Ancient Middle Niger : urbanism and the self-organizing landscape / Roderick J. McIntosh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McIntosh, Roderick J.

Series:

Case studies in early societies ; 7.

Case studies in early societies ; 7

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cities and towns--Niger--History.

Cities and towns.

History.

Niger--Antiquities.

Niger.

Antiquities.

Physical Description:

xvi, 261 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Summary:

The cities of West Africa's Middle Niger, only recently brought to the world's attention, make us rethink the "whys" and the "wheres" of ancient urbanism. These cities present the archaeologist with something of a novelty: a non-nucleated, clustered city-plan with no centralized, state-focused power. Ancient Middle Niger explores the emergence of these cities in the first millennium BC and the evolution of their hinterlands from the perspective of the self-organized landscape. Cities appeared in a series of profound transformations to human-land relations and this book illustrates how each transformation was a leap in complexity. The book ends with a examination of certain critical moments in the emergence of other urban landscapes in Mesopotamia, along the Nile, and in northern China, through a Middle Niger lens. Highly illustrated throughout, this work is a key text for all students of African archaeology and of comparative pre-industrial urbanism.

Contents:

Map of the Middle Niger xvi

1 Discovery 1

Jenne-jeno "discovered" to the world 1

City without Citadel 10

Ex astra (a brief history of values) 21

Co-evolution: an alternative path 27

2 Transformed landscapes 45

Historical Ecology 45

Mesopotamia, with a difference 56

Paleoclimate: phase shifts at multiple time-scales 73

Geokistics: risk, surprise, and subsistence security 89

3 Accommodation 101

Pulse Model 101

Ground truthing the Pulse Model 123

Specialists and the deep-time core rules of Mande 129

4 Excavation 144

Recognizing heterogeneity 144

Anchors and variability: the core sequence 162

"Polynucleated sprawl": Urban Clusters 181

5 Surveying the hinterland 192

Prior strategies 192

Systematic urban hinterland 197

Resilience, urban sustainability, and the self-organizing landscape 203

6 Comparative urban landscapes 209

Alternative cityscapes: Mesopotamia and the Nile 209

China: the clustered alternative 221.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 230-250) and index.

ISBN:

052181300X

0521012430

OCLC:

60741020

Publisher Number:

9780521813006 (hbk.)

9780521012430 (pbk.)