Akinwumi Ogundiran
Biographic Data
| ID | 512210 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Akinwumi Ogundiran |
| GIVEN NAMES | Akinwumi |
| FAMILY NAME | Ogundiran |
| SIGNATURE | OGUNDIRAN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Charlotte |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7773-0461 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 239 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Anthracological analysis of charcoal from Bara, Southwestern Nigeria: Implications for paleoenvironment and firewood history
Charcoal samples from different archaeological contexts at the site of Bara, in southwest Nigeria, were subjected to anthracological study. The sites investigated—residential structures, refuse deposits, and ceremonial centers-were from different cultural phases and settlement contexts ranging from ca. 400 BC during the Early Iron Age to the Oyo Imperial period during AD 1570–1835. The total number of charcoal pieces investigated is 2,972, consti…
Nigeria’s Ọṣun Òṣogbo festival celebrates the power of a Yoruba goddess
Commentary: Africa — one colonialism or many
Philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò caused a stir two years ago in his trenchant critique of the centrality of the concept ‘precolonial’ for organising time and studying African history. In the opening para
Os laços que nos unem: Uma história arqueológica do cosmopolitismo africano/yorùbá e suas implicações para a colaboração no Atlântico Sul
Esta transcrição adapta a palestra de abertura ministrada por Akinwumi Ogundiran durante o evento da Sociedade Brasileira de Arqueologia (SAB), explorando a riqueza do cosmopolitismo africano/iorubá por meio da arqueologia, ao mesmo tempo que destaca as ligações históricas e culturais profundas entre a África e o Brasil no âmbito do Atlântico Sul. Através de evidências arqueológicas, linguísticas e etnográficas, Ogundiran demonstra como as socied…
Classic Ilé-Ifẹ̀: A Consideration of Scale in the Archaeology of Early Yorùbá Urbanism, ad 1000–1400
Scale is an essential conceptual tool for studying urban systems, but what categories of scale are relevant to understanding ancient Yorùbá urbanism? This article answers this question by identifying complexity, multiplexity, and referentiality as the most important categories of scale necessary for understanding the ontology, cultural processes, and historical foundations of Yorùbá towns and cities. Focusing on classic Ilé-Ifẹ̀ ad 1000-1400, the…
“All the world's a stage…”: A Valedictory Note
The Future of African Archaeology—The 2023 Perspectives
Storytelling in Archaeology and the Quest for a Pedagogy of Renewal
Archaeologists are often a delightful presence in public education settings especially when they have objects for their audience to see, touch, admire, and talk about.This show-and-tell mode of public engagement is multi-sensorial.For this reason, the intrinsic value of archaeology for historical education has been widely discussed at theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical levels (e.g., Stone & MacKenzie, 1990; Trškan & Bezjak, 2020).These studi…
A Mosaic of Yorùbá Ontology and Materiality of Pleasure Since AD 1000
What have been the meanings and meaningfulness of pleasure in Yorùbá thought, practice, and history over the past eight hundred years? Ogundiran draws from literary, archaeological, myth-historical, and ethnographic sources to answer this question in two parts. First, he examines the ontologies, materiality, and sociality of pleasure at the levels of ordinary experience and institutional culture. Second, he demonstrates how pleasurable experience…
Doing Archaeology in a Turbulent Time
Managing Epidemics in Ancestral Yorùbá Towns and Cities: “Sacred Groves” as Isolation Sites
The Covid-19 Pandemic: Perspectives for Reimaging and Reimagining Archaeological Practice
On Covid-19 and Matters Arising
Knowledge, Ethics, and Power: Publishing African Objects Without Clear African Provenance
October 01 2020 Knowledge, Ethics, and Power: Publishing African Objects Without Clear African Provenance Lisa Homann, Lisa Homann Guest Dialogue Editor; Associate Professor, Department of Art & Art History, UNC Charlotte; UNC Editorial Board Member, African Arts Consortium Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar UCLA Editorial Board, UCLA Editorial Board Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Schola…
Editor’s Inaugural Remarks
Food Security, Food Sovereignty, and Indigenous Knowledge
Rituals and economics of regeneration
Colonial Modernity, Rituals and Feasting in Odùduwà Grove, Ilé-Ifẹ (Nigeria)
Sacred groves are ubiquitous on the cultural landscape of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and they have been the site of most archaeological research in the ancient Yoruba city. But these studies have been driven by the view that sacred groves were places of static ritual traditions. Recovering the paraphernalia of those rituals, especially the exquisite sculptures, therefore preoccupied the pioneering archaeological research in Ilé-Ifẹ̀. In contrast, the historical tr…
Afro-European Trade in the Atlantic World: The Western Slave Coast c.1550–c.1885, by Silke Strickrodt
So much has been written on the African/European trade on the littorals of Western Africa between the 1500s and 1800s, that one could not but wonder whether anything new could still be said on this subject. But there are many justifications for this new addition to the historiography of African/European trade. Silke Strickrodt shows that the area between the Volta and Mono Rivers (in present-day Ghana and Togo respectively)—what she calls ‘the We…
Movementality: A Reflection on the Experience of Mobility
“Our Ancestors Were Material Scientists”: Archaeological and Geochemical Evidence for Indigenous Yoruba Glass Technology
The quest for a comprehensive understanding of Africa’s indigenous technology has been an important intellectual agenda in Black Studies. In some instances this interest has tended to be speculative and derivative because most Black Studies scholars are not trained in the disciplinary fields that are relevant for investigating Africa’s indigenous technology through primary field and laboratory research. Collaboration between Black Studies scholar…
Materialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic
Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture edited by Jacob K. Olupona and Terry Rey (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008). ISBN 9780299224646
The Making of an Internal Frontier Settlement: Archaeology and Historical Process in Osun Grove (Nigeria), Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries
The Osun-Osogbo Grove as a Social Common and an Uncommon Ground: An Analysis of Patrimonial Patronage in Postcolonial Nigeria
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589, by Toby Green
Journal Article The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589, by Toby Green Get access The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589, by Toby Green (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2012; pp. xxvi + 333. £65). Akin Ogundiran Akin Ogundiran University of North Carolina at Charlotte Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue…
Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland
Akinwumi Ogundiran, Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2/3 (2002), pp. 427-457
Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora: Blacks in the Diaspora
The material culture of the slave trade explored
The Making of an Internal Frontier Settlement: Archaeology and Historical Process in Osun Grove (Nigeria), Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Filling a Gap in the Ife–Benin Interaction Field (Thirteenth–Sixteenth Centuries AD): Excavations in Iloyi Settlement, Ijesaland
The Osun-Osogbo Grove as a Social Common and an Uncommon Ground: An Analysis of Patrimonial Patronage in Postcolonial Nigeria
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th-19th Centuries A.C
Akinwumi O. Ogundiran, Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th-19th Centuries A.C., Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 2001), pp. 27-43
Editor’s Inaugural Remarks
A Mosaic of Yorùbá Ontology and Materiality of Pleasure Since AD 1000
What have been the meanings and meaningfulness of pleasure in Yorùbá thought, practice, and history over the past eight hundred years? Ogundiran draws from literary, archaeological, myth-historical, and ethnographic sources to answer this question in two parts. First, he examines the ontologies, materiality, and sociality of pleasure at the levels of ordinary experience and institutional culture. Second, he demonstrates how pleasurable experience…
Doing Archaeology in a Turbulent Time
Food Security, Food Sovereignty, and Indigenous Knowledge
Making History in Banda: Anthropological Visions of Africa's Past
The Covid-19 Pandemic: Perspectives for Reimaging and Reimagining Archaeological Practice
On Covid-19 and Matters Arising
Factional Competition, Sociopolitical Development, and Settlement Cycling in Ìlàrè District ( ca . 1200-1900): Oral Traditions of Historical Experience in a Yorùbà Community
This paper is an assessment of the local historical model of sociopolitical development and settlement history in Ìlàrè community, southwest Nigeria. Ìlàrè was at the nucleus of an early sociopolitical formation in Ìjèsàland. The formation, known as Éka Òsun, held sway over the area of northern Ìjèsàland between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The study forms part of the ongoing archeological and historical investigations on the settlemen…
Knowledge, Ethics, and Power: Publishing African Objects Without Clear African Provenance
October 01 2020 Knowledge, Ethics, and Power: Publishing African Objects Without Clear African Provenance Lisa Homann, Lisa Homann Guest Dialogue Editor; Associate Professor, Department of Art & Art History, UNC Charlotte; UNC Editorial Board Member, African Arts Consortium Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar UCLA Editorial Board, UCLA Editorial Board Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Schola…
Rituals and economics of regeneration
Colonial Modernity, Rituals and Feasting in Odùduwà Grove, Ilé-Ifẹ (Nigeria)
Sacred groves are ubiquitous on the cultural landscape of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and they have been the site of most archaeological research in the ancient Yoruba city. But these studies have been driven by the view that sacred groves were places of static ritual traditions. Recovering the paraphernalia of those rituals, especially the exquisite sculptures, therefore preoccupied the pioneering archaeological research in Ilé-Ifẹ̀. In contrast, the historical tr…
Afro-European Trade in the Atlantic World: The Western Slave Coast c.1550–c.1885, by Silke Strickrodt
So much has been written on the African/European trade on the littorals of Western Africa between the 1500s and 1800s, that one could not but wonder whether anything new could still be said on this subject. But there are many justifications for this new addition to the historiography of African/European trade. Silke Strickrodt shows that the area between the Volta and Mono Rivers (in present-day Ghana and Togo respectively)—what she calls ‘the We…
Movementality: A Reflection on the Experience of Mobility
Potters’ marks and social relations of ceramic distribution in the Oyo Empire
A recently collated inventory of potters' marks in the Oyo ceramic complex of southwestern Nigeria provides important insights into the social relations of ceramic production in the Oyo Empire during the Atlantic Age. Focusing on the serving and cooking bowls excavated in the imperial colony of Ede-Ile, this paper examines the formal and social aspects of potters' marks in the production and circulation of utilitarian vessels, as well as in the f…
Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th–19th Centuries A.C
The spatial thresholds of ceramic spheres and interaction networks are delineated in the Yoruba-Edo region SW Nigeria, between the 13th and 19th centuries A.C. in order to understand the relationships between the regional periphery of Ilare district and the major political centers and the events that originated from them. This study assumes that the intersocietal movement of commodities reflects regional interaction systems. Integrating the distr…
Factional Competition, Sociopolitical Development, and Settlement Cycling in Ìlàrè District ( ca . 1200-1900): Oral Traditions of Historical Experience in a Yorùbà Community
This paper is an assessment of the local historical model of sociopolitical development and settlement history in Ìlàrè community, southwest Nigeria. Ìlàrè was at the nucleus of an early sociopolitical formation in Ìjèsàland. The formation, known as Éka Òsun, held sway over the area of northern Ìjèsàland between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The study forms part of the ongoing archeological and historical investigations on the settlemen…
Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th–19th Centuries A.C
The spatial thresholds of ceramic spheres and interaction networks are delineated in the Yoruba-Edo region SW Nigeria, between the 13th and 19th centuries A.C. in order to understand the relationships between the regional periphery of Ilare district and the major political centers and the events that originated from them. This study assumes that the intersocietal movement of commodities reflects regional interaction systems. Integrating the distr…
Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th-19th Centuries A.C
Akinwumi O. Ogundiran, Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th-19th Centuries A.C., Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 2001), pp. 27-43
Making History in Banda: Anthropological Visions of Africa's Past
Filling a Gap in the Ife–Benin Interaction Field (Thirteenth–Sixteenth Centuries AD): Excavations in Iloyi Settlement, Ijesaland
Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland
Akinwumi Ogundiran, Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2/3 (2002), pp. 427-457
Issues in Historiography
Four Millennia of Cultural History in Nigeria (ca. 2000 B.C.–A.D. 1900): Archaeological Perspectives
Frontier Migrations and Cultural Transformations in the Yoruba Hinterland, ca. 1575–1700 The Case of Upper Osun
Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora: Blacks in the Diaspora
The material culture of the slave trade explored
John L. Cotter Award in Historical Archaeology: Cheryl Janifer LaRoche
Potters’ marks and social relations of ceramic distribution in the Oyo Empire
A recently collated inventory of potters' marks in the Oyo ceramic complex of southwestern Nigeria provides important insights into the social relations of ceramic production in the Oyo Empire during the Atlantic Age. Focusing on the serving and cooking bowls excavated in the imperial colony of Ede-Ile, this paper examines the formal and social aspects of potters' marks in the production and circulation of utilitarian vessels, as well as in the f…
The Formation of an Oyo Imperial Colony during the Atlantic Age
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives
This volume examines the archaeology of precolonial West African societies in the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Using historical and archaeological perspectives on landscape, this collection of essays sheds light on how involvement in the commercial revolutions of the early modern period dramatically reshaped the regional contours of political organization across West Africa. The essays examine how social and political transformations oc…
Being and becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary perspectives, edited by Anne Haour and Benedetta Rossi
Being and becoming Hausa: interdisciplinary perspectives, edited by Anne Haour and Benedetta Rossi. Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2010, 310 pp., $107 (hardcover), ISBN 978-9004185425. http://dx.doi.org
The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589, by Toby Green
Journal Article The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589, by Toby Green Get access The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589, by Toby Green (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2012; pp. xxvi + 333. £65). Akin Ogundiran Akin Ogundiran University of North Carolina at Charlotte Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue…
The End of Prehistory? An Africanist Comment
THE STORY IS ALREADY WELL TOLD that history as a professional discipline developed out of the rise of the nation-state and nationalism, with an emphasis on methodological rigor that is based on institutional archives. 1This origin came along, however, with an impoverished diet of methodology that has since conditioned the growth of a stunted historiography, especially with the elision of about 99 percent of human temporal experience from the purv…
Materialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic
Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture edited by Jacob K. Olupona and Terry Rey (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008). ISBN 9780299224646
The Making of an Internal Frontier Settlement: Archaeology and Historical Process in Osun Grove (Nigeria), Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries
The Osun-Osogbo Grove as a Social Common and an Uncommon Ground: An Analysis of Patrimonial Patronage in Postcolonial Nigeria
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
“Our Ancestors Were Material Scientists”: Archaeological and Geochemical Evidence for Indigenous Yoruba Glass Technology
The quest for a comprehensive understanding of Africa’s indigenous technology has been an important intellectual agenda in Black Studies. In some instances this interest has tended to be speculative and derivative because most Black Studies scholars are not trained in the disciplinary fields that are relevant for investigating Africa’s indigenous technology through primary field and laboratory research. Collaboration between Black Studies scholar…
Movementality: A Reflection on the Experience of Mobility
Colonial Modernity, Rituals and Feasting in Odùduwà Grove, Ilé-Ifẹ (Nigeria)
Sacred groves are ubiquitous on the cultural landscape of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and they have been the site of most archaeological research in the ancient Yoruba city. But these studies have been driven by the view that sacred groves were places of static ritual traditions. Recovering the paraphernalia of those rituals, especially the exquisite sculptures, therefore preoccupied the pioneering archaeological research in Ilé-Ifẹ̀. In contrast, the historical tr…
Afro-European Trade in the Atlantic World: The Western Slave Coast c.1550–c.1885, by Silke Strickrodt
So much has been written on the African/European trade on the littorals of Western Africa between the 1500s and 1800s, that one could not but wonder whether anything new could still be said on this subject. But there are many justifications for this new addition to the historiography of African/European trade. Silke Strickrodt shows that the area between the Volta and Mono Rivers (in present-day Ghana and Togo respectively)—what she calls ‘the We…
History (32 works) · Archaeology (29 works) · Geography (22 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (16 works) · History (16 works) · Anthropology (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Art (11 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (10 works)