Site-Location, Exchange, and Production: The Formation of Houlouf Polity in the Chadian Plan

Abstract

This paper discusses the formation of the Houlouf polity, through the lens of systematic and coherent analyses of site-location strategies, patterns of exchange, and the production of material goods and craft items. A short review of research on trade in West African archaeology shows that the study of long distance exchange is still mostly focused on provenience analyses. As important as characterization and provenience are for the reconstruction of exchange network, they do not provide access to internal dynamics of the receiving societies. This paper examines the concomitant changes in site-location and settlement patterns, patterns of flows, distribution and consumption of long distance trade items, and patterns of craft specialization and production intensification, to show that they were part of interlocked feed-back loops. These deviating/amplifying feed-back loops triggered a dynamic that resulted in the emergence of three successive social formations all along the Houlouf region ca. 4000 years archaeological sequence.