Iron Age Landscapes of the Benue River Valley, Cameroon
Abstract
The Iron Age settlements of northern Cameroon were dispersed across the landscape,
taking advantage of different eco-climatic zones to exploit a variety of natural resources.
Situated at the interface of the upper and lower terraces of the Benue River, mound
sites in the area around Garoua have occupation histories spanning multiple centuries.
The site of Langui-Tchéboua displays evidence for rapid accumulation of sediments
approximately 700 years ago, which may have been a deliberate construction strategy
that would have allowed the site’s inhabitants to exploit resources in both floodplain
and dryland contexts. The combined use of multiple dating methods and micromorphology
provide novel insights into both the mechanisms of anthropogenic landscape change
and possible motivations governing those choices.
Type
Journal articleSubject
West African Iron AgeKaral Agriculture
Settlement Mounds
Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating
Soil Micromorphology
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24535Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1080/00934690.2017.1358017Publication Info
Wright, DK; MacEachern, S; Choi, J; Choi, J; Lang, C; & Djoussou, JD (2017). Iron Age Landscapes of the Benue River Valley, Cameroon. Journal of Field Archaeology, 42(5). pp. 394-407. 10.1080/00934690.2017.1358017. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24535.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Scott MacEachern
Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at Duke Kunshan University
Africanist archaeologist, with research interests in Central/West African archaeology,
state formation and archaeogenetics.

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