Archaeological Insights into Aesthetic Communities of Practice in the Western Volta Basin

Abstract

Art historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists have long expressed interest in the historic and stylistic connections between societies of the western Volta River basin and those of the Middle Niger. Oral histories and Arab chronicles point to the antiquity of connections between these regions that were linked in trade of forest products for those drawn from the Sahara and beyond from at least the early second millennium ad (Brooks 1993; Goody 1964, 1966; Wilks 1961, 1962, 1993). Recurrent questions have been raised regarding the technological and stylistic links between material traditions in these areas which, with rare exception (Posnansky 1976, 1987), have been addressed primarily through objects of “ethnographic” (including recent historical) or uncertain temporal provenance. Particular interest has focused on Mande influences on the technical and artistic practices of Voltaic peoples (Bravmann 1974; Frank 1993, 1998; McNaughton 1988; Roy 1987) and the role of so-called casted craftspeople in the transmission and maintenance of technological and artistic style (Tamari 1991, 1995; for a history, see Conrad and Frank 1995). These object-centered studies face the challenge of inferring historical process from indirect evidence. Yet as McNaughton stresses, the “difficult question of history” is crucially important to understanding the fluidity and creativity of “people in motion” and the role of objects as “vehicle(s) through which people can change the lay of their social landscapes” (1992:85). In this regard, objects in archaeological contexts—securely provenanced in time and space—hold considerable potential for lending insight into the cultural connections and dynamism among West African peoples, as demonstrated by recent ethnoarchaeological and archaeological studies of technological style in potting (Gosselain 2008; Haour et al. 2010) and the recontextualization of imported goods within local artistic and ritual practice (e.g., Ogundiran 2002, 2009). This paper reports on a set of objects and contexts from the western Volta River basin that lend insight into the conditions that shape creative adoption and adaptation of stylistic practice as enumerated by McNaughton: 1) the accessibility of institutions—their symbols, activities, and art—across sociocultural boundaries; 2) the fluidity of their components—in other words, the ability to adjust them within local contexts; 3) the “porousness of ethnicity” and the flexible nature of its patrimony; and 4) the role of individuals and groups as creators of history and culture—in other words, agency (1992:78–81). The broader region around Banda, on which this study centers (Fig. 1), has long been known as a site of interaction among diverse and porous ethnic-linguistic groups whose people have been receptive to new technologies and art forms (Bravmann 1972, 1974; see also Silverman 1983). The objects described here derive from archaeological contexts dating between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries ad and suggest participation in broader aesthetic and ritual communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991) that created cultural connections across broad geographic reaches of West Africa. “Communities of practice” is a conceptual frame increasingly used by archaeologists (e.g., Habicht-Mauch et al. 2006; Minar and Crown 2001) who are endeavoring to understand the dynamism of cultural practice and seek an alternative to monolithic notions of “culture” that homogenize practice in time and space. Building on the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998) the concept directs attention to networks of learning and practice and their effects on knowledge transmission within shared domains (e.g., of metal-working, potting, carving, and so on). Individuals and/ or sub-groups of people may participate in multiple communi-