Trade, African

A major focus of the later archaeology of Africa has been on trade. The huge size of the continent and the scarcity of particular resources led to the development of well-defined routes, trading institutions and systems. European and Asiatic contact along the coasts provided a framework for exploitation of particular commodities, which at different times, supplied and supported the economies of both the Old and New Worlds. The impact of these exchange systems on indigenous African societies has been significant and enduring with the arrival of prestige goods, imported firearms, and technology, while archaeologists have been keen to cite trade and the control of resources as models for indigenous state formation. African trade has also been the subject of classic anthropological studies, such as K. Polyani, et al., Trade, Markets and Early Empires (1957) and Bohannan and Dalton, Markets in Africa (1962). Scientific analysis of trade items and attempts to source raw materials has been confined largely to the study of copper-based metallurgy in West Africa.

African trade can be understood within localized, regional, and international perspectives. Localized trade became widespread through the development of specialized economic groups, often also defined ethnically. While exchange took place in commodities, it was normally explained to outsiders as dependency or patron-client relations. Hunter-gatherers (such as in the Kalahari and Namib Deserts, or the rain forest of central Africa) developed complex exchange systems with their pastoralist or agriculturalist neighbors, exchanging forest products, skins, and ivory for grain or manufactured goods. Similar systems operated between pastoralists and agriculturalists in East Africa, mainly in food-based commodities. Specialist groups, with particular skills such as pottery making or ironworking, operated on the margins of larger social units, and were able to survive through their trade relations. In the archaeological record, such trade is often difficult to identify, as ethnic or economic groups remain largely invisible and our knowledge is often based upon ethnohistorical reconstructions.

Regional trade developed through the activities of specialized traders and the establishment of central places or markets. It relied upon the unequal distribution of particular commodities which were in particular demand. Networks established for the trade in one essential commodity, such as salt or agricultural products, were often developed for the exchange of other items, in particular prestige goods such as stone axes, beads, and metals.

In East Africa, regional trade can be identified from the second millennium b.c., with the distribution of obsidian from the Rift Valley, and stone bowls, made of gray lava, and probably used for grinding plant remains. Stone beads have been found at burial sites, such as the Njoro River cave; the main materials used were carnelian, jasper, and rock crystal, which have a widespread distribution and thus are difficult to source. Coastal imports (such as cowries and marine gastropods) also occur in graves for a considerable distance inland. Polished stone axes are largely confined to West Africa, and axe factories are known at Buroburo and Rim (Ghana) and on the island of Fernando Po, and are also found throughout the forest zone. Stone rasps made of dolomitic marl are also best explained as exchange goods. Quern stones are also known to have been made at factory sites in West Africa, such as the one excavated at Kintampo (Ghana).

One of the main commodities exchanged throughout the continent was salt, which was essential for agricultural societies with a high carbohydrate diet in a tropical environments with high body perspiration rates. Excavations of several salt-producing sites in the Rift Valley of East Africa have taken place, including Kibero (Uganda) and Uvinza and Ivuna (Tanzania), where salt was obtained from brine springs. At Basanga (Zambia) and Eiland and Harmony (South Africa), salt came from dried-up lake beds. In West Africa, salt came largely from the Sahara, either as mineral resources as at Taghaza and Bilma, or from lake beds. Its trade was in the hands of specialist traders such as the Hausa and Tuareg.

Copper and its alloys were important trade items because of their strong ritual and ceremonial associations throughout the continent, but sources were limited. The earliest record of use comes from Agadez, in Niger, where native copper was exploited by the early second millennium b.c., and copper mining and smelting by the early first millennium b.c. In eastern and southern Africa, copper was exploited from around a.d. 500, and in the later Iron Age traded in cross ingots, which have been found as grave goods at Ingombe Ilede and Sanga. In West Africa, evidence for the use of copper and bronze in ritual contexts comes from graves in the Niger Valley, such as the Tumulus of El Ouladji, which dates to around A.D. 1000, and at Igbo Ukwu, of similar date.

Sources of iron ore—mainly haematite, laterite, and bog iron—are more widespread than copper. Smelting methods are very regional, and it seems probable that the technology was invented at several centers independently during the late first millennium b.c. Phalaborwa (South Africa) has produced the most extensive evidence for iron production, and it is probable that smelted iron was produced almost at an industrial rate, and traded for local reworking. The form of traded iron was normally a roughout hoe; several examples have been found in graves at Sanga.

Gold production seems to have been developed in three main areas, in the upper Niger and Senegal Rivers, in southern Ethiopia, and in northeast Zimbabwe. West African gold was probably exploited largely by alluvial panning; in southern Africa both panning and adit mining was used. Although gold is found only on rare occasions in modern excavations, early finds, including material from the Mapungubwe burials and the looting of the stone enclosures by the Rhodesia Ancient Ruins Company, suggests that it was important during the later Iron Age in southern Africa.

International trade developed these regional networks, although it also ultimately distorted them, as flow of commodities and cheap manufactured imports increased. This phenomenon can be seen in several areas. In Ethiopia, the rise of the kingdom of Aksum in the first century a.d. was in part linked to the establishment of trade down the Red Sea. On the East African coast, archaeological evidence for trade dates from around a.d. 500, although the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea and the Geography of Ptolemy suggest contact with southern Arabia and the Red Sea by a.d. 40 (see East Africa: Coastal Towns of East Africa). It is probable that the existing salt trade network between the coast and the interior, extending up to 124 miles (200 km) inland, was developed for other commodities such as ivory, iron; crystal, and gum copal in exchange for copper, cloth, and beads. Coastal communities as far south as Chibuene (Mozambique) seem to have traded inland to the Limpopo; coastal imports such as glass beads are known in quantity from Mapungubwe, Shroda, and the Trowtse sites in the Transvaal and southern Zimbabwe from around a.d. 900. Ivory and gold were the most important export commodities, while Arab sources suggest that considerable numbers of slaves were also obtained. The role of Great Zimbabwe and other stone enclosures from the thirteenth century remains controversial, with no real evidence that the import of prestige items was of a sufficient scale to develop anything more than regional chieftainships.

In West Africa, trade in the Saharan resources of salt and copper was boosted by Mediterranean input. Attempts have been made to define early routes across the Sahara, on the basis of rock art showing chariots drawn by horses, probably dating from the early part of the first millennium b.c. Actual archaeological evidence for trade during the classical period across the Sahara is very scarce; metalwork from graves in the Fezzan, probably linked to the Garamantes, dating to a.d. 100 to 400 is the most important. The introduction of the camel was clearly a significant factor in the development of the Saharan trade, but when this occurred remains controversial, although domestic camels have been found at Qasr Ibrim in Egyptian Nubia, and dated by radiocarbon to ca. 900 B.C.

Artifactual evidence for the trans-Saharan trade reaching West Africa comes from the medieval period. From Igbo Ukwu, probably dating to the tenth century, large numbers of glass beads (some of which are identifiable as of Egyptian origin) have been found, while some of the copper used in the bronze castings may be of Mediterranean origin. Copper rods from an abandoned caravan have actually been found at Macden Ijafen (western Sahara), dating to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Excavations at Gao have discovered a hoard of rhinoceros horn, dating to the fourteenth century. It is clear from both numismatic studies and geographical accounts that West Africa became a major supplier of gold to the European and Islamic economies from around A.D. 1000.

With European contact along the African coasts from the late fifteenth century, the patterns of international trade with Africa were modified. On the East African coast, the effects of Portuguese settlement were fairly limited, although attempts were made to intercept traditional trade routes into the interior of southern Africa. In West Africa, the new sea route to the Atlantic coast offered the possibility of closer access to the gold fields and the avoidance of the difficult trans-Saharan route. While the Portuguese were pioneers, other European powers soon established trade castles on the West African coast. Slaves replaced gold as the main export in the seventeenth century, while cheap European copper and brass (often in the form of manillas) were augmented by a package of imported goods, including firearms, wrought iron, pots and pans, tobacco, and cowrie shells. The impact of this trade upon the emerging forest kingdoms of West Africa, such as Ashante, Akan, Benin must have been substantial. This Atlantic trade had a major impact on the developing economies of the New World—with the provision of slave labor for the sugar and tobacco plantations—and as well on the industrialization in Europe.[See also Africa, articles on Introduction, The Rise of Kingdoms and States In Africa, Historical Archaeology of Africa; Camel, Domestication of The.]

Bibliography and More Information about Trade, African

• A. W. Lawrence, Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (1963).
• L. Sundström, The Exchange Economy of Pre-Colonial Tropical Africa (1974).
• E. Herbert, Red Gold of Africa (1984).
• G. Connah, African Civilisations (1987).
• T. Shaw, P. Sinclair, A. Bassey, and A. Okpoko, eds., The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns (1993).

Mark Horton