Earthen Tumuli Archaeology in West Africa

Abstract

Earthen tumuli are a special type of grave that is widespread all over the world. In West Africa, they belong to a type of monument that attracted archaeological interest at the turn of the 20th century. West African burial mounds underwent the greatest wave of archaeological excavations in the first half of the 20th century, but owing to difficult excavation conditions and technical-logistical challenges on the one hand and an increasing interest in the study of prehistoric settlement and economy on the other, attention to earthen tumuli research declined significantly in the second half of the 20th century. In the early 21st century, burial mounds are understood as representative individual or collective tombs that may offer insight into the social structure—or what was intended to be mediated by it—of part of the late prehistoric and early historic society in diverse regions of West Africa. However, an integration of archaeological evidence on particular funerary monuments such as tumuli with simpler graves for the general community and the living, crafting, and economic activities of everyday life has yet to occur in West African archaeology.