Presentation
The project seeks to better understand the relation between woven inspired decorated pottery producing communities in West Central Africa between the 11th and 15thc. CE and their link to older pottery traditions. Using the “compared technology“ method, manufacturing process will be reconstructed and compared to each other to determine whether the stylistic resemblance only reflects a general taste for fine clothes among polities and communities of the area or more close interaction, suggesting communities of practice over time and space Moreover, the use of talc in the fabrics shows similarities with pottery productions dated to the 1st millennia BCE/CE. Identifying common technical features could contribute to better understand the transition – currently poorly known due to a lack of data – between two key periods in the histor y of Central Africa: the first villages and the Bantu expansion and the development of major polities in the 2nd millennium CE.
Promoters
- Marcos Martinón-Torres, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
- Olivier Gosselain and Nicolas Nikis, CReA-Patrimoine, ULB