RESEARCH PROJECTS
1. THE VOLTA BASIN ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESARCH PROJECT
GHANA, WEST AFRICA
Introduction
The construction of one of the world's largest wholly man-made lakes generated the most
ambitious archaeological survey and reconnaissance ever known in the basin of the Volta River.
The result was the location of hundreds of sites related to many different pre-historic and
historic periods. Owing to its rescue nature the Volta Basin Research Project (V.B.R.P.),
undertook only limited excavations (Davies 1967, York, Mathewson, Calvocoressi and Flight
1967) relative to the time and facilities available at the time. After the VBRP ended it
operations in the mid sixties the basin has saw little or no archaeological activity until.
1981 when the Volta Basin Archaeological Project (VBRAB) was established.
Project Objectives
The VBARP aimed at reconstructing the settlement history of the traditional societies in the
northern portion of the Volta basin. That revived archaeological activity (Agorsah 1983),
1985) which resulted in my doctoral dissertation at the University of California in Los
Angeles (Agorsah 1983) which attempted to examine the dynamics of the formation and
transformation of Nchumuru settlement and behavior patterns in the basin. Owing to very
encouraging results the project received further sponsorship from the National Geographic
Society, University of Ghana and the Ghana Museum and Monuments Board.
The objective was expanded to include the examination of the geographic location, distribution
and patterning of early traditional settlements in the northern section of the Volta basin.
Secondly, the project attempted to identify the effect of the environment and social networks
of the societies in the area, on geographical locations. An attempt was also made to establish
evidence that could be adduced to identify the individual group features in the archaeological
record through excavation of some selected sites. Some questions that served as guidelines
were: What were the main environmental characteristics and features of the settlements and how
were they related to their geographical locations? To what extent have the locations been
influenced by social group organization of the traditional societies in the area? How could
the various social groups be identified by the geographical locations as well as the cultural
material culture from the sites?
Some Generalizations
So far, the research has generalized that because human spatial behavior is strongly
dependent on an individual community's cognition of its environment and experiences over time,
and also because these elements are influenced by the society's social relationships, they can
be used to explain the dynamics of cultural responses to changing conditions. The Volta Basin
was recognized to have witnessed a considerable amount of cultural dynamics which were very
complex in nature, in the last half century. The formation and transformation in settlements,
house types and forms, spatial distributions and association of structural features within
settlements and houses, as well as well as the recurring modes of activities and behavior,
were the main issues addressed. Movements of societies in the interior of Ghana appear to have
been affected by activities resulting from European arrival at the coast but only indirectly
and only at the regional level rather than settlement and individual structure or house
levels. It is demonstrated that, by identifying how the social and the spatial interact, the
dynamics of the changes or transformations occurring can be more meaningfully explained and
understood. These transformations demonstrate the significance of the consequences of
traditional social values on human spatial behavior, as a response to changing political,
economic and cultural conditions associated with population movements. Observed changes in
patterning at the regional, individual settlement and house levels in the northern Volta
basin, clearly indicate that for the societies in the Volta basin, spatial adjustment or
adaptation meant that "to deny the social was to deny the solution."
Related Publications
Agorsah, K.
1982 Spatial expressions of Traditional behavior: An ethnoarchaeological study,
Archaeology at UCLA, 2 (6), Ed. by E. Elster, Institute of Archaeology,
University of California, Los Angeles.
1983a An ethnoarchaeological study of settlement and behavior patterns of a
West African traditional society: the Nchumuru of Banda-Wiae in Ghana. Ph.D.
Dissertation
UCLA, Univ. Microfilms Int. Ann Arbor Mich. (83-21, 948).
1983b Social behavior and spatial context, African Study monographs, 4:119-128,
University of Kyoto, Japan.
1983c Patterns of spatial behavior among Nchumuru, Nyame akuma, 23:6-8.
1985a Archaeological implications of traditional house construction among the
Nchumuru of Northern Ghana, Current Anthropology, 26 (1): 103-115.
1985b Excavations in the Northern Volta Basin, West African journal of Archaeology, 15:
11-40.
1986 The internal spatial organization of traditional houses in northern Volta basin of
Ghana, Research Review 2 (2): 104-134.
1986b Material characterization of Kintampo cigars. Nyame akuma: 27:10.
1986d Settlement pattern analysis in the Northern Volta Basin. Archaeological
Research Report for 1983-85, Presented to the National Geographic
Society and the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra.
1986e House forms in N. Volta Basin, Ghana (Evolution, internal organization and social
relationships depicted), West African Journal of Archaeology, 16: 25-51.
1987 Volta Basin Research Project 1984-85. Nyame akuma, 28:11-14.
1988a Evaluating spatial behavior patterns of prehistoric societies, Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology, 7 (3): 231-247.
1988b Settlement History of the Northern Volta Basin of Ghana, National
Geographic Research, Vol. 4 (3): 371-385.
1990 Ethnoarchaeology: the search for a self-corrective approach to the study of
past human behavior, African Archaeological Review, Vol.8: 189-207.
1993 Archaeology and resistance History in the Caribbean, African Archaeological Review,
11:175-195
1994 Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives,
Canoe Press, University of the West Indies, Kingston.
1999 Archaeological considerations of social relationships and settlement patterning
among Africans in the Caribbean Diaspora, African Sites Archaeology in the
Caribbean, Ed. Jay Haviser, Ian Randle, Kingston: 38-64.
CONTACTS:
Ghana: Dr. E. Kofi Agorsah, (Project Director), VBARP, P. O. Box 43, Kete-Krachi, Volta
Region, Ghana, West Africa.
USA Dr. E. Kofi Agorsah (Project Director) VBARP, P. O. Box 8205,
University Station,
Portland, Oregon 97207.
Tel: 503-725-5080 Fax: 503-725-4003
E-Mail: agorsahe@pdx.edu or kofiagorsah@Yahoo.com
E-Mail: kofiagorsah@Yahoo.com
2. MAROON HERITAGE RESEARCH PROJECT (MHRP)
(THE CARIBEAN AND THE AMERICAS)
Introduction
The Maroon Heritage Research Project (MHRP) launched since 1990 aims at conducting
archaeological study of sites of Maroons (groups of people who escaped from slavery and formed
independent communities and pioneered struggles against slavery in the New World) in the
Caribbean and South America. It involves field mapping, excavation and analysis of cultural
material and publication of the research data. Although earlier phases of the project in
Jamaica confirmed the partnership of enslaved Africans and Amerindians in freedom-fighting,
questions regarding socio-spatial relationships, and the formation and transformations of
Maroon settlements and culture remain unanswered.
Maroon Archaeology in Jamaica
The early part of the project was conducted in Jamaica. The archaeological project,
the first of its kind on Maroon heritage, received support from Universities, individuals,
and other research institutions in the Caribbean and North America, resulting in the
accumulation of a large body and a wide range of data in the laboratories of the University
of the West Indies (UWI). The outcome has been the survey, mapping and excavation of four
Maroon sites in Jamaica: Nanny Town, Marshall's Hall, Old Accompong and Seaman's Valley and
the collection of ethnographic data on Maroon warfare, political and social network,
traditional medicine and related aspects of Maroon heritage in Jamaica. Although the study
confirmed the partnership of enslaved Africans and Amerindians in freedom-fighting, questions
regarding socio-spatial relationships, and Maroon responses to the formation and
transformations in their settlements and cultural behavior, remained unanswered.
Maroon Archaeology in Suriname
Since 1996, the project has sought answers to questions regarding these issues by examining
selected Maroon sites including the already surveyed sites of Kumako, Tuido as well as
Bakakum, and Sentea, all in the Saramakan Maroon areas of Suriname with histories spanning the
earliest, middle and latest periods of Maroon existence in Suriname. Cultural data on
settlement patterns and spatial behavior, mortuary practices, artifact patterns and structural
regularities, soil chemical analysis and dating will be used to determine the formation and
transformation processes in land use and other cultural patterns. The main objective has been
to identify, through archaeological evidence, supported by ethnographic data, the nature and
mechanism of cultural responses or functional adaptation of the Maroons to transformations in
ecological, social and economic conditions occurring during colonial times in Suriname.
Unanswered Questions from Previous Research
The excavations at Maroon sites in Jamaica have broken new grounds in Maroon heritage studies.
However, little evidence of houses and house structures was uncovered. Questions about the
internal physical plan and organization of Maroon settlements and their spatial behavior,
mortuary practices and foodways remain undetermined. While the Maroon sites in Jamaica did
not permit the acquisition of material to address these and other related issues, the sites in
Suriname appear, from preliminary reconnaissance, to have the potential for evidence for
addressing and dealing with some of these unanswered questions, wholly or at least partially.
The availability of an extensive ethnographic material on Maroons of Suriname should make this
goal more attainable. In addition, Suriname will provide comparative data on settlement
development using evidence from the sites of Kumako, Tuido, Bakakum and Sentea (Fig. 2) which
span the earliest, middle and later periods respectively, of Maroon history in the area.
Evidence of physical and locational changes in house features should indicate adaptation to
the settlement space available to them and also adjustments in their social relationships over
time. This will constitute the main test of the hypothesis of the study as indicated earlier.
The proposed new phase will also have the additional opportunity of dealing with Maroon
society with evidence of longer sequence of habitation in the same area, more clearly and
better ethnographically defined and researched.
Publication of the results of the project, using the Suriname and Jamaican examples, will help
explain more effectively the nature and mechanism of the functional adaptation of the
Maroons. Attempting to explain the role of the Maroon experience in the New World, as well as
a single constant strand in New World heritage will be a major challenge. Existing large
volumes of documentary and ethnographic data on Maroons make no reference or attempt to
collect archaeological evidence and fail to research the processes of the formation and
transformation of Maroon past Maroon heritage and the relationship between the societies and
their past settlement as well as their spatial behavior that may have constituted the root of
their achievements as freedom fighters and fill in the gaps in our knowledge of Maroon
culture. Several challenges face this project as it is the first of its kind. For example,
archaeologically demonstrating that the current leadership of the New World in
freedom-fighting is re-enactment of efforts that have characterized its heritage for
centuries, will be another major challenge. Determining social relationships and ethnicity,
using spatial regularities and artifact patterns heightens the challenge. However, the
results should redress many aspects of the imbalance in contemporary scholarship about the
period of slavery and the pioneer freedom-fighters.
A major goal of this proposed project is to identify, through archaeological evidence,
supported by abundant available ethnographic data, the nature of cultural responses of the
Maroons to the formation and transformations in ecological, political, social and economic
conditions occurring during colonial times. Secondly, the project is expected to result in a
book publication, which will present detailed descriptive analysis and interpretation of the
archaeological evidence.
This project addresses A Freedom @ it addresses the material evidence of its roots in the
Caribbean and challenges historiographic concepts that relegate the achievements of
small-scale freedom-fighting societies to a secondary place in human history using
archaeological evidence for the first time. The question that prompted the Maroon Heritage
Research Project (MHRP) several years ago was: what was the nature and mechanism of the
functional adaptation of the Maroons to ecological, political, social and economic changes
throughout their entire period of freedom-fighting? Secondly, in what ways would one consider
the Maroon experience as emblematic of broader processes that shaped the heritage of the
western hemisphere? Within these general questions several related ones have arisen and while
it has been possible to address them in previous excavations in Jamaica some of them and even
new and additional ones remain to be addressed in this proposed project in Suriname, South
America.
Archaeology and Maroon Heritage
The heritage of the Maroons, goes back to the very earliest days of European settlement and
slavery in the New World, but the story has never been told archaeologically. Historical
documents mention that as early as 1502, the first known African slave escaped his captors and
fled into the interior of the island of Hispaniola. Others joined later to form one of the
earliest documented Maroon communities on an island named Samana, located off the coast of
Hispaniola. Many more of such runaway communities, many of them escaping from the mines,
ranches and plantations of the European colonizers, were to emerge throughout the New World.
Although small in size and in the extent of their operations, Maroon communities were among
the first Americans, in the wake of 1492 to resist slavery and colonial domination. They
forged new cultures and identities and developed solidarity out of diversity through processes
which only later took place on a much larger scale. Maroon societies ranged in size from
groups of a few people to powerful groups or bands, although some numbered up to a thousand or
more (Hoogbergen 1991). Marronage was a common phenomenon in all parts of the Western
hemisphere where slavery was practiced. Wherever large expanses of inaccessible and
uninhabited terrain permitted, as in the rough and rugged mountains of Jamaica, the Dominican
Republic or Equatorial forest and marshlands of Suriname or the marshlands of Oklahoma and
Texas in the USA, these communities proliferated (Fig. 1). For example, in British North
American colonies, more than fifty Maroon settlements, including those of the Black Warriors
of the Seminole, are known to have come into being between 1672 and 1864. Not only were
Maroons at the forefront of resistance to slavery, they were also among the first pioneers to
explore and adapt to the more remote, unsettled spaces in both American continents and the
Caribbean. Brief summaries of previous excavations and the results obtained so far from the
main excavated sites are discussed in preliminary reports (See bibliography below.)
Acknowledgements
The project has been supported by the University of the West Indies; Kingston, Jamaica;
Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT), The Wenner-Gren Foundation For Anthropological
Research, USA; Earthwatch and Center For Field Research, The National Geographic Society,
USA., Archaeological Society of Jamaica, the National Museum of Suriname, Paramaribo, the
Chiefs, Councils of Elders and Maroons of Jamaica and Suriname and Portland State University,
Portland, Oregon.
Selected /Related Publications
Agorsah, E. K.
1990 Archaeology of Maroon Heritage in Jamaica Archaeology Jamaica (Newsletter of
the Archaeological Society of Jamaica, (New Series) 2: 14 - 19.
1992 Archaeology and Maroon heritage in Jamaica, Jamaica Journal, Vol. 22 (1): 2 - 9.
1993 Archaeology and Resistance History in the Caribbean, African Archaeological Review,
11 :175-195.
1994 Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives, Kingston,
Canoe Press.
1996 Freedom Fighters of Suriname: Maroon Heritage Research Project, Report for 1996,
Submitted to the Faculty Development Committee, Portland State University (PSU),
Oregon and
The Suriname National Museum, Fort Zeelandia, Paramaribo, November 1996
1997a Archaeology of Locational and Spatial Transformation Patterns: Suriname Maroon
Settlements, A Preliminary report submitted to National Geographic Society, USA
and The Suriname National Museum, November 1997
1997b Seaman=s Valley and Maroon Material Culture, proceedings of the 17th Congress of
the International Association For Caribbean Archaeology (IACA), Nasau, Bahamas,
July 1997.
Agorsah, K., Bandara, S. B.
1995 Seaman's Valley Excavation, Portland, Jamaica: A Preliminary Report Archaeology
Jamaica (N.S.), 9 & 10: 33 - 43.
Arrom, J. J. and Arevalo, M.A.G.
1986 Cimarron, Santo Domingo, Fundacion Garcia-Arevalo, Inc.
Bandara, S.B.
1995 1995 Excavation Investigation to continue at Seaman=s Valley, Portland, Mona News,
126: 3 & 8, University of the West Indies.
Bandara, S.B.
1995 1995 Excavation Investigation to continue at Seaman=s Valley, Portland, Mona News,
126: 3 & 8, University of the West Indies.
Barroso, E.
1984 Ya el cimarron, Havana, Ed. Gente Nueva.
Bateman, R. B
1990 Africans and Indians: A Comparative Study f the Black Carib and Black Seminole,
Ethnohistory 37 (1) :5-23
Bonner, T.
1974 The Blue Mountain Expedition, Jamaica Journal, 8 (2 & 3): 46-50.
Bryan, P.
1971 African Affinities: The Blacks of Latin America, Caribbean Quarterly, 17 (3 & 4):
45 - 52.
Bubberman, F. C.
1976 In Het Spoor der Maroons, Stichting Surinaams Museum, Mededelingen 17 & 18: 24-27.
Campbell, M.
1993 Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons From Nova Scotia, Trenton, Africa World
Press.
Carvalho, J. J. de
1985 A Recionalidade Antropologica em Face do Segredo, Anuario Antropologica,
84:214-222, Rio: Tempo Brasileiro.
Carvalho, J. Jorge de, Doria, S. Z and Oliveira Jr. A. N. de
1996 O Quilombo do Rio Das Ras: Historias, Tradicoes, Lutas, Salvador, Editoria Da
Universidade Federal Da Bahia.
Carneiro, E.
1958 O Quilombo dos Palmares, 1630-1695, Sao Paulo, Editoria Brasiliense Limitada.
Corzo, G. L. R
1988 Los Cimarrones De Cuba, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, La Habana.
Craton, M.
1982 Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies, Ithaca,
Cornell University Press.
Dallas, R. C.
1803 The History of Maroons, London, T.N. Longman & O.Rees/London: A. Strahan.
Deagan, K. And MacMahon, D.
1995 Fort Mose: Colonial America=s Black Fortresses of Freedom, Gainesville, University
Press of Florida.
Edwards, A.
1994 Maroon Warfare: The Jamaican Model, Maroon Heritage: Archaeological, Ethnographic
and Historical Perspectives, Ed. E. Kofi Agorsah, Canoe Press, University of the
West Indies, Kingston: 149-162.
Goucher, C.
1990 African Hammer, European anvil: West African Iron making in the Atlantic trade era,
West African Journal of Archaeology, 20 : 200 - 208.
1990 John Reeder's Foundry: a study of 18th century African-Caribbean technology,
Jamaica Journal 23 (1) : 39-43.
1993 African Metallurgy the Atlantic World, African Archaeological Review, Vol.11,
197 - 215
Guevara, C.
1969 Guerrilla Warfare, Translated from Spanish by J. P. Murray with prefatory note
by I.F. Stone, New York, Vintage Books.
Guimaraes, C. M.
1990 O Quilombo Ambrosio: Lenda, Documents e Arqueologia, Estudos Ibero-Americanos 16:
161-174.
Handler, J. S. and Lange, F. W.
1978 Plantation slavery in Barbados: An archaeological and historical investigation,
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Hoogbergen, w.
1990 The History of the Suriname Maroons, Resistance and Rebellion in Suriname (Old and
New)Studies in third World Societies Ed. Sutlive, V. H., , Zamora, M.D., Kerns,
V. and Hamada, T., Wiliamsburg, College of Wiliam& Mary 43: 65-102
Kent, R.K.
1996 Palmares: An African State in Brazil, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slaves and
Communities in the Americas, Ed. R. Price, Baaltimore, Johns Hopkins University
Press: 170-190.
Laguerre, M.S.
1989 Voodoo and Politics in Haiti, New York, St. Martin's Press.
Libretto, H.R.M.
1990 Het Gezags-en Bestuussysteem in het binnenland can Suriname, Paramaribo,
Graficom.
Liverpool, H.
1993 "Ritual of Power and Rebellion: The Carnival Tradition in Trinidad and Tobago"
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan Vol. 1: 66-70
Morales, P. F.
1952 Jamaica Espanola, Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla.
Mulroy, K.
1993 Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida etc, Houston?,
Texas Technology University Press.
Nichols, E.
1988 ANo Easy Run To Freedom: Maroons in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and
Virginia 1677-1850,@ M.A. Thesis Department of Anthropology, University of South
Carolina, Columbia.
Orser, C. Jr.
1992 "In Search of Zumbi: Preliminary Archaeological Research at the Serra Da Barriga,
State of Alagoas, Brazil", Illinois State University, USA
Orser, C. E. and Funari, P. P.
1992 Pesquisa arqueologic inicial em Palmares, Estudos Ibero-Americanos 18 3-69.
Pereira, J. (Editor)
1990 The Maroon in Cuban and Jamaican Literature, Caribbean Literature in comparison, Ed.
J. R. Pereira, 9-30, University of the West Indies, Institute of Caribbean
Studies, Series 1.
1994 Maroon Heritage in Mexico, Maroon Heritage: Archaeological,Ethnographic, and
Historical Perspectives, Ed. K. Agorsah, Kingston, Canoe Press: 94 -108.
Price, R.
1976 The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Bibliographic Introduction, Baltimore, Johns
Hopkins University Press.
1983 First Time: A Historical Vision of the Afro-American people, Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins University Press.
1996 Maroon Societies: Rebel Slaves and Communities in the Americas, Baltimore, Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Price, S and Price, R.
1980 Afro-American Arts of the Suriname Rain Forest, Berkeley, University of California
Press
Teulon, A. E.
nd "Report on the Expedition to Nanny Town (July 1967)", A mimeographed report, I
Institute of Jamaica, Kingston.
Thybony, S.
1991 Black Seminoles: A Tradition of Courage, Smithsonian, 22 No. 5.
Weik, T.
1997 The Archaeology of Maroon Societies in the Americas: Resistance, Cultural
Continuity and Transformation in the African Diaspora, Historical Archaeology,
3 (2): 81-92
Weisman, B. R.
1989 Like Beads on a String: A culture History of the Seminole in North Florida,
Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press.
Wright, J. L. Jr.
1986 Creeks and Seminoles, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.
CONTACTS:
Suriname:Dr. E. Kofi Agorsah, (Project Director), Maroon Heritage Research Project (MHRP),
c/o Drs Laddy van Putten and Hanna van Putten, Stichtung Surinaams Museum, Fort
Zeelandia, Abraham Crijnssenweg 1, Paramaribo, Suriname, S. America OR
Commerwijnestraat 18, Zog en Hoop, P. O. Box 2306, Paramaribo, Suriname,, S.
America.
Tel: (597) 425871/Fax (597) 425881 E-Mail: kofiagorsah@Yahoo.com
Jamaica: Department of History, University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston 7,
Jamaica, West Indies. E-Mail: kofiagorsah@Yahoo.com
USA Dr. E. Kofi Agorsah (Project Director) (MHRP), P. O. Box 8205, University Station,
Portland, Oregon 97207. Tel: 503-725-5080 Fax: 503-725-4003
E-Mail: agorsahe@pdx.edu or kofiagorsah@Yahoo.com