Women Warriors and Kidnapped Kids: Girl Soldier/Brides in Sierra LeoneBush Wives and Girl Soldiers: Women’s Lives through War and Peace in Sierra Leone. Chris Coulter. Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press, 2009.

Abstract

Chapter 5 continues to scale down a detailed presentation of archaeological survey and excavation data from the Koksu River Valley in the Semirech’ye region. Frachetti’s collaborative fieldwork in this region has identified 382 archaeological sites (p. 127) that date to more than a 4,000-year period, with the settlement of Begash yielding the earliest date (2460 BCE) for mobile pastoralism in the Semirech’ye region (p. 130). Analysis of the survey data and absolute dating of archaeological features has produced a highly effective model of temporal-spatial change connected with symbolic landscapes and rock art, the construction and reuse of settlements and seasonal habitations, and the placement of stone and/or earthen tombs within the Koksu Valley. Chapter 6 continues to explore data collected from the Koksu River Valley project and models various economic, ritual, and social landscapes through the use of geographic information systems technology. What emerges from this study is a vertically transhumant form of pastoralism for Bronze Age populations wherein they moved sheep, goats, and cattle from lowland pastures in the winter to upland pastures in the spring and summer. Frachetti’s study provides a clear view of seasonal ecology for the Koksu Valley and indicates that mobile pastoralists did not have to range outside of the local region to meet their yearly pasture and fodder needs for livestock. The concluding chapter synthesizes the many strengths of the volume, especially in terms of working between the localscale processes, such as the Koksu Valley, and the larger macroscale processes, such as migration, territorial expansion, and interregional trade and exchange, that have formed such a significant part of Bronze Age scholarship in Eurasia. Few scholars have focused on providing more detailed archaeological histories of local landscapes and how structured patterns of movement may have contributed to what are perceived as larger macroscale processes. In this respect, Frachetti has emerged as one of the most promising scholars of a new generation of foreign archaeologists working closely in collaboration with regional specialists to overcome such limitations. The product of this work, much of which is detailed in this book, indicates that the study and interpretation of early pastoralist societies are now on a new trajectory of development—one that seeks to contribute to not only new interpretations of macroscale change but also local landscapes and the seasonal rhythms of ancient lifeways.