The Routes of Medieval Africa
11th-17th centuries
Published on Thursday, February 28, 2019
Abstract
This symposium will take stock of the theoretical ambition of this programme, relative to the disciplinary tools available to us today, to disclose, to distinguish and above all to ponder the historical connections established. If the plants, epidemics, commercial goods or written materials are proof of often-forgotten connections, they inform us only indirectly on the intensity and consequences of these economic, political and cultural connections for the societies of Southern, Eastern or Western Africa. Starting from this observation, the historians, archaeologists, linguists, and philologists involved in this release will reflect on multidisciplinary models that go beyond the observation of a connection and switch towards a more integrative concept of “route,” understood, in the broader sense, as a connection in progress. I this respect, the third and final objective of this symposium will stimulate further reflection on the routes that crisscrossed medieval Africa, and the practices, mobilities, and representations that they created.
Announcement
Argument
Over the last three years, historians and archaeologists have sought to bring to light the relationships between the interior of the African continent and other parts of the world during the medieval period, beyond the familiar interfaces of the Sahara in the north and the Indian Ocean coast in the east. To this end, they have focused on a certain number of facts that can inform us of the connections established between Africa and the rest of the world between the eleventh and the seventeenth centuries.We can divide them into four main groups:
1) trade and prestige goods;
2) epidemics, and particularly the second pandemic of plague;
3) exogenous plants, especially from the Americas;
4) and written materials, particularly those using the Arabic script.
The first objective of this symposium is to release the main results of each of these case studies carried out in the four corners of the continent, in the Zimbabwe Plateau, south-western Nigeria, and the Great Lakes. The shared release of these studies will allow us to release a preliminary synthesis on the medieval ‘connections’ of sub-Saharan Africa with the World during the first half of the second millennium.
Beyond this initial synthesis, this symposium will take stock of the theoretical ambition of this programme, relative to the disciplinary tools available to us today, to disclose, to distinguish and above all to ponder the historical connections established. If the plants, epidemics, commercial goods or written materials are proof of often-forgotten connections, they inform us only indirectly on the intensity and consequences of these economic, political and cultural connections for the societies of Southern, Eastern or Western Africa.Starting from this observation, the historians, archaeologists, linguists, and philologists involved in this release will reflect on multidisciplinary models that go beyond the observation of a connection and switch towards a more integrative concept of “route,” understood, in the broader sense, as a connection in progress. I this respect, the third and final objective of this symposium will stimulate further reflection on the routes that crisscrossed medieval Africa, and the practices, mobilities, and representations that they created.
Starting from our case studies of circulation paths, whose social contours are made increasingly clear as a result of this programme, we aim at developing a shared, broad and comparative archaeological protocol to capture the medieval routes of Africa in their materiality and diachrony. As this programme comes to an end, we think it is urgent to move from the mere accumulation of factual data about medieval Africa’s intercontinental connections to a rigorous characterisation of the flows, visible or not, through which these connections operated.
Programme
Du 5 au 7 mars 2019 - Institut des Mondes Africains Grand Amphitéâtre, 9 rue Malher, Paris 4ème
IFAS Research (French Institute of South Africa), IFRA-Nigeria, IFRA - Nairobi, Centre Jacques Berque
Mardi 5 mars
- 9h30 - 10h : Accueil
L’Afrique et le monde sur la longue durée
- Adrien Delmas (Centre Jacques Berque), L’Afrique médiévale et le monde, des connexions impondérables
- Gérard Chouin (William & Mary), Africa, connectedness and the circulation of pathogens: the plague and beyond
- Christian Thibon (UPPA), La diffusion des plantes sur la longue durée dans la région des Grands Lacs
11h - 11h20 : Pause
- Christopher Ehret (UCLA), Words for tobacco: Tracking the Pathways of Commercial Exchange in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Africa
- Innocent Pikirayi (University of Pretoria), Rethinking globalization in antiquity: the case for southern AfricaM
14H00-18H00
L’histoire de la seconde pandémie de Peste en Afrique Sub-Saharienne
Modérateurs : Adisa Ogunfolakan (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria) Gérard Chouin (William & Mary), Daphne Gallagher (University of Oregon)
Promesses de la génétique
- Gérard Chouin L’Afrique et le monde sur la longue durée
- Monica Green (Arizona State University), Tracking Microbial Routes to Africa.
Commentaire : Javier Pizarro-Cerda (Institut Pasteur)
Séquelles archéologiques
Modérateur : Adisa Ogunfolakan
- Stephen Dueppen (University of Oregon), Recognizing plague epidemics in the archaeological record of West Africa
- Gérard Chouin (William & Mary), Geoffroy de Saulieu (IRD) & David Sebag (IRD) Noire comme la peste : études d’une possible couche d’abandon à Ife
15h50-16h10 : Pause
Traces écrites
Modérateur : Daphne Gallagher
- Marie-Laure Derat (CNRS, UMR Orient & Méditerranée), Du lexique aux talismans : occurrences de la peste dans la Corne de l’Afrique du XIIIe au XVe siècle
Commentaire : Hadrien Collet (IMAf)
Des mots et des maux : apports de la linguistique historique
Modérateur et commentaire : Christopher Ehret (UCLA)
- Sandro Cape Chichi, (Université Paris Diderot), La divinité Sakpata : témoin d'une peste bubonique en Afrique de l'ouest avant le 20ème siècle ?
- Lindsay Ehrisman (University of Wisconsin-Madison), An Assessment of Linguistic Evidence for the Spread of Bubonic Plague in Early Central East Africa
Conclusion : Gérard Chouin (William & Mary), La peste en Afrique sub-saharienne : ce que l’avenir nous réserve
Mercredi 6 mars
10H00-12H30
De la côte Swahili au plateau du Zimbabwe, histoire de circulations
Modérateur : Thomas Vernet-Habasque (IFAS-Recherche, Johannesburg)
- Shadreck Chirikure (University of Cape Town), Connections between hinterland and coastal southern Africa: looking outside, from inside
- Ceri Ashley (British Museum), Downriver from Mapungubwe : ripples and waves in the thirteenth century hinterland
- Martial Pauly (INALCO, ASIEs-CROIMA), Les perles de la nécropole d'Antsiraka Boira (Mayotte, archipel des Comores) : un regard sur les routes commerciales de l'océan Indien médiéval
11h15-11h30 : Pause
Abigail Moffet (University of Cape Town), Tracing connections : the cowrie shell in the context of early global trade networks and the southern African region
Discussion
- Geoffroy de Saulieu (IRD),
- Daphne Gallagher (University of Oregon),
- Paul Lane (Cambridge University),
- Innocent Pikirayi (University of Pretoria),
- Thomas Vernet-Habasque (IFAS-Recherche)
14H00-17H00
Les plantes des Grandes Lacs, évidences de connexions indirectes
Modérateur : Daphne Gallagher (University of Oregon)
- Christian Thibon (UPPA), Emile Mworoha (University of Burundi), Mildred Ndeda (JOOUST, Kenya) Plant diversity and intensity, population densities and cultural-political systems, sub-regional convergence and divergence in Great lake Region
- Isaya Onjala (JOOST, Kenya), Elizabeth Vignati (LAM), Paul Lane (Cambridge University) Archaeology and Dissemination of American Plants : Interactions and Scale.
Trade and Routes, Monumental Heritage and Knowledge Gaps
Christian Leclerc (CIRAD) et Geo Coppens (CIRAD) Worldwide interconnections of Africa using crops as historical and cultural markers
Discussion:
- Hubert Cochet (Agro Paris Tech), Jean Pierre Chrétien (LAM),
- David Lee Schoenbrun (North Western University),
- Mats Widgren (Stockholm University),
- Monique Chastanet (Université Paris I),
- Daphne Gallagher (University of Oregon)
Jeudi 7 mars
9H00-13H00
Global Middle Ages
- Paul Lane (Cambridge University), Africa and global Middle Age
- Stéphen Rostain (CNRS), Out of Africa : The routes of medieval Amazonia
10h20-10h40 : Pause
Vers un protocole archéologique de la route
Modératrice : Ceri Ashley (British Museum)
Southern Africa :
- Adrien Delmas (CJB), Raphaël Hautefort, Jules Frémeaux et Léa Roth :Les Routes de Sofala
West Africa :
- Gérard Chouin (William & Mary) : West African Pathways in History: sources, palimpsests, governance
- Benjamin Adisa Ogunfolakan (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria) : Migration Routes and Potsherd Pavements in Yorubaland
East Africa :
- Elizabeth Vignati (LAM), Isaya Onjala (JOOST, Kenya) : Cartographier les peuplements et les routes des Grands Lacs
Table-ronde finale
- Youssef Bokbot (INSAP, Rabat),
- Shadreck Chirikure (University of Cape Town),
- Stephen Duppen (University of Oregon),
- Bertrand Hirsch (Université Paris I),
- David Lee Schoenbrun (NorthWestern Univ),
- Adisa Ogunfolaken (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria),
- Geoffroy de Saulieu (IRD)
Subjects
- Africa (Main category)
- Society > History > Economic history
- Zones and regions > Africa > North Africa
- Periods > Middle Ages
- Zones and regions > Africa > Sub-Saharan Africa
- Mind and language > Epistemology and methodology > Historiography
Places
- Amphithéâtre (rez-de-jardin), Institut des mondes africains - 9 rue Malher
Paris, France (75004)
Date(s)
- Tuesday, March 05, 2019
- Thursday, March 07, 2019
- Wednesday, March 06, 2019
Attached files
Keywords
- Afrique, route
Contact(s)
- Yasmina Houchem
courriel : yasmina [dot] houchem [at] cjb [dot] ma
Reference Urls
Information source
- Yasmina Houchem
courriel : yasmina [dot] houchem [at] cjb [dot] ma
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« The Routes of Medieval Africa », Conference, symposium, Calenda, Published on Thursday, February 28, 2019, https://doi.org/10.58079/127y