Enter the Countryside: A Regional Approach to Settlement Systems in Southern Bénin, West Africa

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Under the direction of Dr. Adria LaViolette, Neil Norman will conduct a regional archaeological survey and test excavations on communities surrounding the site of Savi in Benin, West Africa. Savi was the capital center of the Hueda Kingdom and a focal point of the trade in captured Africans bound for trans-Atlantic slavery from the late17th to early 18th century AD. Previous excavations within the palace zone at Savi indicate a densely settled center that attracted international trade. However, little is known of the communities that surrounded the palace and what (if any) political and economic relations connected the palace to outlying areas. With the range of settlement systems types that have been identified in the region, it is possible that Savi was nested within an urban system or removed from regional political and economic networks. In order to address such questions, the project proposes to recontextualize Savi in time and space within regional systems of exchange and political authority by focusing research on these contemporary countryside sites. Research that specifically addresses these non-elite areas and possibly rural communities is important because it provides data for the unstudied demographic majority of the region. Through addressing the spatial, chronological, and economic changes of outlying communities vis-a-vis the palace center, the often assumed urbanity of palace settlement systems can be evaluated. That is to say, it will be possible to determine if the palace center provided political, economic, or social considerations to a rural countryside with the expectation of other considerations in return. Detecting variation in production activity and artifact type at differing site types will contribute to an understanding of social differentiation and specialized production activity. Likewise, this data can be used to evaluate the integration of outlying sites in regional political and exchange networks.Beyond research questions of interest to social scientists, this project will have a broad impact at the local level with the instruction of scientific techniques and the presentation of project data. By agreement with the Universite Nationale du Benin (UNB), UNB students will participate in all phases of the project and benefit from formal and informal training. Also, project members will work to update the reserve collection and public displays at the Ouidah Museum of History, which annually attracts thousands of international visitors. The completion of a project website will increase visibility for the project and the creation of a web-accessible database will allow West African researchers to access all project data. Also, project data will be disseminated through presentations at professional conferences, newsletters, and refereed journals. Through addressing the project in a co-operative and collaborative manner, insights of the diverse research team will benefit scientific research at Savi, as well as strengthen interpretations of project data.