Social Archaeology of Animal Figures in Yorubaland: The Terracotta of a Ram/Goat Head in Ede-Ile Ancestor Matters: Terracotta/Copper Alloy Figures and Competing Axes of Power/Legitimacy in Classical Ile-Ife, ca. 1200-1500s.

The prolific presence of animal motifs and figures in Yoruba art has elicited important works, on the part of art historians, to make sense of the socia meanings of “animalia” in Yoruba worldview (e.g., Adepegba 1991; Blier 2010; Lawal 1975). Empirical archaeological data that are rooted in the contextual realm of cultural and social lives as well as historical depth have not informed these efforts in any significant way although quite a number of the “animalia” evidence comes from archaeological contexts. Yet we know that animal symbols and representations, as motifs and sculptures, have played important roles in the Yoruba construction of self awareness and of their cosmological understanding of the world for at least the past 1000 years. In order to develop a more robust understanding of the central place of “animalia” in the cumulative forging of Yoruba cultural institutions and everyday contingent practices, we need case studies of contextual evidence that are rooted in community and household analysis. To this end, this paper will account for the archaeological contexts in which animal figures and motifs have occurred in central Yorubaland in order to establish a broad framework needed to interpret the possible social meanings of the ram/goat head terracotta figure recently found at Ede-Ile. We hope to unravel the insights that this unique figure offers regarding the material and spiritual aspects of everyday life in that 17th-18th century frontier community of Oyo Empire.