Mema in the History of West Africa

Economic Bases of Ancient Ghana and Mali

Abstract

Mema is the area between Kumbi Saleh that is considered as one of the capitals of ancient Ghana, and the middle Niger River where many kingdoms existed in the medieval times. Actually, Mema is in the dry savanna where agriculture is almost impossible. But, in ancient times, it was rich in water, because there ran a confluent of the Niger River. The prosperity of this region is attested by the existence of over one hundred archaeological sites.
This study is one of the first fruits of the excavations that we have carried out in Mali since 1998. The purpose of our archaeological research is: 1) To determine the time and the ecological conditions of the domestication of crops such as glaberrima rice and fonio; 2) To measure the economic development in Mema realized by agriculture, stock farming and iron production; 3) To understand the contribution of the Mema region to the formation of ancient West Ghana and Mali.
To fulfill above objectives, our field excavation was done in 1998 and 1999 in the archeological complex called Kolima in which Late Stone Age sites and Iron Age sites coexist. From a site of BC 850 to 800, we could find a quantity of fonio that was used as offerings to the divinities with a small domesticated ox. This can be a proof of the domestication of fonio from BC 850, one of the oldest cereals that have been found by the archeological excavations in West Africa. We could find also so many remains of iron furnaces that can be qualified as “industrial scale”. It should be these economic developments in Mema that had contributed to the formation of the ancient West African Kingdoms such as Ghana and Mali.