Djenné-Jeno

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Jenne-Jeno is the original site of Djenné, Mali and considered to be among the oldest urbanizations in sub-Saharan Africa. It was the subject of archeological digs by Susan and Roderick MacIntosh (and others) in the 1970s and has been dated to the 3rd century B.C. sparking a new investigation into the process by which urbanization occurs. There is evidence of iron-production, domestication of plants and animals, and complex heterarchical urban development as early as 900 B.C.^[1].

Radiocarbon dates show that people first settled here permanently in about 250 B.C.. Between 750 and 1000 A.D., after centuries of occupation stood an 82-acre site on the river Bani consisting of a large tear-shaped mound surrounded by 69 hillocks, created by its people (which may have numbered up to 27,000), who built and rebuilt their houses.^[2] During this time period, notable changes are observed as having occurred. Previously, from the fifth to ninth century, houses at Jenne-Jeno were constructed with puddled mud or tauf foundations, later to be replaced by new, innovative cylindrical-brick architecture. While data on the source of this apparently new innovation is scant, it is suggested that the process was indigenous since change is also seen with an accompanied continuity in pottery and the general structural lay-out of the houses; therefore it is unlikely that any change in ethnic composition had occurred.^[3] The first verifiable Islamic influence on the town appears in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the form of brass, spindle whorls, and rectilinear houses.

The inhabitants of Jenne-Jeno were an aquatic and largely subsistence based people. They accomplished what is thought to have been among the first examples of rice domestication on the continent and were the first in the Western Sudan region to establish its signature mud-brick architecture; a predecessor to Sudano-Sahelian.^[4] They also possessed their own iron technology and developed some of the most fine terracotta figures in the region.^[5]

[edit] References

1. ^ MacIntosh, Rod. Ancient Middle Niger. Cambridge University Press. 2005.
2. ^ Roderick J. McIntosh, Susan Keech McIntosh, The Journal of African History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1981), pp. 1-22
3. ^ Jenne-jeno, an ancient African city
4. ^ The Antiquity of Man: East & West African complex societies by Mikey Brass (1998)
5. ^ Mali Empire and Djenne Figures - National Museum of African Art