| # | Polity | Enclosure | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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The following suggests that the only type of site that has been identified are homesteads. “For the first 400 years of the settlement’s history, Kirikongo was a single economically generalized social group (Figure 6). The occupants were self-sufficient farmers who cultivated grains and herded livestock, smelted and forged iron, opportunistically hunted, lived in puddled earthen structures with pounded clay floors, and fished in the seasonal drainages. [...] Since Kirikongo did not grow (at least not significantly) for over 400 years, it is likely that extra-community fissioning continually occurred to contribute to regional population growth, and it is also likely that Kirikongo itself was the result of budding from a previous homestead. However, with the small scale of settlement, the inhabitants of individual homesteads must have interacted with a wider community for social and demographic reasons. [...] It may be that generalized single-kin homesteads like Kirikongo were the societal model for a post-LSA expansion of farming peoples along the Nakambe (White Volta) and Mouhoun (Black Volta) River basins. A homestead settlement pattern would fit well with the transitional nature of early sedentary life, where societies are shifting from generalized reciprocity to more restricted and formalized group membership, and single-kin communities like Kirikongo’s house (Mound 4) would be roughly the size of a band.”
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 27, 32) |
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A distinctive feature of this cultural group, found in settlements of all levels, acting as both cattle enclosures and male burial sites. “Sites in the Toutswe region date between CE 700 – 1300 and share a variety of settlement patterns, economic features and material culture…. Remains of animal enclosures, or kraals… have been recovered.”
[1]
“Males were mostly buried in central kraals or middens while women and children were buried next to huts surrounding the central kraal…. Although information on the Toutswemogala burials is sparse, it appears that the burials were found in different parts of the site below the cattle dung deposits.”
[2]
[1]: (Murphy 2011; 592) Kimmarie A. Murphy, “A Meal on the Hoof or Wealth in the Kraal? Stable Isotopes at Kgaswe and Taukome in Eastern Botswana,” in International Journal of Osteoarchaeology Vol. 21 (2011): 591-601. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/I3QB6TSV/collection [2]: (Mosothwane & Steyn 2004; 49) Morongwa N. Mosothwane & Maryna Steyn, “Palaeodemography of Early Iron Age Toutswe Communities in Botswana,” in The South African Archaeological Bulletin Vol. 59, No. 180 (2004): 45-51. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/KJZWB7HR/collection |
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There were walled cities and villages with fortifications, such as Bukhara and Guraj, as well as animal enclosures.
[1]
[2]
Fortresses were present across the region and were usually also found in cities which were often double walled such as at the city of Samarqand.
[3]
[1]: Boyle 1968: 142. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CFW8EE6Q [2]: Barthold 1968: 336. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/2CHVZMEB [3]: Buniyatov 2015: 85-86. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SAEVEJFH |
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Animal enclosures and stables, farmland may have been enclose, palace enclosures etc.
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City walls, forts, animal enclosures, private land enclosures.
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Cattle kraals. Despite the names, the ‘enclosures’ referred to in the archaeological record for the site may not actually fit the definition of enclosures used in this project, it being uncertain whether they were in locations separate from those of normal habitation. Scholarly interpretation is conflicting. Huffman’s earlier work on the subject suggests the enclosures served a variety of purposes, including surrounding ritual centers and royal wives’ quarters, but other experts have challenged this view. The other school of interpretation suggests that the enclosures were the centers of royal government, adopted by successive rulers over a long period of time – and consequently not ‘special purpose sites.’ However, the remnants of cattle kraals have been discovered at the site, and these most certainly do fit the definition of an ‘enclosure’ for coding purposes. “Huffman concluded that the kings at Great Zimbabwe resided in the Western Enclosure of the Hill Complex while the Eastern Enclosure served as a ritual centre. The Great Enclosure in the valley was interpretated as a centre for initiation, while the Valley Enclosures were the residences of the royal wives…. Beach… made recourse to Shona ethnography and history of political succession to argue that the ruler’s residences had more likely changed during Great Zimbabwe’s 200-year fluorescence. Thus the Great Enclosure was not an initiation centre nor were the valley enclosures residences for royal wives: they were centres adopted by successive rulers…. The thesis of changing rulers’ residences is adequately supported by the distribution of material culture…. Although the dates of the assemblages change, there is a remarkable similarity in the range of objects and activities carried out in the earlier and later enclosures.”
[1]
“Remnants of infrastructure for cattle keeping such as kraals was observed on the site in areas such as the Hill Complex.”
[2]
[1]: (Chirikure & Pikirayi 2008, 988-989) Shadreck Chirikure & Innocent Pikirayi, “Inside and Outside the Dry Stone Walls: Revisiting the Material Culture of Great Zimbabwe,” in Antiquity Vol. 82 (2008): 976-993. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/UKSEXXIH/collection [2]: (Chirikure 2021, 185) Shadreck Chirikure, Great Zimbabwe: Reclaiming a ‘Confiscated’ Past (Routledge, 2021). Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MWWKAGSJ/collection |
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Fortifications built of multiple materials a noted part of the archaeological record from the latter half of the Mutapa period. “Fortifications arose in most parts of the state, and this is confirmed by archaeology. In the Ruya-Mazowe basin, more than 100 poorly coursed stone enclosures with loopholes… are located on hill and mountaintops.”
[1]
“During the late 15th century, the Mutapa dynasties in northern Zimbabwe conquered the copper mines of the northwestern plateau…//…Stone-walled settlements architecturally similar to Great Zimbabwe have been located in the region, dating from the 15th century onwards. Some of these Mutapa capitals were still being constructed in stone when the Portuguese arrived on the Zimbabwe Plateau in the early 16th century.”
[2]
[1]: (Pikirayi 2005, 1057)Innocent Pikirayi, “Mutapa State, 1450-1884,” in Encyclopedia of African History Vol. 2, ed. Kevin Shillington (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005): . Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/AWA9ZT5B/item-details [2]: (Pikirayi 2013, 31-32) Innocent Pikirayi, “Great Zimbabwe in Historical Archaeology: Reconceptualizing Decline, Abandonment, and Reoccupation of an Ancient Polity, A.D. 1450-1900,” in Historical Archaeology Vol. 47, No. 1 (2013): 26-37. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/642PWKV7/item-details |
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“The multiple wall system at OyoIle – the palace (innermost) wall, main outer (defence, with deep ditch) wall, outer wall 2 (with shallow ditch), and the northeast and northwest walls – demonstrates a complex history of urban formation (ig. 2). At its peak, the ancient capital had a north-south dimension of 10 km while its east-west spanned 6 km. The survey achieved three goals: (1) It led to the identification of the residential area, comprising mostly compound-courtyard structures (impluvium architecture), granary stone structures, a vast palace complex, a dug-out water reservoir, refuse mounds, as well as grinding stones and grinding hollows on rock outcrops. (2) It provided the spatial and density distribution of artifacts, mostly pottery. (3) It made purposive problem-oriented selective excavations possible because the provenance of many of the features is known.”
[1]
[1]: Gosselain, O. P., & MacEachern, S. (2017). Field Manual for African Archaeology (A. Livingstone-Smith & E. Cornelissen, Eds.): 70. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/JRMZECR5/collection |
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“Astley, in summarizing Desmarchais, supports such findings when he suggests that ditches/borrow pits were common in the area surrounding Savi, where: "As the ...[Huedans] build with Earth, which they dig-up as near as possible to their Habitations, their Houses are surrounded with such Holes, or Pits." Astley continues the description of the ditches to suggest that they were filled with all manner of trash and that the area surrounding Savi was so populated that the slopes of ditches were under cultivation, such that: “The Borders of the Hedges, the Sides of Ditches, and the Foot of their [enclosures, are planted with Melons of different Kinds, besides Pulse; so that not an inch of Ground lies unimproved, and that without Interruption”. Alongside their use as borrow pits, researchers argue for connections between ditches in the region of Abomey and the Savi palace zone and the Huedan python deity Dangbe, who Huedans considered to have the ability to check movement and create zones of inclusion and protection. Beyond their cosmological associations, Huedans placed structures and house compounds abutting ditches/borrow pits to maximize the defensive potential of various features. Thus, the contiguous architectural system of ditches/borrow pits together with the walls of house compounds presented an unbroken boundary between the interior of the compound and exterior spaces. As the opening paragraph suggests, these cosmological and physical attempts to bracket and buttress the Huedan countryside and palace were ultimately unsuccessful.”
[1]
[1]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 397. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection |
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Presence of stone walls at Torwa-Rozvi sites well documented at multiple sites. “At Khami phase sites like Danangombe, Naletale,and Manyanga among others, it appears P and Q walls may have been for the elite. At the same time it is difficult to interpret the function of R-style walls in the southwest particularly the large enclosure at Danangombe where little evidence of human habitation was found.”
[1]
. ….
[1]: (Machiridza 2008, 10) Lesley Machiridza, “Developing the Rozvi Archaeological Identity in Southwestern Zimbabwe,” in Zimbabwean Prehistory Vol. 28 (2008). Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2XKVR72R/item-details |
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By the 1100’s village organisation had changed to include homes grouped together within a walled structure or compound. Those enclosures were then arranged around public buildings and courtyards.
[1]
[1]: “The Ancestral Sonoran Desert People - Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (U.S. National Park Service),”. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HZ95455H |
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City walls, forts, animal enclosures, private land enclosures.
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Many major towns were enclosed by walls. Castles, palaces, and manor houses were often encircled by walls and moats. Animal enclosures were present across settlements. Farmland may also be enclosed to divide up tenants’ lands.
[1]
[1]: (Prestwich 2005: 409, 457) Prestwich, Michael. 2005. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XTBKFDCI |
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Animal enclosures, farmstead enclosures, palace walls etc.
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Temples; subterranean courts; enclosed public spaces. “Excavation and restoration of the Semisubterranean Temple, done by the CIAT in the early 1960s, exposed the entire sunken court and the 322 tenon-heads that are attached to the walls. A drainage canal was also identified at the base of the walls. According to Ponce, the sunken court represented the underworld, inhabited by spirits of the dead. The tenon-heads probably depicted different ethnic groups, not supernatural beings.”
[1]
In Tiwanaku, the moat, which once encompassed most of the early city, now largely enclosed spaces serving an expanding and more powerful elite class. Among new constructions were monumental temples, palaces, elaborate courtyards associated with elite-sponsored ceremonies, and entire specialized residential compounds dedicated to the preparation and sponsorship of feasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Albarracin-Jordan 1999: 60) Albarracin-Jordan, Juan V. 1999. The Archeaology of Tiwanaku: The Myths, History, and Science of an Ancient Andean Civilization. Bolivia: Impresión P.A.P. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P7MDWPAP [2]: (Janusek 2004: 225-226) Janusek, John Wayne. 2004. Identity and Power in the Ancient Andes: Tiwanaku Cities Through Time. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SDDCMA8P |
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Temples; ball courts; farms. “Tikal has inscriptions, its own emblem glyph, water symbolism, palaces, royal funerary temples, large ball courts, and tall temples facing large and open plazas...”
[1]
“Ballcourts occur at most large Maya centers. Many of them consisted of parallel structures with sloping sides facing inwards, but those at Uxmal and Chichen Itza had vertical walls. All were important foci of public and elite ceremonies. Some of them had round, carved ballcourt markers in the playing alley. Differences in the sizes and forms of ballcourts point to diversity and flexibility in the game, with size reaching its maximum in the ballcourt of Chichen Itza, measuring 166 by 68 metres.”
[2]
[1]: (Lucero 2006: 162) Lucero, Lisa J. 2006. Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NSX2SNWU [2]: (Houston and Inomata 2009: 116) Houston, Stephen D. and Inomata, Takeshi. 2009. The Classic Maya, Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZXA5U53G |
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Farmland; pens; city walls. “This process, called “enclosure” from the need to erect fences across otherwise open farmland in order to restrain sheep, was highly controversial precisely because it was less labor intensive.”
[1]
“’The City’ is modern shorthand for the financial district which still sits within the square mile once bounded by the old Roman city walls. Here, ca. 1603, might be found the Guildhall, London’s city hall, where its lord mayor and 25 aldermen met to govern the metropolis; numerous smaller halls which housed the livery companies associated with each trade; Cheapside, a broad street lined with shops; and the Royal Exchange, built by Sir Thomas Gresham (ca. 1518–79) in 1566–7, where merchants met to strike deals.”
[2]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 58) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U [2]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 198) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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In many villages houses were arranged within fenced enclosures. Animals were kept in paddocks and enclosures. Fortresses and fortifications are found across Anglo-Saxon England.
[1]
[1]: (Hamerow 2005: 273-4, 279) Hamerow, Helena. 2005. “The Earliest Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.” Chapter. In The New Cambridge Medieval History, edited by Paul Fouracre, 1:263–88. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.012. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5JNINHPQ |
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City walls. “Despite his very short reign, Joseph also founded Vienna’s Kärtnertor theater, established an arts academy, and ordered the construction of a new neighborhood outside the old city walls which continues to bear his name.”
[1]
[1]: (Curtis 2013: 213) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 |
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City walls; fortresses; stables; workplaces. “Be that as it may, Moroccan troops led by General ’All ibn ’Abdallah al-Rïfî, entered Tangier in Rabi’I of 1095/February 1684. Wasting no time, the General set about rebuilding what the English had demolished and restoring the mosques, walls, towers and everything else that they had destroyed during their stay and in their flight.”
[1]
“When he heard about all this unrest, Mawläy Ismail decided to deal first of all with his nephew. He marched against him and forced him to flee a second time, into the Sahara. Then he advanced on Fez and laid siege to it until it surrendered, but later decided to make Meknes his capital. On his return to that town he gave orders for the building of palaces, houses, walls, stables, warehouses and other large buildings. He had gardens and ponds laid out, to such good effect that this town came to rival Versailles (which King Louis XIV, abandoning Paris, had taken as his capital). At Meknes, the building work went on for several years.”
[2]
[1]: (Ogot 1992: 224) Ogot, B. A. 1992. ed., General History of Africa: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century., vol. V, VII vols. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/24QPFDVP [2]: (Ogot 1992: 222) Ogot, B. A. 1992. ed., General History of Africa: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century., vol. V, VII vols. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/24QPFDVP |
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Some cities had walled enclosures.
[1]
In the capital, and possibly other large cities, the merchants questers were surrounded by a wall to protect their goods.
[2]
[1]: Khakimov and Favereau 2017: 66. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QL8H3FN8 [2]: Schamiloglu 2018: 23-24. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4DIB5VCX |
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Major cities, such as Ghazna and Zaranj, had citadels. There were fortresses across the region.
[1]
There were also enclosed prisons in the cities.
[2]
[1]: Frye 2007: 133, 135. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7XE9P8HB [2]: Bosworth 2007: 422. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HGHDXVAC |
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Forts, such as Hadrian’s Wall.
[1]
“One important innovation was the burh or fortress which could be used both as a local refuge and as a base for a militia to intercept Viking forces and hamper their manoeuvrability. When Offa ruled Kent he had introduced the public services of fortress-work and bridge-work to help counter the first Viking attacks on the province so when the West Saxons conquered Kent they inherited the Mercian burhs there.
[2]
In many villages houses were arranged within fenced enclosures. Animals were kept in paddocks and enclosures. Fortresses and fortifications are found across Anglo-Saxon England.
[3]
[1]: (Higham 2004: 18) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K [2]: (Yorke 1990: 152) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN [3]: (Hamerow 2005: 273-4, 279) Hamerow, Helena. 2005. “The Earliest Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.” Chapter. In The New Cambridge Medieval History, edited by Paul Fouracre, 1:263–88. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.012. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5JNINHPQ |
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Animal enclosures, palace enclosures etc.
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Animal enclosures and stables, farms and private land, palace enclosures, city walls etc.
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The near-absence of archaeologically identified settlements makes it particularly challenging to infer most site types. "While the historical sources provide a vague picture of the events of the first 500 years of the Kanem-Borno empire, archaeologically almost nothing is known. [...] Summing up, very little is known about the capitals or towns of the early Kanem- Borno empire. The locations of the earliest sites have been obscured under the southwardly protruding sands of the Sahara, and none of the later locations can be identified with certainty."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 104-110) |
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"Contexts that could shed light on the dynamics of social structure and hierarchies in the metropolis, such as the royal burial site of Oyo monarchs and the residences of the elite population, have not been investigated. The mapping of the palace structures has not been followed by systematic excavations (Soper, 1992); and questions of the economy, military system, and ideology of the empire have not been addressed archaeologically, although their general patterns are known from historical studies (e.g, Johnson, 1921; Law, 1977)."
[1]
Regarding this period, however, one of the historical studies mentioned in this quote also notes: "Of the earliestperiod of Oyo history, before the sixteenth century, very little is known."
[2]
Law does not then go on to provide specific information directly relevant to this variable.
[1]: (Ogundiran 2005: 151-152) [2]: (Law 1977: 33) |
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