argued here that the artefacts within the YK10/11 shrine mound were not just
evidence of how Koma Land (or at least one part of it) interacted with the wider
world, but that these artefacts were active, involved, and influential constituents of
those interactions.
The concept of objects-with-agency is not a new one (Gosden 2005; Wobst 2000),
but here the focus is on understanding how artefacts caught up in economic and
exchange networks were ‘good to think’ with. McAnany and Wells have named this
a function of “ritual economy”, which they have defined as the “process of
provisioning and consuming that materialises and substantiates worldviews for
managing meaning and shaping interpretation” (2008: 3), and which recognises
that held ritual and cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes informed and motivated
economic decision making as much as economic and social factors.
To understand the “dispositions that intertwine ritual with economy” in Koma Land
contexts (McAnany and Wells 2008: 4), it is necessary to introduce and examine the
concept of the exotic in further detail. The discussion of the exotic in archaeological
publications typically relates it either to authenticity or to unfamiliarity (Appadurai
1986: 49-50; Foster 1982: 22; Helm 1988: 21; Kopytoff 1986: 67). Thus, it can be
framed as a means of “seeking authenticity” (Appadurai 1986: 47) in the context of
Western populations’ consumption of non-Western material, with the aim of
fulfilling a romanticised desire for historicity (Davenport 1986; Foster 1982: 21). Or,
as the impetus behind the commoditisation and trade of certain artefacts by West
African historic and proto-historic societies, artefacts which were valued because
they were, intrinsically, ‘exotic’ (e.g. Holl 2002: 171, 174; MacEachern 2001: 138;
Oliver 1977 passim; Spiers 2012: 119).
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Both concepts are relevant to this thesis. The concept of authenticity and the exotic
characterises how some art historical narratives of Koma Land have traditionally
approached it (see Chapter 2.2). Figurines from Koma Land, for example, have been
commoditised precisely because they are authentic entities (e.g. David 2012; and
see Insoll et al. 2013: 37). It is ironic, then, that the worth the figurines’ authenticity
has imbued them with causes them, in some contexts, to become worthless, as is
evidenced by the numerous unprovenanced figurines in private collections, and the
creation of imitations (Cocle 1991; Dagan 1989; Scheutz et al. 2016; and see
Chapter 6.6).
The paradox of producing the exotic for European markets was perfectly captured
by Davenport in a case study using interactions between Europeans and East
Solomon Islanders in the Pacific in the 20th century AD (1986). Davenport observed
that many of the island’s population had been urged to convert to Christianity by
European missionaries and visitors; who were also eager to purchase the authentic,
exotic iconography that had previously been tied to the islanders’ own religious
beliefs (Davenport 1986: 101). To fulfil this demand, island craftsmen altered their
sculptures to specifically meet the tastes of the European market (Davenport 1986:
108).
This case study illuminates a number of points. Firstly, that the concept of
exoticness may only be acceptable within certain parameters, or to a certain
‘measure’ of exoticism. For the islanders, it could be argued that their religious
beliefs were unacceptably exotic and different (to European historic standards), but
their art was acceptably so. Secondly, however, with the alteration of the
sculptures’ style to meet Western tastes, the market became defined by Western
perceptions of the exotic, creating, as it were, a ‘synthetic authenticity’ that was
more understandable and familiar to Western ideology.
Therefore, by labelling something as ‘exotic’, it becomes a phenomenon that can be
categorised, and thus, understood and controlled. Elsewhere, this precept has led
Foster to define exotic as “a symbolic-interpretive element”, which, “among other
things, allows numbers of one social group to understand another social group
which they see as different from their own” (1982: 22). Thus, labelling something as
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exotic could be a means of contextualising it and putting it within an acceptable,
and useable, frame of reference.
This creates a paradox. By acknowledging something as exotic – as unfamiliar – that
something is categorised as being outside one’s sphere of reference; an active
process, which, at the same time, also causes it to be contextualised. Thus, the
power and value of an exotic substance or artefact is generated not only from its
status as a strange or unknown entity, but from how the beholder perceives,
places, and uses that information within their own cosmology. In this sense, the
individual has not only perceived or possessed an ‘exotic’ item, but has harnessed
and consumed it for their own purposes. In the West African literature, this is a
nuance that appears to have been little explored, despite Kopytoff’s earlier prompt
(1986: 67). Instead, ‘exotic’ is typically applied to traded items as a descriptive or
justificatory label (e.g. Holl 2002: 171, 174; MacEachern 2001: 138; Oliver 1977
passim; Spiers 2012: 119).
Similarly, whilst movement and routes across the Sahara have traditionally been a
topic of much discussion (e.g. Garrard 1972; Hogendorn and Johnson 1986; Mauny
1950; Monod 1969; Posnansky 1973; Oliver 1977; Oliver and Fagan 1975), little
thought seems to have been afforded as to how this transport may have affected
the meaning and materiality of the traded artefacts themselves (but see Silverman
2015 for an exception to this rule; and Section 7.4.3).
The movement of substances may have been a potent act that could only be
initiated by certain individuals – whether outsiders or inhabitants of Koma Land (as
it is unclear which the figurines might depict; see Section 7.4.3 for discussion) – who
might be required to engage in, or desist from, certain practices to safeguard their
mobility and contain the substances that were being transported. What is evident is
that these materials, whether in regional or national contexts, were components of
a ritual economy (after McAnany and Wells 2008). Here, traded substances and
artefacts were just as likely to be selected for religious and social reasons (defined
by perceptions of the exotic) as economic ones, and were not just pieces on an
economic chessboard.
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Possibly, the distance involved between a commodity’s origin and its consumption
may have caused “specialised mythologies” about it to be created (Appadurai 1986:
48). Indeed, knowledge of the esoteric and the exotic, and control of that
knowledge, “can be politically valuable ‘goods’ as well as actual items” (Helm 1988:
4). As Helm (1988), and Haour (2013b), have observed, this concept also extends to
people. In many West African historical and mythological narratives, outsiders’
source of authority and power derived specifically from their status of not-
belonging (Haour 2013: 4). In such contexts, an individual may have deliberately
sought to maintain their outsider-status to retain a sense of exoticism and
therefore power (Helms 1988: 105). Thus, the movement of substances may have
been caught up in individualised interactions and personal narratives of power and
knowledge.
Conversely, it should also be recalled that increasing familiarity and repeated
interaction with a substance or an artefact over time will begin to relieve it of its
status as an unknown, and to change how it was thought about and interacted
with. This point is useful for thinking about the organic substances present in Koma
Land shrine mounds (see Section 7.4.1). Historical and linguistic analyses of crop
types introduced into West Africa more recently, such as maize in the 16th century
AD, and mangoes in the 20th century AD, for example, have demonstrated that “as
soon as oral history ceases to record it as a ‘new’ crop, it will rapidly be assimilated
into the repertoire of ‘traditional’ cultigens” (Blench 2009: 364). Thus, whilst an
archaeologist may be surprised to find an unexpected ‘exotic’ substance in the
material record, it should not be presumed that an inhabitant of the region in the
time period being excavated would likewise be surprised to see it, or treat it as an
unknown. Of course, the nature of the material record makes it improbable that
archaeologists would be able to identify such complex interactions, unless there
were other sources of evidence available, but it is still crucial to entertain them.
7.4.1 Organic substances
The organic material within some of the figurines offers possible evidence not only
of mobility, but of the integration of “exotic commodities” (Robinson et al. 2017)
into Koma lifeways and belief systems. The most distant commodities were species
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of pine tree not found in Iron Age Ghana, probably from types established in North
Africa, as well as the monkey puzzle tree (Robinson et al. 2017). In West African
ethnographic contexts, the use of bark and pine cones for medicine, often boiled to
create infusions, is well documented (Robinson et al. 2017: 17).
The second commodity was plantain (starchy, savoury, and preferably, cooked
before eating)/ banana (sweet and eaten raw or cooked) (Robinson et al. 2017: 17).
How and when plantains and bananas were introduced to West Africa is a complex
and still debated topic (Blench 2009; De Langhe et al. 1994: 147; Robinson et al.
2017: 16), although there is consensus that the two arrived separately, in many
waves, and many different varieties were present (Blench 2009: 366; De Langhe et
al. 1994: 150; De Langhe et al. 2009: 299).
Currently, archaeologists and linguists theorise that plantain was introduced to
West Africa 3000 years before present, or perhaps, even earlier (Blench 2009: 376;
De Langhe et al. 1994: 152). The timescale in which they spread, and to which
areas, however, is not yet clear (Blench 2009). Whilst widely grown and used in
south and south-central Ghana today, plantain and banana are not typically
cultivated or eaten in the north (personal observation, and pers comm. C. Diku,
January 2015). Currently, it cannot be confirmed where the banana/ plantain found
in Koma Land originated; however, the long dry season of northern Ghana, and the
low rainfall and humidity, does not make it an area likely to successfully yield
plantain without large scale irrigation (Swennen 1990: 4). As such, it was very likely
to have been sourced from beyond the region.
Following Kopytoff (1986: 67), the presence of plantain/ banana and pine and
monkey puzzle tree species is of great interest, but more significant is the manner
in which they were “redefined and put to use” (Kopytoff 1986: 67). However, the
archaeological and historical sources for plantain and banana in West Africa are
typically poor (De Langhe et al. 1994: 147). Other DNA evidence from the figurines
has revealed the presence of grasses and cultivated cereals (not millet, or maize),
“indicating a possible ritual application of grains as pastes or in infusions” (Robinson
et al. 2017: 17).
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The figurines themselves provide some insight into how some of the organic
substances may have been put to use. The design of some of the figurines makes
evident the insertion of pastes and fluids was likely the intention. Robinson et al.
have observed, for example, that the two figurines containing plantain/ banana had
wide mouths, possibly to facilitate the delivery of such viscous substances
(Robinson et al. 2017: 16). It is possible that the uptake of plantain/ banana was a
consequence of its ability to be easily transformed into a paste. A further
possibility, following Helm’s argument that the movement and transferral of
knowledge was as likely as that of artefacts (1988: 4, 11), was that the plantain/
banana and pine were not “redefined”, but were added to the shrine’s medicinal
repertoire because they were already known to their users as medicinal substances
and as having been sourced from a long distance; qualities which may have
increased their perceived efficacy. As stated in the previous section, it is also
probable that the relationship between these substances and their users developed
over time, as they became more familiar entities.
7.4.2 Cowrie shells and glass beads
Traditionally, evidence of trans-Saharan trade and mobility in West Africa has been
restricted to artefacts such as cowrie shells and beads, both of which were found in
the YK10/11 shrine. Cypraea moneta cowrie shells, of which 156 are known of (pers
comm. A. Christie, July 2017), originated in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Haour
2015; Johnson and Hogendorn 1986; Ogundiran 2002a) and have thus provided
indisputable proof of long-distance connections in Koma Land. In the pre-trans-
Atlantic period, before Cypraea moneta and the less desirable Cypraea annulus
flooded into West Africa via European trade imports (Ogundiran 2002a: 429), it was
the scarcity of cowries that was thought to be the main factor in their desirability as
trade items, as well as their physical qualities, including their luminescence and
durability (Gronenborn et al. 2012: 267; Hogendorn and Johnson 1986: 6; Nwani
1975: 186; Ogundiran 2002b; see Atkinson 2014). Full analysis of the cowrie shells
from YK10/11 was impossible because their deposition structure and relationships
were unknown. It is entirely possible, however, that the YK10/11 Cypraea moneta
were caught up in cosmological narratives of distance and power as discussed in
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Section 7.4, above. As suggested in Chapter 6.2, white, hard, and shiny quartz
appeared to have had significance in the shrine mound, and it is possible that
cowrie shells were similarly valued. Again, as emphasised repeatedly throughout
this thesis, artefacts should be understood by their materiality as well as their form.
Glass, glass-and-metal, and stone beads were excavated from burials in settlement
contexts at Tando Fagusa (Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2009; Kankpeyeng et al.
2011: 209). Unlike the Cypraea moneta, the glass beads’ origins are ambiguous,
although this could be resolved with chemical composition analysis to determine
their provenance, as beads from 11th to15th century AD Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria
have been tested (Babalola 2017; Ige 2010).
These glass beads, in various colours, were local to Ile-Ife, and were excavated from
contexts also containing unquestionable evidence, such as moulds and crucibles, of
local glass making; the first secure evidence of local glass production in Iron Age
West Africa (Babalola 2011, 2016, 2017; Ige 2010). These findings substantiate
earlier, unproven suggestions of local glass making in the region (Eluyemi 1987;
Ogundiran 2002b: 52)
“Prior to the 15th century,” glass beads found in West African contexts arrived there
“via the trans-Saharan trade with North Africa” and “some indication of their
importance in West Africa can be found in the writings of Arab travellers of the 12th
to 14th centuries” (DeCorse 1989: 41; see also Connah 2015: 80; Rehren and Nixon
2014: 33). They are also well-established in the Iron Age West African material
record (c.f. Insoll and Shaw 1997; Magnavita 2013). Whilst the significance and of
existence of the trans-Saharan trade of glass beads from North Africa to West Africa
cannot be doubted (e.g. Insoll and Shaw 1997; Magnavita 2013, Robertshaw et al.
2009) the discoveries at Ile-Ife now also point towards a domestic West African
trade in glass beads as a possibility. For Koma Land, it is thus possible that its glass
beads were sourced from West African contexts as well as (or instead of) trans-
Saharan links. In either instance, compositional analysis is required to determine
this.
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7.4.3 Figurines
Expressive visual evidence as to how the makers of the figurines (and pottery)
perceived and understood mobility may be derived from the figurines. Evidence of
involuntary mobility is suggested by figurines that appear to depict slavery, tied
together or mouths bound (Anquandah 1998: 141, 161). Mobility and movement is
evident in mounted-rider figurines (Insoll et al. 2013: 10), although archaeologists
still debate whether the mounts were horses or camels, and what insight this might
provide as to modes of transport and culturally-significant animals (Insoll et al.
2013: 10).
Anquandah argued that “many [Koma Land] sculptures depict horse-riders and
camel-riders who are lavishly ornamented and dressed and appear to be wealthy
traders” (Anquandah 2013: 16). This statement is contradicted by the fact that only
three published examples of archaeologically-excavated mounted-rider figurines
currently exist; two of which Anquandah excavated (Anquandah 1998: 82, 144;
Insoll et al. 2013: 11). Possibly, Anquandah was also referencing unprovenanced
examples (e.g. Cocle 1991; see Chapter 6.6). The third example (YK08-A9B9-L7) was
excavated from a shrine context by Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan (2009; Insoll et al.
2013: 10). As discussed in Chapter 6.4, this particular figurine had been deliberately
scorched, in situ, which was interpreted as deliberate deactivation (Robinson et al.
2017: 17).
Anquandah’s interpretation of the rider-figurines as realistic depictions of status
and trade was problematically created using inappropriate ethnohistoric
comparisons with the modern Bulsa (see Chapter 2.2.2). Understanding the
mounted-rider figurines as symbolic of journeying may be a more relevant
approach. Working from the precept that geographical space was not a neutral,
static, or homogenous entity (see also Ingold 1993; Tilley 1994) Helm argued that
geographical distance may be equivocal to “supernatural distance” (1988: 4). In this
context, potent substances and artefacts (which would be recognised in the
archaeological record as exotic) achieve their efficacy not only from being perceived
as originating in far-distant locales, but from the “exceptional effort” of the journey
itself Helm 1988: 114). Thus, the process of travelling from the unknown to the
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known (and vice versa) was as significant to a material’s intangible qualities as the
place it was sourced from.
Alternatively, I have previously argued that the skeuomorphic representations of
cowries incorporated into the heads of the bicone figurines, which were pierced
through their centre with the incisions characteristic of the Koma Land figurines,
acted as catalysts that activated the organic substances placed within (Atkinson
2014). Here, it was theorised that the reason for recreating cowries in clay was to
capture and thus enable the perceived powerful essence of an otherwise scarce
resource (Atkinson 2014). Accepting, for a moment, that this is true, it is then
conceivable that the potency of real cowries (and other substances) was such that it
warranted particular actions or mediations in order to resolve, contain, or make
safe the movement (and the mover) of this potent material across the landscape.
Possibly, this may have comprised practices and rituals involving the mounted rider
figurines, as a mnemonic for travelling, and for the traveller, with deliberate
scorching then acting to symbolically cease or finalise a journey.
7.4.4 Site abandonment
A further ‘global’ context into which Koma Land may be placed is site
abandonment, a process that has profoundly influenced interpretation of the
YK10/11 assemblage and the shrine this material embodied. In Chapter 5.5, the
shrine’s abandonment was interpreted as unplanned and abrupt. On this basis, it
was argued that the placement of artefacts in the shrine was not necessarily their
intended terminal deposition point and it was theorised that removing artefacts
may have been as crucial a curation practice as contributing them.
Site abandonment was not exclusive to the YK10/11 mound. On the contrary, it
appears to have occurred throughout Iron Age Koma Land in the 14th century AD
(Insoll et al. 2013: 9). Whilst the cause(s) of abandonment of Koma Land are
uncertain, both internal slave raids and disease have been proposed as factors
(Insoll et al. 2013: 9).
Some Koma Land figurines portray medical issues such as ancephaly, although
sleeping sickness (Hunter 1966: 410), and onchocerciasis, or, “river blindness” –
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which appears to be depicted on some Koma figurines with bulging eyes (c.f. Insoll
2015) – may have been more pressing. River blindness is caused by parasitic worms
whose vector flies thrive in fast-flowing water ways (Hunter 1966: 410). The Sisili
Valley has, historically and in the present, been particularly susceptible (Dickson
1969: 282; Hunter 1966: 406, 410). Koma Land has rivers, including the Sisili, to its
east, west, and south. Indeed, depopulation of northern Ghana in the 19th century
AD has been attributed to a combination of slave raids and river blindness (Hunter
1966: 410), with the latter impeding independence and ability to support oneself
(Hopkins 1973: 18; Meyer 1992: 101).
Stahl argued that Begho, to the southwest of Koma Land and partially
contemporary with it, was “probably involved in the slave trade during the period
1400-1600 when there was a steady flow of slaves to Islamic North Africa”,
although she also notes that this was not major trade but a side-effect of local,
politicised military engagements (2001: 87). Koma Land, less than 150km from
Begho in a straight line, may have also been involved in this conflict and its
consequences. Indeed, Anquandah recorded figurines that depicted “many persons
bound with ropes or chains”, an “illusion perhaps to the slave trade which raged
like a pestilence through the Sisili-Kulpawn basin” (1998: 160)
The depopulation of Koma Land through death or voluntary/ involuntary migration
is just one example of many in an ongoing narrative of abandonment played out
across most of West Africa in the 14th to 15th centuries AD. Other examples include
the majority of earthwork sites in southern Ghana, sometime in the 14th century AD
(Chouin and DeCorse 2010: 143; see also Spiers 2007), as well as major settlements
in Mali’s Niger Delta such as Jenne Jeno and Hambarketolo in the 15th century AD
(Chouin and DeCorse 2010: 144; McIntosh 1988: 103), extensive abandonment of
the Mema region, also in Mali, by the start of the 14th century AD (McIntosh 2005:
177; Togola 1993), as well as of Later Iron Age occupation sites in Sierra Leone
(Chouin and DeCorse 2010: 144; DeCorse 2012).
In southern Ghana, the abandonment of earthwork (and related) sites was marked
by the cessation of Atetefo ware and the sudden appearance of Atwea ware, a new
ceramics style, in the following century (Chouin and DeCorse 2010: 127, Kiyaga-
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Mulindwa 1982: 67). To this list can also be added sites along the Gambaga
Escarpment in Ghana (Kense 1992: 147), including some occupation sites in the
Tong Hills that appear to have been abandoned in the 15th century AD (Insoll et al.
2011: 19-20), and multiple settlement sites in 14th century AD northern Burkina
Faso (Albert et al. 2000).
The material record – as with Koma Land – is not always forthcoming as to the
causes of site abandonment. Sites such as the house complex Oursi hu beero in
Burkina Faso, for example, whose excellent level of preservation (including human
remains) enabled the excavators to determine it had been abandoned in the 12th
century AD following inter-personal violence and a blaze that had destroyed much
of the complex (Pelzer 2011: 175), are rare. Understanding why multiple, broadly-
contemporary sites in West Africa were abandoned over the course of a single
century presents an even greater challenge. To begin, it is, of course, possible that
some or all of the abandonments in West Africa were unconnected. Nevertheless,
academics who have examined this West African phenomenon have done so by
placing it into international historical contexts.
Population centralisation, a two-century drought between 1300-1500 AD, “which
found its physical expression in the lowest Lake Bosumtwe level in 10,000 years” or
plague – the Black Death – encroaching southwards from Europe via North Africa in
the 14th century AD, were all put forward as possible explanations for West African
settlement abandonment by Merrick Posnansky in the 1980s (1987: 17). Examining
the widespread abandonment of the Middle Niger area by the 14th century AD,
McIntosh similarly argued that climate change or a pandemic, such as plague,
spread by Saharan trade routes, may have played a vital role in the area’s
depopulation (2005: 177).
Recently, the idea that site abandonment was a consequence of the spread of
plague to West Africa from Europe and/ or Asia via trade has been reignited
(Chouin 2012; Chouin and DeCorse 2010; Kelley 2016). Chouin has argued that for
Iron Age West Africa to remain untouched by the Black Death, it would need to
have been “hermetically isolated from the rest of the world”, and believes it was
responsible for the mass depopulation and cultural and social shifts West Africa
262
experienced during the 14th century AD (2012: 34, 35). To test this hypothesis,
interdisciplinary studies organised by an international colloquium have begun to
examine how evidence of plague in West Africa could be detected using a
combination of archaeological, historical, art historical, anthropological, and other
scientific research methods (Kelley 2016), although the findings are yet to be
published.
The post-14th century AD history of Koma Land is uncertain. There are no written
sources from the trans-Atlantic period (or before) for the area to turn to, and no
relevant oral histories until the ancestors of the current population occupied the
area in the 20th century AD (as discussed in Chapter 1). Koma Land’s current
material evidence provides no clues. Unlike in Eguafo polity, where the original
ceramic ware ceased in the 14th century AD, and after a break, a second ware
(Atetefo ware) began to circulate in the 15th century AD, (Chouin 2009: 673;
Chapter 7.2; Table 26), only one ceramic ware has so far been excavated from the
sites at Yikpabongo and Tando Fagusa (see 7.3.1). On a 17th century AD Dutch trade
map of the Gold Coast, Begho was the northernmost point, and was central to the
exchange of goods between two environmental zones, the forest and savannah,
because it was located on the periphery of the two (Stahl 2001: 83). Absence of
evidence – written, oral, and archaeological – from the trans-Atlantic period for
Koma Land does not mean it was unoccupied, or that it was not significant, but it
does suggest it was not an entrepôt. Current evidence suggests that the
abandonment of Koma Land was not the result of any one factor, but a
combination of issues with enslavement, disease, and the depopulation and
destitution that inevitably follow. Finding archaeological evidence of post-14th
century AD Koma Land would substantiate or refute this. Nkumbaan has also called
for such studies (2016: 209).
7.5 Summary and conclusions
Chapter 7’s purpose was to explore relationships. Specifically, those connecting the
YK10/11 shrine with the world around it. These relationships took myriad forms:
local, regional, artefactual, organic, and thematic, and spanned dimensions of
social, cultural, religious, technological, and economic praxis. Thus, the chapter’s
263
structure was designed to progress outwards – from the shrine at its centre – to
facilitate discussion of the local, regional, and global in a manageable way, and to
establish very clearly the place of the YK10/11 assemblage within its wider spatial,
temporal, and thematic contexts.
To this end, Chapter 7 began with a comparative analysis of the relationships
between the YK10/11 assemblage and five others from Iron Age Koma Land: a
settlement mound assemblage, also from Yikpabongo (Asamoah-Mensah 2013),
and four assemblages from Tando Fagusa, two of which were settlement
assemblages, and two of which were associated shrine mound assemblages
(Nkumbaan 2016).
The primary objective of this analysis was to contextualise the YK10/11 assemblage
by examining how it related to and compared with other broadly contemporary
material from Koma Land, to determine (a) whether the ceramics were likely to be
of the same ware; (b) whether it was possible to identify variation between the
mounds as to the numbers and types of sherds deposited; and (c) whether the
sherds had been deposited in similar ways. Limiting this analysis was the lack of
contextual information for the six assemblages, and the different methodologies of
each project; different out of necessity and a need to be flexible, but nevertheless a
cause of issues with data parity and scope.
Despite these complications, Chapter 7.3 concluded that all six assemblages were
more than likely the same ware, based on comparisons of fabric, form, surface
treatment, and decoration. The six mounds had similar numbers of most sherd
types, confirming the interpretation independently reached by Nkumbaan (2016:
124), Asamoah-Mensah (2013: 103), and in this thesis, that the vessels’ bases had
been mostly rounded. The analysis disputed the idea that decorated sherds would
be preferred and more prevalent in shrine mounds than in settlement mounds. This
idea was originally formed during the analysis of the YK10/11 assemblage, of which
decorated sherds were initially expected to make up largest percentage, but one
recognised now to be affected by sherd excavation and sampling practices.
264
The lack of contextual information meant it was not possible to produce informed
comparisons as to the manner of deposition in each type of mound. Examining
images of the sherds used as burial-covers in the settlement mounds (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013: 54; Nkumbaan 2016: 114), however, suggested they were pots
fragmented specifically for the purpose, and could be refitted. Numerous large,
complete jars were also excavated from Tando Fagusa, whilst the YK10/11 shrine
contained only one, small complete vessel (see Table 30; Insoll et al. 2013: 23).
Further, the use of sherds as burial-covers in settlement mounds echoed the use of
sherds in the YK10/11 shrine mound as ‘beds’ and ‘covers’ to reference figurines
(see Chapter 5.5).
Sections 7.4.1. to 7.4.3 used the concept of the exotic to examine the relationships
between the YK10/11 shrine and the non-native material it assimilated. Guided by
Kopytoff’s argument that what is most significant about “alien” material and
concepts is not their presence, but the manner of their use and incorporation into
different life-ways (1986: 67), it has been made clear that the substances in Koma
Land shrine contexts (YK07; YK08; and YK10/11) – pine, plantain/ banana, cowries,
and glass beads – were indicative of the integration of potent material for medicinal
purposes. The artefacts’ potency was likely a consequence of their ‘exotic’ status,
but was not defined by it; and it was also argued that this was unlikely to have
continued to remain the case as the substances transcended the plane of the
unfamiliar and unknown over time. As with anything in archaeology, traded
substances were not static entities, and their significance and meaning would have
developed and adapted with spatial and temporal distance.
These arguments are relevant to both the organic and inorganic material. The
known trans-Saharan movement of Cypraea moneta and glass beads (Hogendorn
and Johnson 1986; Holl 2002; Spiers 2012: 119) ties in with the DNA analysis
identifying species of pine that existed in North Africa during the same time period
(Robinson et al. 2017). Thus, the Koma Land DNA analysis provides original
evidence of the movement of organic materials in a time period typically
characterised in archaeological contexts only by the movement of inorganic ones.
265
Movement and mobility in Koma Land was not confined to trade, but was also
evident in the abrupt abandonment of the region in the Late Iron Age. This was not
an isolated phenomenon – as Section 7.4.4 has evidenced – but was an issue which
affected a large proportion of sites in West Africa from the 14th to 15th centuries
AD, and in some cases, earlier. Depopulation was likely caused by multiple factors,
including slave raiding, environmental challenges, and disease. Diseases may have
been environmentally-localised afflictions, such as river blindness in the Sisili-
Kulpawn River Basin, or may have also been a consequence of a pandemic, such as
the plague, which could have spread from Europe and Near East Asia using the
same trans-Saharan routes as the commodities discussed earlier (Chouin 2012;
Chouin and DeCorse 2010; Kelley 2016).
The full breadth and depth of the connections between Koma Land and the wider
world are yet to be established, but this provisional investigation using the evidence
from known Koma Land shrine contexts (Insoll et al. 2012; Insoll et al. 2013;
Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2011, 2013; Robinson et
al. 2017) has given some insight into Koma Land’s place within it. Beginning with a
critical, comparative analysis of the pottery from two Koma Land locales, to
determine the artefact-relationships evident within Koma Land itself, the themes of
mobility, trade, and transmission have been addressed using the YK10/11 material
assemblage.
Discussion throughout Chapter 7 has primarily focused on how the wider world has
interacted with and influenced Koma Land, instead of vice versa, because of the
nature of the evidence available. At present, clues as to the influence of Koma Land
are transient and inferential – for example, the presence of exotic material implies
local demand for the consumption of those materials – but it is hoped these will
become more visible with future investigations.
266
Chapter 8: The motivations and identities of the Koma Land pottery and figurine makers
8.1 Summary and conclusions
The core objective of this thesis was to gain, for the first time, a detailed
understanding of pottery excavated from Iron Age Koma Land in northern Ghana.
Specifically, the 9692-strong pottery assemblage from the YK10/11 shrine mound,
dated to between AD 800 – 1100, located in the village of Yikpabongo in Ghana’s
Northern Region.
Justification was not found only in the argument that such a comprehensive
analysis had never been undertaken (earlier Koma Land pottery analyses were brief
and problematic; see Chapter 2), but in the fact that the sustained historic focus on
fired-clay figurines from Koma Land, at the expense of the remainder of the
material, including pottery, was obstructing contemporary interpretations and
understandings of the region. The analytical and interpretive capabilities of pottery
sherds, typically the most abundant product of any post-prehistoric excavation
(Horejs et al. 2011), had been undervalued and under-utilised. Instead, in the
historic literature on Koma Land, the practice of ‘figurine essentialism’ – introduced
earlier in this thesis (after Bailey 2005) – was facilitating misconceptions and
unsound interpretations about the region’s archaeology and its Iron Age inhabitants
(c.f. Anquandah 1987; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985; Scheutz et al. 2016).
There was a strong desire to address the theoretical-fallout that the analytical
disparity between the figurines, pottery, and other clay-made artefacts had
generated; the literatures’ treatment of these artefacts as completely separate
categories without acknowledgement of the fact they were made using the same
material. With their division into separate categories of material came also the
arbitrary separation of their makers, meanings, and purposes (see Chapter 2 for a
critique of this literature).
To this end, the primary aim was to characterise the YK10/11 pottery, using the
chaîne opératoire to structure this process and focusing on all elements: fabric,
form, function, surface treatment, decoration, production techniques, use wear,
and firing (see Chapters 3 and 4). The secondary-usage and modification of pot
267
sherds was also considered (Chapter 6.7). The second objective was to understand
the relationships between the pottery and the shrine mound, and, using a
biographical approach, to examine the biographies of the sherds from their initial
use as part of domestic cooking vessels, to their fragmentation, reuse, deposition,
and possible curation (see Chapter 5). In this way, the motivations and identities of
the pottery makers could also be explored.
To contest the arbitrary divisions between pottery and figurines, the third objective
was to reintegrate analysis of the different types of ceramic (see Chapter 6), by
critical comparison, as far as possible, of their production techniques, fabrics and
temper, decorations and surface treatments, and structural, depositional
relationships. Finally, to start to look beyond Koma Land, to understand its place in
the regional and ‘global’ Iron Age / medieval world, but more importantly, to gain
insight into how its inhabitants may have understood and interacted with the wider
world, and incorporated it into their cosmology and belief system (see Chapter 7).
To summarise the main points and interpretations made in this thesis, it has been
established that:
(a) Analysis of Koma Land pottery and figurines, even from the same contexts, has
historically been disproportionate, to the detriment of the former (see Chapters
2 and 3);
(b) The catalogue and analysis of the YK10/11 shrine mound pottery in this thesis is
the first its kind (see Chapters 2 and 3);
(c) The YK10/11 pottery assemblage was manufactured for domestic purposes and
belonged to the same ware, based on analysis of pottery using the above
categories (see Chapter 4);
(d) The assemblage consisted, primarily, of jar forms, most of which were closed
vessels with everted rim profiles and rounded bodies, followed by deep and
shallow bowl forms. Three plates, or very wide, shallow bowls, were also in
evidence (see Chapter 4.2).
(e) A dearth of bases suggested the majority of these were rounded (and thus,
indistinguishable from body sherds), as would suit vessels for fire-based
268
cooking, or possibly, dug into the ground for storage (Nkumbaan 2016; see
Chapter 7.3.1; and Chapter 4.2);
(f) Using archaeometric analysis, it was determined that the pottery was
homogenous, supporting the argument it was created by the same group of
people (see Chapters 4.3 and 4.4);
(g) The pottery sherds had significant post-breakage pre-deposition biographies,
and as such, should be treated as a resource in their own right, rather than only
as discarded material (see Chapter 5);
(h) It is misleading to view the YK10/11 pottery sherds (and the remainder of the
assemblage) as deposits in the shrine; instead, this material structured and
created it. As such, the pottery formed part of a network of things with ritual
import, and may have been enchained to, or symbolically representative of, the
landscape (see Chapter 5);
(i) Comparative analysis of the YK10/11 assemblage with five other Koma Land
pottery assemblages; from two shrine mounds, and three settlement mounds
(Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Nkumbaan 2016), produced no results that would
dispute the interpretation that the pottery from all assemblages belonged –
with expected, minor stylistic variations – to the same ware (see Chapter 7);
(j) Comparative analysis of the YK10/11 pottery material with the known,
catalogued, provenanced figurines produced strong evidence that both were
created using the clay types, same repository of techniques, using similar
stylistic criteria, and thus, that the makers of the Koma Land pottery and
figurines were one and the same (see Chapter 6).
8.2 Future research
As argued in Chapter 2, the 1985 excavation and analyses have been instrumental
to understandings of the Iron Age Koma Land region’s archaeology (Anquandah
1987, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014; Anquandah and Van Ham 1985); but did not
necessarily always facilitate productive understandings, in consequence of the
aesthetic, art historic focus on the fired-clay figurines, at the expense both of the
remainder of the material assemblage, and the figurines themselves (see Chapter
6.6). Research projects including this thesis have begun to alleviate this disparity,
269
but – although now without the use of problematic theoretical paradigms – it is still
present in some of the archaeological literature on Iron Age Koma Land (see
Chapter 5.5).
In consequence, the scope of future research into Iron Age Koma Land should be
defined by two key words: expansion, and relationships. Expansion of known sites is
required through further excavations, perhaps beginning with the list of potential
Koma sites presented in Chapter 7.2 (after Appiah-Adu 2016; Zakari 2011). To date,
shrine and settlement mound assemblages have been uncovered (Asamoah-
Mensah 2013; Kankpeyeng and Nkumbaan 2008, 2009; Kankpeyeng et al. 2013;
Nkumbaan 2016), and it has been convincingly suggested that these sites types
were interrelated, possibly on a familial level (Nkumbaan 2016: 23, 204). Further
excavations will assist in determining the relationships between them, and how
these relationships might vary between different sites in Koma Land.
Similarly, to date, one ware has been identified as belonging to the Iron Age in
Koma Land, based on the analysis of the YK10/11 assemblage and a brief
comparative analysis with five others from Yikpabongo and Tando Fagusa in
Chapter 7 (Asamoah-Mensah 2013; Nkumbaan 2016). Koma Land, however, is a
large region (approximately 150km2), of which the villages of Yikpabongo and
Tando Fagusa form only a small part (Tando Fagusa is 24km southeast of
Yikpabongo). It is possible that continuing excavations will reveal further spatially or
temporally different pottery wares.
Indeed, whether absent or present, determining this fact will assist in characterising
and contextualising the Koma Land ware, of which the YK10/11 assemblage forms a
part, its spread, use, and production. To this end, further compositional analyses of
pottery and local clay would confirm or refute the argument made in this thesis
that the pottery was locally produced. Similarly, provenance studies of the quartz
temper in the YK10/11 pottery assemblage would be useful; to determine, for
example, if the quartz was local, and/ or if it was sourced from a particular region.
This would have implications for Insoll’s argument that the quartz was used to
reference “potent places” (2015: 50), and may give insight into why white quartz
was preferred, and why it was so selectively used in the pottery and figurines.
270
Chapter 7’s comparative analysis of the pottery assemblages from shrines and
settlements would have been enriched by a detailed understanding of the
structures of these mounds, and the depositional practices and relationships
evident within them. At present, it is not possible to determine how, and if so, in
what ways, pottery sherds in settlement and shrine mounds were differentiated
between. Nor it is possible, as theorised in Chapter 5, to confirm whether sherds
were selected from settlement mounds, or settlement mounds’ middens, for
deposition in shrine mounds.
Understanding the source of the sherds from the YK10/11 shrine mound, which
were interpreted as having a considerable post-breakage pre-deposition biography,
would assist interpretations as to their meaning and significance within the shrine,
and as well as the period before they were deposited or contributed to it. In this
way, insight into the motivations and identities of the Koma Land pottery and
figurine makers could be more convincingly extended to encompass the
motivations and identities of the users of the pottery and the figurines, as well as
their makers.
271
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Descriptions of each data category collected for the YK10/11
assemblage
Illustration number: To allow quick association of drawings and photographs with
their database entry. Rims, bases, lugs, handles, perforated and decorated body
sherds were illustrated until all variations were represented.
Sherd ID: The number assigned to the sherd in the database to enable quick
searches and a quick grasp of sherd totals.
Context: Identified the stratigraphic layer from which the sherd was excavated. E.g.
YK10 Q10 L2 equates to Yikpabongo 2010, 1m x 1m trench square Q10, Level 2.
Standard practice in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the
University of Ghana was to excavate in 1m x 1m trench squares, and to excavate
each square in 10cm spits; L1 meaning 0-10cm, L2 10-20cm, and so forth.
Description: Of the sherd, including its type, shape, and form, as relevant.
Diameter: The rim and base diameters were measured as appropriate, in
centimetres.
Average sherd thickness: For the sake of consistency this was measured, in
centimetres, 1cm below the rim on diagnostic rim sherds. For body sherds, the
thickest section of the body was measured.
Condition of sherd: This was determined using the categories of Excellent, Good,
Fair, Poor, and Very Eroded, to ensure the quality of the sherd was recorded, in
case this influenced analysis.
Firing condition of sherd: Using the guidelines set out by the Prehistoric Ceramic
Research Group (2010: 28, 34-35, 54), one of the following was observed for each
sherd: oxidised, unoxidised, oxidised exterior and interior, with an unoxidised core,
or irregularly fired. Irregularly fired sherds were those defined as having patchy
core and surface margins. A final category listed all sherds for which this was not
recorded/ could not be identified.
309
Clay hardness: This was recorded as hard, medium or soft, again with reference to
the PCRG’s guidelines, “if a sherd can be scratched with a fingernail then it is soft”
(2010: 27). If the surface crumbled at the application of a fingernail, the sherd was
recorded as soft; if an impression was left, medium; and if the fingernail left no
impression, then the sherd was recorded as hard.
Clay colour(s): These were observed by studying the inner core of the sherd, if
necessary after cleaning with a soft brush and cool water to remove dirt and debris,
and allowing to dry again to prevent colour-misidentification. A Munsell soil colour
chart was used to identify the colour of each sherd, in order to promote
standardisation and replicability.
Fabric type: The type was recorded with the acknowledgement that the definition
of it “can be a very subjective activity”, and of the tendency for ancient pottery “to
present extreme variability within the fabric of a single vessel” (Prehistoric Ceramic
Research Group 2010: 21), an observation applicable to some of the Koma Land
material. The classifications coarse, medium, and fine were used, dependent upon
the information collected by the next three categories.
Inclusion frequency: This was determined with the aid of loupes at 10x and 20x
magnification, where necessary, to identify one of the following groups: rare (less
than 3%), sparse (3-9%), moderate (10-19%), common (20-29%), very common (30-
39%), and abundant (40+ %). Again, this follows the guidelines set out by the
Prehistoric Ceramic Research Group (2010: 25-26).
Description of inclusions: This category observed the sizes (in centimetres) and
colours of any inclusions in the clay matrix. The inclusion type, if known, was also
recorded e.g. sand, quartz, mica.
Inclusions well sorted: A yes/ no question identifying whether the inclusions
appeared randomly or regularly distributed, or not, with the latter indicating the
deliberate introduction of particles or the particular manipulation of the clay by the
maker.
310
Decorations(s): Recorded the type, if any e.g. incised lines, grooves, stamping (see
Chapter 4.7). For roulette decoration, very thin (0.3cm or less), thin (0.5cm or less),
medium (1cm or less) and thick (over 1cm) were distinguished between. This may
aid identification of the types of tools used to create the roulettes, and also ensures
all variations are accounted for.
Location of decoration(s): On body sherds, this was naturally limited to identifying
whether the decoration occurred on the exterior or interior surface (where
identifiable) of the sherd. With rim and base sherds, it was possible to be more
specific, giving details as to the orientation and placement of the decoration(s). For
example, the proximity of the decoration to the rim, and whether the roulette was
applied left to right, or right to left.
Surface treatment(s): Due to the nature of the assemblage, this mainly involved
recording whether or not the vessel had been slipped. Any burnishing, polishing,
and noticeable use-wear, were also recorded. Slip was recorded using the Munsell
colour system.
Location of surface treatment(s): As with the location of the decoration, this was
mainly limited to identifying exterior and interior surface treatment on all sherd
types. If slip had been deliberately applied to a certain area of a sherd, and not to
others, this was noted (e.g. some sherds were only slipped on areas without
decoration).
Other: A general notes category offering observations as to ambiguous or unusual
sherds, and also recording any evidence of manufacturing technique, which
generally could not be distinguished by visual inspection.
311
Appendix 2: Rim diameters
These are the rim diameters in the YK10/11 assemblage.
Rim diameter (cm) Frequency(=n) Percentage (%)
Indeterminate 5 0.52
0cm-4cm 0 0
5cm-9cm 2 0.21
10cm-14cm 73 7.68
15cm-19cm 215 22.63
20cm-24cm 229 24.1
25cm-29cm 198 20.84
30cm-34cm 106 11.15
35cm-39cm 65 6.84
40cm-44cm 38 4.0
45cm-49cm 12 1.26
50cm-54cm 4 0.42
55cm-59cm 2 0.21
60cm-64cm 1 0.10
Appendix 3: Rim diameters by vessel-form
Rim diameter (cm) Restricted mouth vessels Open/ wide mouth vessels Unidentified
0-4cm 0 0 1
5-9cm 0 1 0
10-14cm 58 12 2
15-19cm 53 29 6
20-24cm 37 38 8
25-29cm 23 28 10
30-34cm 12 18 7
35-39cm 7 13 3
40-44cm 4 7 1
45-49cm 2 0 0
50-54cm 0 0 0
55-59cm 0 0 0
60-61cm 0 1 0
Appendix 4: The rim circumferences and their frequency
These are the YK10/11 rim circumferences (dxπ).
Circumference (cm) Frequency (=n) Percentage (%)
18.85cm 1 0.11
28.6cm 1 0.11
31.42cm 6 0.63
312
34.5cm 3 0.32
37.69cm 15 1.59
40.84cm 16 1.69
43.98cm 33 0.35
47.12cm 28 2.96
50.26cm 36 3.81
53.41cm 40 4.23
56.55cm 51 5.39
59.69cm 60 6.35
62.83cm 37 3.92
65.97cm 48 5.08
69.12cm 54 5.71
72.25cm 45 4.76
75.39cm 45 4.76
78.54cm 45 4.76
81.68cm 42 4.44
84.82cm 45 4.76
87.96cm 43 4.55
91.11cm 23 2.43
94.25cm 37 3.92
97.39cm 15 1.59
100.53cm 24 2.54
103.67cm 16 1.69
106.81cm 14 1.48
109.96cm 16 1.69
113.09cm 16 1.69
116.24cm 13 1.38
119.38cm 16 1.69
122.52cm 4 0.42
125.66cm 18 1.90
128.81cm 7 0.74
131.95cm 5 0.53
135.09cm 5 0.53
138.23cm 3 0.32
313
141.37cm 6 0.63
144.51cm 3 0.32
147.65cm 2 0.21
153.93cm 1 0.11
160.22cm 3 0.32
163.36cm 1 0.11
172.78cm 1 0.11
175.93cm 1 0.11
191.64cm 1 0.11
Appendix 5: Average sherd thicknesses in the YK10/11 assemblage
This is the mean average sherd thickness of all sherds for which this was recorded.
Body sherds included decorated and non-decorated. Rim sherds were measured
1cm below the rim for consistency, and base and body sherds at their thickest
point.
Average sherd thickness
(cm)
Rim (=n) Body (=n) Base (=n)
0cm-0.4cm 2 37 0
0.5cm-0.9cm 298 1,113 6
1cm-1.4cm 486 674 8
1.5cm-1.9cm 133 166 7
2cm-2.4cm 28 28 8
2.5cm-2.9cm 1 9 3
3cm-3.4cm 0 1 0
Appendix 6: The average thickness of the YK10/11 rim sherds This is the mean average rim thickness. This measurement was taken on the
thickest part of each rim. Due to a communication error with my research assistant
in the field, rim thickness was only recorded for 585 of the rims.
Average rim thickness (cm) Frequency (=n)
0cm-0.4cm 0
0.5cm-0.9cm 43
1cm-1.4cm 102
1.5cm-1.9cm 91
2cm-2.4cm 100
314
2.5cm-2.9cm 118
3cm-3.4cm 81
3.5cm-3.9cm 41
4cm-4.4cm 4
4.5cm-4.9cm 3
5cm-5.4cm 2
Appendix 7: The YK10/11 archaeometric samples listed by type and technique A list of every archaeometric sample. The table shows what type of technique(s) the
sample underwent, and provides the sample’s type, condition, and context number.
Non-powder prepared samples were examined whole, without modification.
Sample Context no. Type Slipped? XRF P-XRF SEM Comments
CS1 YK16 Clay / Y Y Y
CS2 YK16 Clay / Y Y Y
CS3 YK16 Clay / Y Y Y
1 Yk10 5 Q2 L1 Undecorated body N Y Y Powdered
2 YK10 3 M13 L1
Tile/ brick / Untested
3 YK10 5 R1 L1 Undecorated body Y Y Appears modern
4 YK10 3 I12 L1 Sandstone / Y Iron rich
5 YK10 3 O10 L2
Non-diagnostic rim / Y
6 YK11 Daub / Y Powdered
7 YK10 3 L13 L1 Undecorated rim Y Y Y
8 YK11 Quartzite / Y
9 YK10 3 N11 L2
Undecorated rim N Y Y
10 YK11 H14 L3 Undecorated body Y Y Y Powdered
11 YK11 M10 L2 Undecorated rim N Y Y
12 YK10 L12 L2 Undecorated body N Y Powdered
13 YK11 O12 L1 Undecorated body N Y Powdered
14 YK11 O12 L2 Eroded roulette body
Y Y Y Powdered
15 YK10 N10 L1 Undecorated body N Y Powdered
16 YK11 J13 L2 Eroded roulette body
N Y Powdered
17 YK10 3 L13 Undecorated body N Y Powdered
18 YK11 O12 L1 Eroded roulette body
N Y
19 YK11 Q10 L1 Undecorated body Y Y Y
20 YK11 Q10 L2 Eroded roulette body
N Y Powdered
21 YK10 3 1B L2 Sandstone / Y Y Powdered; weathered
22 YK11 M12 L1 Undecorated body Y Y
23 YK11 I14 L3 Undecorated body N Y Y Powdered
24 YK11 M12 L2 B
Undecorated body Y Y Y
25 YK10 5 R1 L2 Undecorated body N Y Powdered
26 YK11 N13 L2 Undecorated body Y Y Y Powdered
27 YK10 3 1C L1 Undecorated body N Y Powdered
28 YK11 L12 L1A Undecorated body Y Y Y
29 YK11 P12 L1 Eroded roulette body
N Y Y
30 YK10 3 I12 L2 Undecorated body Y Y Y
315
Appendix 8: The YK16 clay samples p-XRF data
The raw data from p-XRF analysis for the three YK16 clay samples. This technique
was measured in parts per million. All the p-XRF samples (see also Appendices 9 and
10), were analysed using a Thermo Scientific Niton XL3t980 GOLDD+ in the
University of Manchester’s Archaeology Department (Campbell 2017: 2).
SAMPLE CS1 CS2 CS3
Mo < LOD < LOD < LOD
Zr 388.05 406.625 426.74
Sr 86.15 63.985 166.6
U 11.985 14.97 8.725
Rb 48.875 61.18 50.265
Th 8.68 10.38 8.22
Pb 9.855 10.625 7.32
Au 7.8 < LOD < LOD
Se < LOD < LOD < LOD
As < LOD 5.66 6.06
Hg < LOD < LOD < LOD
Zn 20.2 30.62 23.94
W 47.94 < LOD < LOD
Cu 36.22 40.11 30.24
Ni 65.63 54.115 60.49
Co < LOD < LOD < LOD
Fe 28958.77 34047.21 29684.97
Mn 282.775 232.095 318.5
Cr 49.035 63.835 41.72
V 127.09 119.03 115.21
Ti 5677.265 6881.005 5410.16
Sc < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ca 4326.755 2833.88 6443.295
K 9374.795 9494.195 9992.275
S < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ba 410.16 310.12 460.06
Cs 46.87 27.76 28.205
Te 77.02 33.55 34.855
Sb 17.745 14.63 < LOD
Sn 17.91 < LOD 14.37
Cd < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ag < LOD < LOD < LOD
Pd < LOD < LOD < LOD
Nb 11.995 14.985 10.7
Y 3 3.24 2.805
Bi < LOD 8.99 8.18
Re < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ta < LOD < LOD < LOD
Hf < LOD < LOD < LOD
Al 97536.85 111864.1 86849.37
P 821.5 647.38 1036.655
Si 271174.9 267819.7 277455.2
Cl 154.565 155.36 127.9
Mg < LOD < LOD < LOD
316
Appendix 9: The YK10/11 pot sherd samples p-XRF data
The raw data from P-XRF analysis for all sherds. This technique was measured in
parts per million.
SAMPLE 1 3 7 9 10 11 13 14 19
Mo 5.32 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Zr 120.015 102.885 213.395 145.945 212.87 406.08 247.24 191.91 233.98
Sr 245.285 773.72 155.82 277.785 214.015 647.485 201.53 585.08 210.32
U < LOD < LOD 9.79 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Rb 60.085 27.585 46.945 21.62 46.485 69.63 44.26 38.045 45.845
Th < LOD < LOD 9.39 7.47 6.865 15.705 7.76 6.655 6.825
Pb 9.43 9.93 7.99 8.67 9.415 17.515 8.67 11.495 11.34
Au < LOD < LOD < LOD 12.4 < LOD < LOD < LOD 9.67 < LOD
Se < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 4.85 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
As < LOD 12.63 < LOD < LOD < LOD 7.56 < LOD 7.87 < LOD
Hg < LOD < LOD < LOD 15.34 < LOD < LOD 10.5 < LOD < LOD
Zn 40.81 113.635 38.235 65.055 45.1 176.165 25.335 54.93 55.68
W < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 51.21
Cu 19.16 94.795 57.84 53.045 34.55 55.695 35.035 21.17 32.76
Ni 70.275 200.425 106.56 126.695 73.905 141.31 72.85 75.655 101.02
Co < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Fe 31089.64 88665.88 36577.35 47272.54 41317 48425.02 29882.18 34323.42 43967.03
Mn 413.215 1976.185 460.225 718.615 397.3 1043.015 207.55 368.145 350.045
Cr 45.09 130.82 60.825 75.04 73.51 97.55 39.26 69.77 103.715
V 70.535 207.705 86.685 130.285 134.115 156.76 92.335 100.615 120.58
Ti 3012.075 10714.28 4687.89 5432.63 4596.875 7461.26 4280.79 4373.62 6213.545
Sc 63.98 < LOD < LOD 54.75 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 52.625
Ca 11230.26 13163.35 7444.785 11497.83 9940.86 17364.96 8680 11906.24 10662.77
K 17810.44 12607.88 11277.43 6835.765 13907.8 19355 13735.91 12590.7 20163.05
S < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 89.42 < LOD < LOD
Ba 1004.42 1003.665 1091.405 1007.3 896.45 1846.415 914.125 690.635 784.96
Cs 30.24 95.09 73.165 70.07 30.255 78.74 35.275 43.05 37.31
Te 45.8 135.74 107.46 92.3 41.25 105.075 49.71 56.47 63.685
Sb 20.24 40.255 33.745 25.855 13.53 28.75 14.825 18.82 19.015
Sn < LOD 44.085 33.515 23.96 < LOD 39.06 11.88 17.6 16.24
Cd < LOD 22.42 13.9 18.02 < LOD 15.64 < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ag < LOD 173.165 144.6 141.615 < LOD 140.26 < LOD < LOD < LOD
Pd < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Nb 3.375 4.71 5.34 2.775 6.41 10.21 8.05 4.26 5.985
Y 1.9 2.35 2 < LOD 3.09 4.61 2.36 1.73 3.125
Bi < LOD < LOD 7.09 6.83 < LOD 12.605 7.84 < LOD < LOD
Re < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ta < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Hf < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Al 105814.5 145598.4 129613.6 128169.5 99366.89 107114.1 97421.59 98275.66 136007.2
P 3213.13 2558.59 1022.86 1904.9 5821 5416.73 6400.845 2187.88 3997.61
Si 299677.4 234753.8 257245.5 267190.7 266238.2 296731.8 281274.6 279918.8 256293.4
Cl 123.02 454.76 305.615 208.56 102.7 206.05 74.895 91.85 211.465
Mg 16328.99 19618.47 9460.08 14433.04 < LOD < LOD 12454.83 < LOD 15282.43
317
SAMPLE 20 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 30
Mo < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Zr 86.605 177.46 158.235 143.535 188.575 170.63 125.365 99.815 348.54
Sr 348.22 121.18 343.395 149.69 391.62 238.305 349.58 282.46 327.455
U < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Rb 33.075 58.705 18.795 39.075 47.55 59.985 32.07 34.41 41.685
Th 6.74 8.655 5.66 5.26 9.04 6.3 6.685 5.16 7.55
Pb 8.08 7.98 11.225 < LOD 12.165 8.455 11.37 9.37 < LOD
Au 9.08 < LOD 8.58 < LOD < LOD < LOD 8.57 10.58 < LOD
Se 5.16 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
As < LOD 10.5 < LOD 6.63 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Hg < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Zn 53.07 91.515 72.855 39.68 66.87 44.415 89.085 67.82 93.125
W < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Cu 51.155 43.4 54.96 37.415 36.75 34.53 87.35 52.355 109.34
Ni 95.325 104.245 86.07 140.59 98.76 64.685 132.44 122.765 117.62
Co < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Fe 43202.35 66858.51 46875.47 46352.64 45311.62 37074.68 39755 47556.46 74921.98
Mn 691.415 255.97 519.27 450.88 626.44 384.415 794.24 399.36 584.74
Cr 66.53 151.6 75.925 126.57 105.39 59.34 80.615 74.9 98.57
V 92.125 185.355 129.335 134.035 137.76 86.99 117.975 103.865 294.535
Ti 3435.9 6781.835 3585.55 5724.535 4915.63 3658.23 5114.425 5789.015 10199.23
Sc 51.42 < LOD 60.95 50.96 < LOD < LOD 51.43 61.7 < LOD
Ca 17020.65 7046.99 14888.77 10572.73 13032.3 12645.94 14311.05 11280.15 18949.36
K 8680.99 19137.53 7413.105 19746.39 11842.66 21356.3 12378.13 15952.18 10933.57
S < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 382.02 < LOD
Ba 546.405 1015.56 1166.455 1142.76 815.29 872.28 1156.97 975.045 677.215
Cs 54.695 55.635 46.4 67.52 34.71 33.335 69.685 65.48 63.98
Te 98.17 87.705 64.565 95.065 45.135 41.905 92.82 86.47 95.22
Sb 24.595 28.415 17.44 23.045 17.67 13.09 23.055 29.04 29.345
Sn 25.335 27.62 17.35 26.275 13.805 14.18 29.485 26.155 31.015
Cd < LOD 18.85 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ag 117.18 < LOD < LOD 111.295 < LOD < LOD 117.755 118.505 128.775
Pd < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Nb 3.445 3.985 4.79 4.915 6.775 4.355 3.035 < LOD 5.145
Y 1.775 1.655 2.2 1.78 2.765 2.455 < LOD < LOD 3.18
Bi < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 7.06 < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Re < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Ta < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Hf < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD
Al 113485.5 114967.3 91454.99 137758.6 97323.9 98225.09 110298 121630 107172.2
P 1383.08 3005.755 8868.235 5706.765 2100.575 5147.56 4697.015 2972.755 2410.45
Si 275514.5 214228.8 242570.2 233830 268245.8 268186.6 266846.9 244122.2 197253.5
Cl 113.675 309.27 101.2 197.98 142.695 172.065 209.815 177.73 991.185
Mg < LOD < LOD < LOD < LOD 11687.5 < LOD < LOD 11530.16 13647.3
318
Appendix 10: The YK10/11 mineral samples p-XRF data
The raw data from p-XRF analysis for the mineral samples. This technique was
measured in parts per million.
SAMPLE 2 6
Mo < LOD < LOD
Zr 108.97 506.375
Sr 312.945 151.055
U 8.54 < LOD
Rb 45.39 59.665
Th < LOD 10.155
Pb < LOD 14.335
Au < LOD < LOD
Se < LOD < LOD
As < LOD < LOD
Hg 9.21 < LOD
Zn 51.89 52.99
W < LOD < LOD
Cu 46.84 41.405
Ni 74.295 61.21
Co < LOD < LOD
Fe 36270.9 29726.11
Mn 435.245 478.28
Cr < LOD 48.75
V 84.485 94.87
Ti 3036.79 4467.265
Sc 62.04 34.795
Ca 14049.42 7966.38
K 10183.05 12532.97
S < LOD < LOD
Ba 854.395 649.815
Cs 27.745 38.965
Te 47.36 50.17
Sb < LOD 13.875
Sn 15.21 16.42
Cd < LOD < LOD
Ag < LOD < LOD
Pd < LOD < LOD
Nb < LOD 10.905
Y < LOD 3.995
Bi < LOD 7.69
Re < LOD < LOD
Ta < LOD < LOD
Hf < LOD < LOD
Al 95998.25 102671.7
P 2563.875 1933.055
Si 264288.7 320484.1
Cl 134.35 127.465
Mg < LOD < LOD
319
Appendix 11: The YK10/11 and YK16 XRF data
This table presents the raw data from the XRF analysis of ten samples, undertaken
using a Bruker-AXS S4 Pioneer X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (WDS XRF) at the
University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall. The manufacturer’s semi-
quantitative analysis package was used. The ten samples were pot sherds (15, 16,
17, 25), mineral samples (4, 8, and 21), and clay samples (CS1-CS3). The data was
expressed as percentages.
Sample: 4 8 15 16 17 21 25 CS1 CS2 CS3
LOI 9.14 0.7 2.44 4.73 3.98 25.43 0.92 24.21 25.98 26.41
SiO2 34.59 68.87 60.06 57.28 71.26 46.21 59.78 49.97 47.11 50.3
Al2O3 16.5 16.3 22.1 22 16.2 16.7 22.8 18.8 20 16.1
Fe2O3 37.68 1.825 6.244 6.766 4.517 4.53 8.084 4.041 4.266 3.828
CaO 0.102 2.33 2.54 2.94 0.529 1.84 2.39 0.599 0.379 0.855
MgO 0.11 0.612 0.98 1.43 0.311 0.982 0.865 0.342 0.354 0.383
Na2O 0 5.22 2.22 1.82 0.12 1.49 1.97 0.095
K2O 0.182 3.24 1.18 1.56 1.31 1.25 1.11 1.08 0.988 1.03
TiO2 0.391 0.358 0.53 0.58 0.703 0.487 0.638 0.735 0.763 0.649
P2O5 0.11 0.17 1.39 0.483 0.892 0.871 1.15 0.083 0.0501 0.14
S 0.046 0.054 0.048 0.059 0.062 0.046 0.027 0.0126 0.04
MnO 0.8756 0.014 0.0763 0.0938 0.0572 0.0635 0.0931 0.0329 0.0248 0.0411
Cr2O3 0.0233 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Cl 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
V 0.0868 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Co 0.0178 0 0 0 0 0.0011 0 0 0 0
Ni 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Cu 0.0184 0 0.007 0.0092 0 0.005 0.0107 0.005 0.004 0.004
Zn 0 0.005 0.0086 0.0087 0 0.0051 0.0089 0 0 0.004
Rb 0 0.0092 0.0036 0.0044 0.0048 0.0043 0.003 0.0052 0.0057 0.0049
Sr 0 0.12 0.0408 0.0499 0.0067 0.024 0.0383 0.0096 0.0063 0.0172
Zr 0.0167 0.011 0.0108 0.0109 0.042 0.0124 0.019 0.0399 0.0447 0.0413
Ba 0.123 0.117 0.079 0.14 0 0.0968 0.107 0 0 0.066
W 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Pb 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
320
Appendix 12: Scanning electron microscopy images
These are the high-resolution images captured using the SEM XL30 scanning
electron microscope in the School of Earth, Atmospheric, and Environmental
Sciences’ Williamson Research Centre, at the University of Manchester. There was
no colouration software package available for this equipment.
330
Appendix 13: A summary of the SEM results
Note that SEM does not provide a statistical breakdown of the quantity of each
element. An “X” indicated the element was present and a greyed-out field that it
was not present, or below the limit of detection.
Sample 1 5 6 7 9 10 11 14 18 19 21 23 24 26 28 29 30
Element
Si X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Al X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
O X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Ti X X X X X X - X X X X X X X X X X
Fe X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
K X X X X X X X X X - X X X X X X X
Mg X X X - - X X X X - X X X X - - X
P - - - - - X - - X - - X X X - - X
Ca X X X X X X X - - - X X X X X X X
C - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X
Cl - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X
Na X X - - - - - - - - X - - - - - X
S - - - - - - X - - - - - - - - - -
Pt - X - - - - X - - - - - - - - - -
Pb - X - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ce - - - - - - X - - - - - - - - - -
Mn - - - - - - - - - - X X - - - - -
B - - - - - - - - - - X - - - - - -
Ba - - - - - - X X - - - - - - - - -
Br - - - - X - - - - - - - - - X X -
331
Appendix 14: Strip roulettes in the YK10/11 assemblage
Documenting strip roulettes, particularly braided strip roulette (BSR) to assist future
researchers with its correct identification and documentation (see also Mayor
2010a). Note that it is often easier to determine the type of roulette by viewing a
high contrast image of the sherd, e.g. in bright light or in black and white. This is
most easily done in the processing period using photo-editing software.
An alternative method to using plasticine to take moulds of the roulette in relief is
to do a ‘rubbing’; i.e. a pencil tracing of the sherd that accurately captures its
texture and relief. In the Ghanaian climate, the heat made the use of plasticine
challenging because on occasion it melted, or else it dried out and was unusable. A
rubbing provides a permanent record of the roulette sherd that can be easily
digitised and is less fragile, and more convenient, than applying a mould. It is also
easily accomplished using only paper and pencil.
For this method, use graph (or plain) paper, and a soft pencil to avoid damaging the
sherd. Hold the paper down firmly over the sherd with one hand, to prevent the
paper from slipping. It is easiest to do this by placing thumb and forefinger on the
paper at one corner of the sherd. This also helps you to define the sherd’s edges.
Use a pencil to carefully shade over the sherd with your other hand, to produce an
impression of it on the paper. Always shade in the same direction as the roulette.
This captures the most detail, and reduces the risk of creating holes in the paper
from shading over an uneven surface.
333
Appendix 15: All of the YK10/11 sherds, organised by context, reported in Koma
Land publications.
All of the sherds used to create Figure 32 and inform its analysis.
Context Levels (10cm spits)
Rim (undecora
ted)
Rim (decorate
d)
Undecorated body
Decorated body
Base Perforated
Total by square
YK10 3 M15
L1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
YK10 3 N13
L2 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
YK10 3 O13
? 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
YK10 3 P14
L2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
YK11 5 N8
L2 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
YK11 H10
L2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
YK11 H9 L4 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
YK11 J10 ? 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
YK11 L10 L3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
YK11 M13
L1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
YK11 O11
L1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
YK11 O14
? 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
YK11 P11 ? 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
YK10 3 H14
L1, L3 0 0 0 2 2 0 4
YK10 3 M10
L1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2
YK10 I10 L1 0 0 0 2 0 0 2
YK11 J11 L3 0 0 0 2 0 0 2
YK11 L11 L1 0 0 0 2 0 0 2
YK11 H13
L2-3 1 0 1 1 0 0 3
YK11 M14
L2-L4 2 0 0 1 0 0 3
YK11 P11 L2-3 0 0 1 2 0 0 3
YK10 3 M12
L1-3 0 0 0 4 0 0 4
YK10 I11 L1-2 0 0 0 4 0 0 4
YK10 3 P10
L1, L3 5 0 0 0 0 0 5
YK11 L14 L2, L4 1 0 0 3 1 0 5
YK10 3 H11
L1-4 1 0 1 4 0 0 6
YK10 3 H12
L1-3 3 1 0 3 0 0 7
YK11 Q12
L1-3 2 1 0 5 0 0 8
YK11 O10
L1-2 0 0 9 0 0 1 10
YK10 5 P11
L1-2, L4-5 11 1 0 0 0 0 12
YK11 P10 L1-3 3 0 1 9 0 0 13
YK11 L13 L1-2 5 0 2 9 0 0 16
YK10 3 M14
L1-3 5 0 2 12 0 1 20
YK11 O12
L1-2, L4 9 2 8 0 0 1 20
YK10 3 H10
L1-2, L4 7 0 1 16 0 0 24
YK10 3 L1-4 6 1 0 17 0 1 25
334
M13
YK10 5 O11
L1-3 7 1 0 21 0 0 29
YK10 5 O12
L1-4 0 0 0 33 0 2 35
YK11 I14 L2-6 9 2 5 18 1 4 39
YK11 N14
L1-3 10 2 8 19 0 0 39
YK10 3 J13
L1-2 8 0 2 33 0 0 43
YK11 H14
L1-5 8 3 2 31 2 1 47
YK11 M12
L1-3 22 2 6 16 1 1 48
YK10 3 P13
L1-2, L4-5 11 0 0 42 0 0 53
YK11 M11
L1-2 17 4 5 26 0 1 53
YK11 O9 L1-2 23 1 1 28 0 1 54
YK11 N12
L1-3 18 3 0 34 0 0 55
YK10 3 O10
L1-3 20 0 4 33 0 0 57
YK10 3 I12
L1-3 13 3 2 39 0 1 58
YK10 3 I13
L1-3 13 1 2 44 0 0 60
YK10 3 J12
L1 13 2 0 47 0 0 62
YK11 N13
L1-2 15 1 8 42 1 0 67
YK11 P9 L1-2 L4 27 1 1 39 0 0 68
YK11 M10
L1-2 25 6 6 40 0 2 79
YK11 L12 L1-3 30 4 6 38 0 2 80
YK11 P12 L1-3 15 1 7 57 1 1 82
YK10 3 N10
L1-2 18 4 0 62 2 1 87
YK10 3 N11
L1-2 21 0 0 65 1 3 90
YK11 Q11
L1-4 26 3 40 110 1 3 183
YK11 Q1O
L1-3 46 7 35 100 0 4 192
Total by sherd type 480 57 171 1120 20 32 1873