Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T22:21:31.799Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early evidence for chickens at Iron Age Kirikongo (c. AD 100–1450), Burkina Faso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stephen A. Dueppen
Stephen A. Dueppen*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, 308 Condon Hall, 1321 Kincaid Street, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

An excavated sequence from Burkina Faso shows that the Asian jungle fowl Gallus gallus, also known as the chicken, had made its way into West Africa by the mid first millennium AD. Using high precision recovery from a well-stratified site, the author shows how the increasing use of chickens could be chronicled and distinguished from indigenous fowl by both bones and eggshell. Their arrival was highly significant, bringing much more than an additional source of food: it put a sacrificial creature, essential for numerous social and economic transactions, in reach of everyone.

Keywords

AfricaBurkina FasoIron Agefirst millennium ADlivestockchickenguinea fowlfrancolin
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 327 , March 2011 , pp. 142 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bedaux, R., Constande-Westermann, T.S., Hacquebord, A.G., Lange, A.G. & Waals, J.D. Van Der. 1978. Recherche archéologiques dans le Delta Interieur du Niger (Mali). Palaeohistoria 20: 91–220.Google Scholar
Blench, R.M. 2006. Archaeology, language, and the African past. Lanham (MD): Altamira.Google Scholar
Bouchud, J. 1983. Paléofaune de Tegdaoust, in Tegdaoust III: recherches sur Aoudaghost: Campagnes 1960–1965 (Editions recherche sur les civilisations 25). Paris: Institut mauritanien de la recherche scientifique.Google Scholar
Capron, J. 1973. Communautés villageoises Bwa. Paris: Musée de l'Homme, Institut d'Ethnologie.Google Scholar
Chami, F.A. 2007. Diffusion in the studies of the African past: reflections from new archaeological findings. African Archaeological Review 24: 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chittick, N. 1984. Manda. Nairobi: The British Institute in Eastern Africa.Google Scholar
Coulibaly, E. 2006. Savoirs et savoir-faire des anciens metallurgists d'Afrique. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Cremer, J. 1927. Les Bobo (la mentalité mystique). Paris: Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner.Google Scholar
Crowe, T.M., Keith, S. & Brown, L.H. 1986. Order Galliformes, in Urban, E.K., Fry, C.H. & Keith, S. (ed.) The birds of Africa, Volume 2: 1–75. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dacher, M. 1997. Organisation politique d'une societé acéphale: les Gouin du Burkina Faso. L'Homme 37: 7–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delafosse, M. 1912. Haute Sénégal-Niger (Soudan Francais). Paris: Larose.Google Scholar
Dueppen, S. 2008. Reinventing equality: the archaeology of Kirikongo, Burkina Faso. PhD dissertation. Ann Arbor (MI): Department of Anthropology-University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Dueppen, S. 2011. From kin to great house: inequality and communalism at Iron Age Kirikongo, Burkina Faso. American Antiquity.Google Scholar
Duval, M. 1985. Un totalitarisme sans état. Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1945. The dynamics of clanship among the Tallensi. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fumihito, A., Miyake, T., SUMI, S.-I., Takada, S., Ohno, S. & Kondo, N. 1994. One subspecies of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus gallus) suffices as the matriarchic ancestor of all domestic breeds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 91: 12505–509.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goody, J. 1962. Death, property and the ancestors. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Holl, A.F.C. 2009. Iron metallurgy in West Africa: an early iron smelting site in the Mouhoun Bend, Burkina Faso, in Magnavita, S., Koté, L., Breunig, P. & Idé, O.A. (ed.) Crossroads/Carrefour Sahel: 59–68. Frankfurt am Main: Africa Magna.Google Scholar
Holl, A.F.C. & Koté, L. 2000. Settlement patterns, food production, and craft specialization in the Mouhoun Bend (NW Burkina Faso): preliminary results of the MOBAP 1997–1999 field seasons. West African Journal of Archaeology 30(1): 69–107.Google Scholar
Horton, M. & Mudida, N. 1993. Exploitation of marine resources: evidence for the origin of the Swahili communities of East Africa, in Shaw, T., Sinclair, P., Andah, B. & Okpoko, A. (ed.) The archaeology of Africa: 673–83. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. 1994. Preliminary results of excavations at Gao, September and October 1993. Nyame Akuma 41: 45–48.Google Scholar
Insoll, T., Kankpeyeng, B. & Maclean, R. 2009. The archaeology of shrines among the Tallensi of northern Ghana: materiality and interpretive relevance, in Dawson, A.C. (ed.) Shrines in Africa: 41–70. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izard, M. 2003. Moogo: l'émergence d'un espace étatique ouest-africain au XVIe siècle. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Keepax, C. 1981. Avian egg-shell from archaeological sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 8: 315–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiéthéga, J-B. 1993. Etat des recherches sur la production traditionelle du fer au Burkina Faso. Afrika Zamani 1 (nouvelle série, Juillet): 221–46.Google Scholar
Kondombo, S.R., Nianogo, A.J., Kwakkel, R.P., Udo, H.M.Y. & Slingerland, M. 2003. Comparative analysis of village chicken production in two farming systems in Burkina Faso. Tropical Animal Health and Production 35: 563–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koté, L. 2009. Recherches archéologiques au Burkina Faso: entre logique politique et idéal scientifique, in Magnavita, S., Koté, L., Breunig, P. & Idé, O.A. (ed.) Crossroads/Carrefour Sahel: 69–78. Frankfurt am Main: Africa Magna.Google Scholar
Kuba, R. 2006. Spiritual hierarchies and unholy alliances: competing earth priests in a context of migration in southwestern Burkina Faso, in Kuba, R. & Lentz, C. (ed.) Land and the politics of belonging in West Africa: 57–75. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Labouret, H. 1931. Les tribus du rameau Lobi. Paris: Institit d'ethnologie.Google Scholar
Lentz, C. 2009. Constructing ritual protection on an expanding settlement frontier: earth shrines in the Black Volta region, in Dawson, A.C. (ed.) Shrines in Africa: 121–52. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levtzion, N. & Hopkins, J. 1981. Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lingané, Z. 1995. Sites d'anciens villages et organisation de l'espace dans le Yatenga (Nord-Ouest du Burkina Faso). Unpublished PhD dissertation, Université de Paris-1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne).Google Scholar
Linseele, V. 2007. Archaeofaunal remains from the past 4000 years in Sahelian West Africa. Domestic livestock, subsistence strategies and environmental changes. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Macdonald, K. 1992. The domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) in sub-Saharan Africa: a background to its introduction and its osteological differentiation from indigenous fowl (Numidinae and Francolinus, sp.). Journal of Archaeological Science 19: 303–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonald, K. 1995a. Why chickens? The centrality of the domestic fowl in West African ritual and magic, in Ryan, K. & Crabtree, P.J. (ed.) Animal symbolism and archaeology: 50–56. Philadelphia (PA): MASCA/University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Macdonald, K. 1995b. The faunal remains (mammals, birds, and reptiles), in McIntosh, S.K. (ed.) Excavations at Jenné-Jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali): 291–318. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Macdonald, K. & Edwards, D.N. 1993. Chickens in Africa: the importance of Qasr Ibrim. Antiquity 67: 584–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonald, K. & Macdonald, R. H. 2000. The origins and development of domesticated animals in arid West Africa, in Blench, R. & Macdonald, K. (ed.) The origins and development of African livestock: archaeology, genetics, linguistics and ethnography: 127–62. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Manessy, G. 1960. Tâches quotidiennes et travaux saisonneirs en pays Bwa. Dakar: Université de Dakar, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines.Google Scholar
Manessy, G. 1979. Contribution à la classification généalogique des langues Voltaïques. Paris: SELAF.Google Scholar
Manning, K. & Macdonald, K. 2005. Analyse des restes d'animaux collectés à Dia, in Bedaux, R., Polet, J., Sanogo, K. & Schmidt, A. (ed.) Recherches archéologiques à Dia dans le Delta intérieur du Niger (Mali): 363–85. Leiden: CNWS publications.Google Scholar
McIntosh, S.K. (ed.) 1995. Excavations at Jenné-Jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta, Mali). Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Plug, I. 1996a. Domestic animals during the early Iron Age in southern Africa, in Pwiti, G. & Soper, R. (ed.) Aspects of African archaeology: 515–22. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.Google Scholar
Plug, I. 1996b. Seven centuries of Iron Age traditions at Bosutswe, Botswana: a faunal perspective South African Journal of Science 92: 91–97.Google Scholar
şaul, M. 1991. The Bobo 'house' and the uses of categories of descent. Africa 61: 71–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schönwetter, M. 1967. Handbuch der Oologie, Band I. Berlin: Akademie.Google Scholar
Schönwetter, M. 1992. Handbuch der Oologie, Band IV. Berlin: Akademie.Google Scholar
Shinnie, P.L. & Kense, F.J. 1989. Archaeology of Gonja, Ghana. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Stahl, A. 1999. The archaeology of global encounters viewed from Banda, Ghana. African Archaeological Review 16(1): 5–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swadesh, M., Arana, E., Bender-Samuel, J.T. & Wilson, W.A.A. 1966. A preliminary glottochronology of the Gur languages. Journal of West African Languages 3: 27–65.Google Scholar
Tauxier, L. 1912. Le noir du Soudan: pays Mossi et Gourounsi. Documents et analyses. Paris: Larose.Google Scholar
Togola, T. 2008. Archaeological investigations of Iron Age sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
West, B. & Zhou, B.X. 1988. Did chickens go north? New evidence for domestication. Journal of Archaeological Science 15: 515–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, K. 2000. Did chickens go west?, in Blench, R. & Macdonald, K. (ed.) The origins and development of African livestock: 368–448. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar