Figure 1.1 Where It All Started. the Team Headquarters in Karimama, 2011 Chapter 1 Introduction

Figure 1.1 Where it all started. The team headquarters in Karimama, 2011 Chapter 1 Introduction

Anne Haour

1 The Context of the Project a key area of migrations and cross-influences, it presented the ideal “laboratory” for exploring the materialisation The northernmost part of the Republic of Benin, known of contacts and boundaries, through a mapping of craft as Dendi, was a virtual archaeological terra incognita up specialisation and the distribution of material culture. to 2011. This will seem surprising, given the interest that Enquiries would assess how this material can show group the River Niger basin has generated among archaeolo- membership, status differentiation and population move- gists for over a century, and given the early indications of ments, and in particular would focus on the role of craft the archaeological importance of Dendi; but opening the specialists. well-known volume Vallées du Niger (1993), for instance, The specific research objectives of the project, then, will suffice to demonstrate how little coverage existed of were to carry out archaeological survey and test pitting the Benin segment. This book begins to fill this gap, pre- along the 110 km-long stretch of the river which marks senting as it does the main results of a five-year project the border between Benin and Niger; but also, no less devoted to the archaeology and ethnography of Dendi. importantly, to carry out interviews with contemporary The Crossroads of Empires research project, funded populations, generating data on past migrations, political by the European Research Council (ERC; Independent structures, and craft production. Here, the argument was Starter Grant 263747 to Anne Haour), began in January of course not that some sort of linear relationship existed, 2011 and ended in December 2015. Five field seasons, of so that the data from the present could be transposed between two and seven weeks’ duration, were complet- into the past. Rather, it was felt that knowledge on pres- ed. The research was fully collaborative, integrating four ent ways of negotiating political belonging, making and European (University of East Anglia, Royal Museum for doing, were crucial parts of understanding how political Central Africa, University of Stirling and Université libre belonging was negotiated in the past, and how things were de Bruxelles) and two African (Université Abomey Calavi made and done. One early, surprising, finding of the proj- in Cotonou, Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines ect is that the sites first investigated by our team dated not of the Université Abdou Moumouni in Niamey) institu- to the second millennium, as had been assumed, but to tions. Crucial backing was given by the Direction du several centuries earlier. Part of the challenge of this book Patrimoine Culturel, Benin. The basic goal of the research has been to create a meaningful conversation between was to place a neglected area on the archaeological re- archaeology and ethnography when such a chronological cord, although the wider aim was to examine the impact gap exists. Closing that gap became a focus of the penulti- of political entities and of political influences on the ma- mate field season; with, as will be seen, some success. terial record, using both archaeological and ethnohistori- The team originally devised for the project issued out cal timeframes. How were political entities structured in of long-term collaborations and conversations, and a Dendi, and how did they mark the landscape and influ- shared feeling that a concern with the political dimension ence the movement of peoples, ideas, technical knowl- of material culture in West Africa was long overdue (for edge and things? one statement of this, see Haour & Manning eds, 2011, in Dendi seemed an ideal location in which to confront a special issue of Azania). Beyond members of the part- historical evidence and archaeological data, because this ner institutions listed above, the team encompassed vital region is known to have lain at the intersection of several expertise from many individuals, as is reflected in the polities: Kebbi, Songhai, and Gourmantche, with influ- contributions to this volume. Complementary funding ences from Nupe, Mali and Kanem-Borno. Anecdotal re- from the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, ports also showed that Dendi was rich in archaeological Oceania and the Americas (SRU) at the University of East remains, many of which were attributed by local peoples Anglia allowed the team to increase further and, in partic- to the vast population movements which accompanied ular, enabled the vital inclusion of archaeometallurgical, the creation and shifting of political boundaries and pro- archaeobotanical and architectural expertise, as well as cesses of cultural-religious change. Because Dendi sits in the funding of a PhD scholarship. Throughout the project,