The archaeology of ‘in-between’: missing societies in African prehistory

The aim of this paper is to outline and stimulate debate about a neglected
gap in the African archaeological record. This gap is twofold. On the one
hand it is a social space situated, ‘in-between’ the study of hunter-foragers
and more complex societies with forms of centralised and often hierarchical
political structures. On the other hand it is a conceptual space sitting ‘inbetween’
the archaeology of major transformations such as the origins of
farming, metal working, urbanism and colonialism. The gap encompasses
societies who, while practising farming and metal working, were not the first
to do so; societies who lack centralised authority but who nevertheless developed
a wide range of highly complex social structures; and societies who
neighboured, rather than lived in towns and states, yet developed highly specialised
economies with varying population densities.

Following Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, we might call these societies
‘acephalous’ in that they lacked well defined leaders, however, such terminology
is misleading as it would also include early hunting and foraging
societies as well as some with highly complex ‘urban’ forms such as the
peoples of the Inland Niger delta. Moreover, as various authors have demonstrated
the, the term ‘acephalous’ is hardly adequate to account for the diversity
of non-centralised African societies (Grey 1963; Southall 1956). But
like Fortes and Evans-Pritchard this paper stresses the great variety of African
political, social and economic forms that defy clear definition and argues
that they have been overlooked because they are both less visible (lacking
obvious material remains) and less focal within an archaeology driven by
Eurocentric agendas (particularly the search for ‘origins’, ‘firsts’ and ethnographic
‘analogies’) . In a neo-evolutionary scheme many of these societies
might be called ‘tribes’ or ‘tribal’ though to follow this would be to align
with a proposed historical trajectory that cannot be substantiated (McIntosh
1999; Yoffee 1993), to make unfounded statements about the nature of
social complexity (Crumley 1995, 1987), and to validate the colonial process
(in many cases implicitly racist) of re-imagining, classifying and circumscribing
African societies (Ranger 1983; James 1973).

Taking examples from the Pastoral and Later Iron Age of the Eastern African
Rift Valley region, I aim to explore some of the complexity evident in
the archaeological record of societies who are often marginalised in the
grand accounts of the continent’s prehistory. In doing so I will demonstrate
the lessons that can be drawn from the archaeology of ‘in-between’, both in
terms of the later archaeology of Eastern Africa and in relation to re-thinking
other periods and regions.