Publisher's Synopsis
Village Life in the Land of Bambuk explores the political economy of medieval West Africa from the vantage of a village community oriented at the edge of early empires and trans-Saharan trade networks. Recognizing that political power depends as much on social resources as on material ones, this volume advocates a spatial approach to the archaeological study of "wealth-in-people" at scales within and beyond such seemingly peripheral communities-from gendered household organization, to corporate kin groups and village factions, to regional landscapes and interregional trade networks. Framed in this way, recent archaeological research centered on the medieval village of Diouboye provides critical new insights into the structure and experience of power within the gold-producing realm of Bambuk in Upper Senegal concomitant with the rise of the great Mande empire of Mali. The spatial organization of subsistence, craft, and trade practices reveals how Diouboye emerged as a node within the broader Mande political economic mosaic, even as growing differences in social resources-and local political power-were ideologically balanced by material reciprocities within the community. In emphasizing the role of space and "wealth-in-people" on the periphery of the medieval Mande world, this volume moves to outline an archaeology of social power applicable to the study of pre-modern political economies elsewhere across Africa and beyond.
