Toward a Historical Archaeology of West African Borderlands

The duo-field of historical archaeology is increasingly being recognized around the world for its contributions. However, most of the existing surveys have concentrated on the coastal and hinterland locations in West Africa. Whereas, the ethnographic cum archival study of West African borderlands abounds in the literature, there is the dearth of the comparative analysis of these sources in tandem with the archaeological findings of material culture. Thus, this paper seeks to open up a new dialogue on the importance of borderlands studies in historical archaeology and vice versa. It concludes that the historical archaeology of West African borderlands promises to yield new insights into the dynamics of the region’s modern history.