The Fulani compound and the archaeologist

Abstract

This paper addresses itself to the problem of the interpretation of domestic structures. An ethnographic example of a Fulani village in North Cameroon is used to demonstrate the fit that exists between households and their buildings. The question is asked whether an archaeologist would be able to reconstruct the households from their preservable material culture. Several approaches in current use in archaeology are tested and found of limited value. Material culture reflects only a part of the total culture (or reflects it in subtle ways that are not always amenable to analysis). Areas of ambiguity and the limits of archaeological inference in this case are defined. It is suggested that some of the data can be explained by variables operative over a wide societal and environmental range; their use as keys to reconstruction should be tested in both prehistoric and ethnographic situations.

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