Abstract
The quest for a comprehensive understanding of Africa’s indigenous technology has been an important intellectual agenda in Black Studies. In some instances this interest has tended to be speculative and derivative because most Black Studies scholars are not trained in the disciplinary fields that are relevant for investigating Africa’s indigenous technology through primary field and laboratory research. Collaboration between Black Studies scholars and those in the physical sciences is therefore important in order to develop new insights into Africa’s indigenous technology. One of such collaborations has led to a new archaeological and geochemical evidence for primary glass manufacture in Yorubaland. Based on the recent archaeological finds of glass artifacts from Osun Grove (Osogbo, Nigeria), we present the laboratory data that lead us to the conclusion that the Yoruba of West Africa developed a unique glassmaking technology that lasted till the seventeenth century.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 751-772 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Journal of Black Studies |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 1 2015 |
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The first author gratefully acknowledges that the archaeological fieldwork that formed the backbone of the research was funded by a Dumbarton Oaks (Gardens and Landscape) summer research grant (2011), a Wenner-Gren Foundation grant (7099), and a National Endowment for the Humanities faculty research grant (HR-50114-04). The Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analysis was made possible by the Field Museum’s Robert O. Bass Fellowship (awarded to the second author) and by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Office of the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) research grant (awarded to the first author). The latter paid for the LA-ICP-MS analysis of the samples reported here.
Keywords
- African indigenous technology
- Nigeria
- Osun Grove
- Yoruba glass
- geochemical analysis
- glass beads
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cultural Studies
- Anthropology
- Sociology and Political Science