Home Region:  West Africa (Africa)

West Burkina Faso Red I

G SC New WA  bf_west_burkina_faso_red_1

Preceding Entity: Add one more here.
Succeeding Entity: Add one more here.

No General Descriptions provided.

General Variables
Social Complexity Variables
Warfare Variables (Military Technologies)
Fortifications
Military use of Metals
Projectiles
Handheld weapons
Animals used in warfare
Armor
Naval technology
Religion Tolerance Coding in Progress.
Human Sacrifice Coding in Progress.
Crisis Consequences Coding in Progress.
Power Transitions Coding in Progress.

NGA Settlements:

Year Range West Burkina Faso Red I (bf_west_burkina_faso_red_1) was in:
Home NGA: None

General Variables
Identity and Location
Utm Zone:
30 N

Original Name:
West Burkina Faso Red I

Capital:
None (Absent Capital)

Temporal Bounds
Duration:
[701 CE ➜ 1,100 CE]
 

"Red I (ca. AD 500-700)" [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 28)


Political and Cultural Relations
Succeeding Entity:
West Burkina Faso Red II

Relationship to Preceding Entity:
continuity

"Over the course ofYellow II and Red I, the founding house began to centralize control over ancestry (materialized in a cemetery monument), iron production, livestock wealth and even spatial syntax, with a shift in the location of new houses towards Mound 4. They may have restricted access to spatio-cosmic origins in their role as village founders (from a spatially distant locale) and exercised a privileged social role derived from initial pacts with the local divinities. By Red I the founding house controlled iron production, itself an extension of spatio-cosmic origins as the divinities of the deep earth are conceptually distant and primordial (and dangerous), and need to be maintained properly." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2015: 22)


Preceding Entity:
bf_west_burkina_faso_red_1   continuity   bf_west_burkina_faso_red_2
 

"Shortly after the start of Red II a drastic and rapid egalitarian revolution took place, a turning point in Kirikongo’s developmental trajectory. Social inequalities were rejected in a process of nonvertical social differentiation of houses coupled with increasing interhouse communalism." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 30)

Preceding Entity:
bf_west_burkina_faso_yellow_6   continuity   bf_west_burkina_faso_red_1
 

"Over the course ofYellow II and Red I, the founding house began to centralize control over ancestry (materialized in a cemetery monument), iron production, livestock wealth and even spatial syntax, with a shift in the location of new houses towards Mound 4. They may have restricted access to spatio-cosmic origins in their role as village founders (from a spatially distant locale) and exercised a privileged social role derived from initial pacts with the local divinities. By Red I the founding house controlled iron production, itself an extension of spatio-cosmic origins as the divinities of the deep earth are conceptually distant and primordial (and dangerous), and need to be maintained properly." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2015: 22)


Degree of Centralization:
quasi-polity

Language
Linguistic Family:
Niger-Congo

Religion
Religious Tradition:
Voltaic Religions

"At Kirikongo, increasing centralization is associated with a gradual co-option of iron metallurgy. Iron metallurgy as an avenue to inequality would provide an alternative spiritual power, derived from profound excavation and transformation in the realm of divinities (the earth). It is this power that today makes smiths held in high esteem and occasionally feared. The spiritual power of the Bwa smith is separate from the political process, but at Kirikongo the emergence of smith-elites at Mound 4 marks the possible combination of multiple spiritually derived sources of power, from those based upon their role as village founder (over nature and ancestry), to a new cult (iron) that may have been manipulated owing to its mysterious nature." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 30)



Social Complexity Variables
Social Scale
Hierarchical Complexity
Religious Level:
[1 to 2]

levels. The following suggests at least one level of religious hierarchy. "At Kirikongo, increasing centralization is associated with a gradual co-option of iron metallurgy. Iron metallurgy as an avenue to inequality would provide an alternative spiritual power, derived from profound excavation and transformation in the realm of divinities (the earth). It is this power that today makes smiths held in high esteem and occasionally feared. The spiritual power of the Bwa smith is separate from the political process, but at Kirikongo the emergence of smith-elites at Mound 4 marks the possible combination of multiple spiritually derived sources of power, from those based upon their role as village founder (over nature and ancestry), to a new cult (iron) that may have been manipulated owing to its mysterious nature. In short, between Yellow II and Red I, the inhabitants of Mound 4 likely employed their ancestral priority to assume control of the village territory, then co-opted another source of authority using the spiritual power of iron." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 30)


Administrative Level:
[1 to 2]

levels. The following suggests at least one level of rule. "At Kirikongo, increasing centralization is associated with a gradual co-option of iron metallurgy. Iron metallurgy as an avenue to inequality would provide an alternative spiritual power, derived from profound excavation and transformation in the realm of divinities (the earth). It is this power that today makes smiths held in high esteem and occasionally feared. The spiritual power of the Bwa smith is separate from the political process, but at Kirikongo the emergence of smith-elites at Mound 4 marks the possible combination of multiple spiritually derived sources of power, from those based upon their role as village founder (over nature and ancestry), to a new cult (iron) that may have been manipulated owing to its mysterious nature. In short, between Yellow II and Red I, the inhabitants of Mound 4 likely employed their ancestral priority to assume control of the village territory, then co-opted another source of authority using the spiritual power of iron." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 30)


Professions
Bureaucracy Characteristics
Law
Specialized Buildings: polity owned
Market:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Irrigation System:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Food Storage Site:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Drinking Water Supply System:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Communal Building:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Utilitarian Public Building:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Symbolic Building:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Knowledge Or Information Building:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Entertainment Building:
absent

"The first nondomestic structures identified at Kirikongo are found from Red II and Red III on the peak of Mound 4. This multistory complex has formal similarities to a Bwa ancestor house, which today when associated with the founding house is a sacrificial shrine to the village ancestors, the meeting place for the village council, and maintained by the village headman. Given the presence of these ritual structures, cross-cutting communal activities, and a communally focused built environment, it is possible that an institution similar to the village Do was in existence." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 31)


Transport Infrastructure
Special-purpose Sites
Burial Site:
present

NO_DESCRIPTION


Information / Writing System
Information / Kinds of Written Documents
Information / Money
Article:
present

Cattle, perhaps. "The combination of spatial clustering, social differentiation in mortuary practices from birth, economic control over iron production, and possible wealth in cattle suggest the emergence of political centralization and elites at Mound 4 by the start of second millennium A.D. (Red II), and perhaps much earlier." [1]

[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 29)


Information / Postal System
Information / Measurement System

Warfare Variables (Military Technologies)
Fortifications
Military use of Metals
Projectiles
Handheld weapons
Animals used in warfare
Armor
Naval technology

Human Sacrifice Data
Human Sacrifice is the deliberate and ritualized killing of a person to please or placate supernatural entities (including gods, spirits, and ancestors) or gain other supernatural benefits.
Coding in Progress.
Coding in Progress.
Power Transitions
Coding in Progress.