Bosumpra revisited: 12,500 years on the Kwahu Plateau, Ghana, as viewed from ‘On top of the hill’

Abstract

ABSTRACTThurstan Shaw directed a pioneering excavation within Bosumpra Cave, Ghana, in 1943 and in 1973/1974 it was re-excavated by Andrew Smith, who obtained radiocarbon dates bracketing the upper section of the site's occupation sequence between 4500 cal. BC and cal. AD 1400. Bosumpra has since been widely cited in discussions concerning the West African Late Stone Age, although its significance and most of its occupation sequence remain obscure and open to speculation. Re-excavation during 2008–2011 revealed that the site's earliest occupation/exploitation dates from the mid-eleventh millennium cal. BC and continued throughout the Holocene. The site has more recently functioned as a shrine to the deity Pra and is in use today as a Christian church. Geometric microliths, celts and pottery formed the basis of a distinctive adaptation on the Kwahu Plateau from the tenth millennium cal. BC, with the stone tool component persisting until the seventeenth century AD. The upper layers of the shelter also yielded material that provides insights into the history of the Akan-speaking people of southern Ghana.