Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 39 (2021) 103110 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Pearl millet and iron in the West African Sahel: Archaeobotanical investigation at Tongo Maar´e Diabal, Mali L. Champion a,*, N. Gestrich b, K. MacDonald c, L. Nieblas-Ramirez d, D.Q. Fuller c,e a Laboratoire Arch´eologie Et Peuplement de L’Afrique (APA), Anthropology Unit, Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland b Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt c Institute of Archaeology, University College London d Royal Museums for Central Africa, Tervuren Belgium e School of Cultural Heritage, Northwest University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Recent archaeobotanical analysis revealed that the botanical remains from the site of Tongo Maar´e Diabal (Mali) Inland Niger Delta are composed primarily of pearl millet remains (up to 85%). Contemporaneous West African sites (500–1200 Cal Urbanisation AD) usually display more diverse patterns, especially by the end of this period. Indeed, contemporary urban sites Pennisetum glaucum of the West African Sahel often comprise combined and diversified farming systems of millet (Pennisetum glau­ Craft production cum), African rice (Oryza glaberrima), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), Echinochloa sp. and fonio (Digitatia exilis). This Cash crops article seeks to explain the near-exclusive focus of Tongo Maar´e Diabal’s agricultural economy on millet, particularly with regard to the site’s status as a settlement of iron workers. 1. Introduction which the site lies is a major crossroads that connects the northern Bandiagara and the rich grain-growing plains of the Gondo region with The site of Tongo Maar´e Diabal (TMD) is a habitation mound of the Inland Niger Delta (IND) (Gallais, 1975). The average annual rainfall approximately 3 to 4.5 m in elevation and 9 ha in extent. TMD was around Douentza in recent decades was ca. 400 mm (de Bruijn and van occupied from 500 CE to 1150 CE and is thus contemporary with a major Dijk, 1995). The peak rainy season in Douentza lasts from June through expansion of urbanism in the Middle Niger as well as being situated on September, with May being a liminal period of occasional light showers. the periphery of the two largest known West African polities of the era: This is roughly comparable to the annual rhythm of the Inland Niger Ghana/Wagadu (c.AD 400–1100) and Kawkaw/Gao (c.AD 700–1100) Delta – though without the ecological benefitsof an adjoining floodplain (Gestrich and MacDonald, 2018). The site is important as part of the mid or waterway. From 300 BCE to 300 CE, the past paleoclimatic evolution to late first-millenniumAD settlement landscape of this semi-arid region in the area and in the IND was characterised by an unstable, dry climate which was composed largely of specialist iron workers. Local conditions with the desertification of the Azawad (in the north of the IND). This have also facilitated the excellent preservation of architectural, arte­ system was followed by a wet optimum with higher precipitation levels factual and subsistence remains, all excavated in context. The present than previous periods. The optimum humid conditions are thought to article considers the site’s unique agricultural economy against its set­ have been reached around 1000 CE. After this peak, the climate dete­ tlement history, environment and the development of cereal agriculture riorated quickly with very rapid oscillations, often within <30 years, in the West African Sahel (see Figs. 1–4). between large floodingevents to severe drought episodes. Around 1450 TMD is one of a dozen iron-working settlements of the same time CE Lake Chad was completely dry and the Niger River had a very un­ period located at the eastern edge of the Inland Delta’s ancient flood­ stable flow rate with some very large flooding leading to extensive plain near the modern town of Douentza in a sandy flatlandbetween two erosion within a very arid and dry landscape (McIntosh, 1998, 2005; escarpments, the Bandiagara and the Dyound´e/Gandamia (Gestrich and Maley & Vernet, 2015). MacDonald, 2018). This area is part of the “Gourma des Monts” region In the past century Douentza’s population and economy has been on the western margin of the Sahelian Gourma region which fills the diverse with transhumant Peulh (Fulbe) and Tamasheq pastoralists and area south of the Niger Bend. Currently, the narrow natural corridor in sedentary farming groups, the most numerous of which are Dogon and * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Champion). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103110 Received 30 September 2020; Received in revised form 22 June 2021; Accepted 3 July 2021 Available online 24 July 2021 2352-409X/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). L. Champion et al. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 39 (2021) 103110 Songhai (Gallais, 1975). The town’s crossroads position also means it is terracotta statuettes and more exceptionally some carbonised textile an important trading centre, attracting a diverse population from across remains made of Hibiscus sp. (Gestrich and MacDonald, 2018). West Africa. However, it is unlikely that the area was so ethnically The archaeological stratigraphy of the site is divided into five diverse in the first millennium AD. According to local oral traditions occupation horizons of superimposed earthen buildings. collected by one of the authors between 1993 and 1996 (KCM), the foundation of modern Douentza (a Fulbe corruption of dogo nsan, 2.1. Horizon 1 – AD 500–650 (units A, B & C) meaning ‘younger son’ in Bambara), dates back to the mid-18th century, when the area was claimed by the Bambara state of Segu. There was then During the initial occupation there are curvilinear structures of an Islamic ‘re-foundation’ of the town when it was subsequently claimed packed coursed earth associated with a succession of open-air, shallow, for the Masina Caliphate in 1828 by Nouhoum Ejejguere, a prominent ashy hearths to the north (Fig. 4) (Gestrich and MacDonald, 2018). ´ Marabout linked to Sekou Ahmadou. It subsequently fell under the Fulbe Similar and contemporaneous coursed earth circular houses are well- chiefdom of Boni, established later in the 19th century. These incursions known in Sahelian contexts (see MacDonald, 2020), especially from are recent, set against a background of earlier Tellem/Dogon regional Kirikongo (Dueppen, 2012; Gallagher and Dueppen, 2019), Oursi Hu- settlements and Songhai imperial incursions (ca. CE 1450–1600). Today beero (Petit et al., 2011) (Burkina Faso) and Birnin Lafiya (North the Dogon, Bambara and Songhai of the region cultivate millet pri­ Benin, Champion, 2019; Haour, 2018). marily, with some sorghum, Echinochloa sp. and fonio, which are grown locally without irrigation using rains from the summer wet season. They 2.2. Horizon 2 – AD 650–750 (units A, B & C) also keep sheep, goats and domestic fowl. The local Peulh are the pri­ mary keepers of livestock, but are increasingly cultivating millet as well Horizon 2 is characterised by a shift to rectilinear structures made (the cattle herds of the Cercle de Douentza being reduced by the great both in courses of packed earth and loaf-shaped mudbrick. Continuity droughts from ca.300,000 to only 62,000 in 1985; de Bruijn and van has been suggested as the new structures are superimposed over the Dijk, 1995: 46). earliest circular rooms. The bipartite division of the space seems to indicate the presence of two separate domestic compounds, one in the 2. Excavations at Tongo Maare´ Diabal north (in unit A) and one in the south (in unit B) (Gestrich and Mac­ Donald, 2018). Between 1993 and 1996 MacDonald undertook initial excavations at TMD, uncovering a continuous 650-year sequence of domestic life (AD – – & 500–1150) over three 4 by 4 m excavation units. The excavation units by 2.3. Horizon 3 AD 750 900 (units A, B C) Gestrich in 2010 opened a much larger surface spanning two domestic and iron-working compounds dating to the time of the site’s abandon­ Two features were exposed. First in the north part with 120 cm depth ment. The extensive evidence of iron-smelting and working, not only at of dense iron working remains, mainly charcoal and iron working slag, ’ TMD, but at most sites in the immediate vicinity, hints at a potential points to the presence of a blacksmith s workshop (forge). From this proto-industrial development of iron-production in the region (Gestrich, point on, the compound appears to have been occupied by a succession 2013). This chimes with increasing evidence that, in the period between of iron-working specialists over a 400-year period. Meanwhile, to the ’ around AD 500 and 1500, some areas around the Inland Niger Delta south a cluster of features shows evidence of a potter s workshop: nine were specialising in large-scale iron production (Gestrich & MacDonald, intact vessels associated with a carbonised Hibiscus sp. potters mat, 2018). Also, these excavations exposed some of the best-preserved ex­ fragments of raw kaolinite, polished red ochre and lumps of raw clay. – ’ amples of early Sahelian earthen architecture with mud-brick walls re­ The presence of those two complementary workshops potter s and ’ – mains often still extant to a height of a metre or more. In situ well- blacksmith s correspond to the present day gendered division of labor preserved artefacts were also found including>30 intact pots, within the same lineage and same endogamous specialist group, whereby women are the potters and men are the blacksmiths (Gestrich Fig. 1.