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Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th-19thCenturies A.C.Author(s): Akinwumi O. OgundiranSource: Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 2001), pp. 27-43Published by: Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3181458 .Accessed: 17/08/2011 20:08

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27

Ceramic Spheres and Regional Networks in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria, 13th-19th Centuries Ac.

Akinwumi 0. Ogundiran Florida International University University Park, Miami

The spatial thresholds of ceramic spheres and interaction networks are delineated in the Toruba-Edo region, sw Nigeria, between the 13th and 19th centuries A.C. in order to understand the relationships between the regional periphery of Ilare district and the major political centers and the events that originated from them. This study assumes that the intersocietal movement of commodities reflects regional interaction systems. Integrating the distribution of ceramics with local settlement history demonstrates that ceramic styles in Ilare district were configured by regional migrations, sociopolitical growth and decline, and economic links. What is more, changes in the structure of regional socioeconomic and political networks are more likely to appear earlier in the regional peripheries than in the metropolises.

Introduction A regional system of interacting sociopolitical units,

united by the institution of kingship as the mainstay of social relations, societal structure, and worldview, developed in the Yoruba-Edo area of sw Nigeria between the 11th and 19th centuries A.C. (FIG. i). The social networks and interactions that sustained this system have been articulated largely in terms of the relationships among the three dominant sociopolitical centers (cores) -Ile-Ife, Benin, and Old Oyo (Agbaje-Wllliams 1987; Babayemi 1981; Eyo 1974). As a result, the hinterland non-centers and peripheries are only poorly represented in the archaeological literature, even though regional peripheries represent the routes of articulation between large centers and are usually the first to manifest changes in the structure and mode of socioeconomic and political networks (Green and Perl- man 1985; Upham 1992). This paper examines the transformations in the regional networks of interactions and relationships in sw Nigeria, with emphasis on Ilare district, a periphery of political centers through which regional networks crisscrossed between the 13th and 19th centuries, but whose relationship with the metropolitan centers of Ile-Ife and Old Oyo is only now being studied (Ogundiran 2001).

The decoration and forms of ceramics are considered here as signposts of intersocietal contacts, and the degree of ceramic homogeneity in a region is related to social distance among the member communities (MacEachern

1994: 220; Stark 1998: 8). This paper considers two related questions: 1) what are the formal and stylistic prop- erties of the ceramics in Ilare district and the historical contexts of their distribution in the Yoruba-Edo region? and 2) how did the growth and collapse of regional centers and the shifts in the directions of population movements affect the local distribution of ceramic forms in Ilare district?

Yoruba-Edo Region: A Cultural Historical Sulmmary

Six major cultural historical phases are discernible for the Yoruba-Edo region from about A.C. 500 to 1900. These are Early Formative (500-800), Late Formative (800-1000), Classical (1000-1400), Early Intermediate (1400-1600), Atlantic (1600-1800), and Late Intermedi- ate (1800-1900). The Early Formative refers to the proliferation of iron-using communities and village-level sociopolitical units, and their subsequent aggregation into loose confederacy-like political associations. The Late For- mative marked the advent of incipient political centraliza- tion that laid the foundation for the Yoruba kingship institution. The emergence of Ile-Ife as a city-state and as pio- neer of the political structures and ideological parameters that defined the worldview of the Yoruba-Edo region her- alded the Classical period around the 11th century (Willett 1967: 66). By establishing itself as a regional economic center and using its ideology of kingship and material wealth to form and cement networks of relationships with

28 Ceramic Spheres in the Yoruba-Edo Region, Nigeria/Ogundiran

Figure 1. Yoruba-Edo region, sw Nigeria. The large inset box shows the area of Figure 7.

the surrounding areas, Ile-Ife was by the 12th-13th centuries the political and cultural hub of the Yoruba-Edo interaction system. The chronology of kingship institutions in the region shows that Ile-Ife influenced the emergence of sociopolitical centers in rapid successions during the 12th-13th centuries as village communities were reordered into urban-based political units with royal dynasties and elaborate hierarchies of officials. The regional influence of Ile-Ife was strengthened by its status as the main

producer of beaded crowns, glass beads, and other para- phernalia and symbols that served to identify royal and elite

personalities in the region (Horton 1992: 123). These

symbols were crucial to the development of Ile-Ife as a pri- mate center in the region; many would-be dynasts visited Ife-Ife and made alliances with it to establish and validate their own political power and ideology (Akinjogbin 1992: 111).

Between 1400 and 1600, the region underwent drastic

changes in the configuration of regional political power as new polities, dynasties, and political entrepreneurs emerged mainly through the systematic destruction or

weakening of the old ones. From 1600 to 1800, the entire

region lived in the shadows of the Benin and Old Oyo hegemonies and in a milieu of economic transactions that were tied to the Atlantic trade. The integration of the re-

gion into the transatlantic commerce during the 17th cen-

tury reflected the hegemonic ambitions of Benin and Old

Oyo and the waning of Ife's regional political influence. The emergence of the Atlantic coast as the focus of long- distance trade networks created new interaction routes, market centers, and forms of sociopolitical alignments and interaction spheres. The collapse of the Old Oyo Empire at the beginning of the 19th century and the massive population displacements that followed not only reordered the

regional balance of political power but also created new socioeconomic networks.

Ilare District: Historical and Archaeological Background

The archaeological sequence in Ilare district straddles the Classical through the Late Intermediate periods. Exca- vations in the district were conducted at the settlements of

Journal of FieldArchaeology/Vol. 28, 2001 29

Figure 2. Topography of Ilare district and plans of excavation areas.

Grove, Iloyi, Okun, and Iloja (FIG. 2). The excavations fo- cused on the vertical testing of refuse mounds, house structures, and ritual deposits. Each of the four settlements oc-

cupied a distinct temporal phase in the settlement history of Ilare district. The spatial and temporal dimensions of ceramic stylistic change and continuity could therefore be ex- amined in relation to the emergence and decline of the settlements. A summary of the excavation contexts, chronol-

ogy, and the number of sherds recovered from each of the settlements is shown in Table 1. The occupation of each of the four settlements lasted between 100 and 300 years, and their life histories seem to have been characterized by ex-

ponential growth and spontaneous evacuation rather than

progressive long-term population increase and gradual abandonment (Ogundiran 2000a: 151).

The Grove settlement is associated with a pre-dynastic

aboriginal population, and the abandonment of the settlement is identified as a consequence of a political struggle between the aboriginal community and a migrant group whose affiliation with Ile-Ife is elaborated in the local historical narratives. The migrant group (or possibly a local

political faction that allied itself with Ile-Ife) not only succeeded in displacing the political powers of the local population but also established a new settlement at Iloyi (Ogundiran 2001). We do not yet have a direct chronolo-

gy for the Grove settlement but radiocarbon dates indicate that Iloyi was established around the late 13th century and was occupied until the late 15th or early 16th century. This would mean that Grove settlement was possibly occupied in the 13th century, although the length of its occupation cannot yet be determined (Ogundiran 2000b). The Okun settlement was an offshoot of Iloyi, and its occupation


Table 1: Summary of the excavation units, chronology, and number of sherds in Ilare settlements. Settlements

Study area Dates* No. sherds %plain % decorated Grove

Potsherd pavement site (2.2 sq m) pre-1250?t 1878 87.1 12.9 School farm site: excavation area

(6 sq m) School farm site: survey area

(180 x 100 sq m)

Iloyi ca. 13th-16th centuriest 7703 29.5 70.5 Site 1: ritual site (7 sq m) cal A.C. 998 (1280) 1448;

calA.C. 1021 (1290) 1447 Site 2: refuse mound (2 sq m) cal A.C. 1326 (1430) 1620

Okun ca. 1550-17501 7351 48.5 51.5 House 1 (24.75 sq m) House 2 (9 sq m) SE site: refuse mound (2 sq m) NW site: refuse mound (2 sq m)

Iloja ca. 1750-1870? 2664 33.7 66.3 NM-1A site: refuse mound (2 sq m) cal. a.c. 1715 (1885-1910) 1950 CM-1A site: refuse mound (2 sq m) cal. a.c. 1705 (1720-1915) 1950

* All the radiocarbon dates reported in this study, including the referenced ones, are calibrated with CALIB (Stuiver and Reimer 1993) using the 2-sigma standard error limits rather than the 1-sigma. The dates in parentheses are the intercepts of the calibrated dates and represent the closest dates of the samples (McIntosh and McIntosh 1986: 416).

t Date derived from oral historical references indicating that its occupation preceded Iloyi (Ogundiran 2000a; 2001).

t Date based on the presence and style of imported artifacts of known date, moneta cowry shells, and smoking pipes (post-1500), and on oral historical references.

? Radiocarbon dates are adjusted using oral historical references.

spanned from around the 16th century into the middle of the 18th century. The archaeological sequence at Iloja is even shorter, lasting only from the late 18th century to ca. 1870.

Ceramics and Regional Interaction Networks

The intersocietal movement of commodities and their

stylistic variations constitutes an important strategy for

mapping interaction systems in archaeology (Schortman and Urban 1992: 236). Despite the disagreements over the

anthropological meaning of style, it has been demonstrat- ed that style may be found in all stages of an artifacts his-

tory: composition, manufacture, form, and use (Chilton 1999; Lechtman 1977; Sackett 1977; Stark 1998; Wiess- ner 1984; Wobst 1977). The surface motifs of ceramics and variations of vessel forms are the only aspects of style considered here. Their regional distribution is a useful in- dex for the archaeological study of the circulation networks of people, information, ideas, and material goods. Decora- tion and morphological attributes embody the choices and

compromises made in a rich context of history, traditions, and values during the process of ceramic production (Rice 1996: 140). Although the sharing of ceramic styles among different communities can be the result of a deliberate ma-

nipulation of design to define and maintain their common

identities, political-economic relations that had no basis in sociocultural identity can also result in the intersocietal ex-

change and copying of objects and stylistic attributes. The historical context that underlies the distribution of material culture is central to understanding the complex process by which the similarities and variations of ceramic styles are

generated in a region. An explicit delineation of spatio-temporal boundaries of

stylistic variations--the equivalents of "ceramic complexes" and "ceramic spheres"--is critical to the archaeological understanding of regional interaction networks (Ball 1993: 254). Following Gifford (1976: 11-12), a ceramic

complex refers to the sum total of ceramic stylistic attributes that can be associated with a specific geographical zone, community, or settlement in a definite chronological span. These attributes often display a high degree of ho-

mogeneity across different contexts and sites within the same settlement or between an aggregate of contiguous communities. On the other hand, a ceramic sphere exists when two or more complexes share not only a majority of their common and diagnostic types but also the majority of the characteristic stylistic elements that are found in pottery and in other aspects of material culture (Willey, Culbert, and Adams 1967: 306). These diagnostic ceramic attributes may originate from a restricted locale and then spread to


other areas in a region through migrations, imitation, socioeconomic exchange, and political relationship. The boundaries of ceramic spheres are therefore relational and are products of the changing configurations in regional interacting networks and events (Ball 1993: 254-257). Un- like a ceramic complex, which corresponds to a single settlement, community, or polity, a ceramic sphere is a larger geographic unit and may transcend different cultural traditions, ethnolinguistic units, and political entities.

The Yoruba-Edo Ceramic Spheres The variations and similarities of the ceramic assem-

blages in different areas of the Yoruba-Edo region have been noted on the basis of broad surface decoration cate- gories (Agbaje-Williams 1983; Eyo 1974; Usman 2000; Willett 1961a). The lack of a uniform parameter for defin- ing ceramic attributes, the limitation of a ceramic typolog- ical scheme to often implicitly defined decoration cate- gories, and inadequate quantifiable data have, however, made the use of ceramic attributes for understanding cultural historical relationships in the region rather difficult (AUsworth-Jones 1996: 313). To address this problem, I compared the ceramic assemblages in Ile-Ife, Benin, Owo, and Old Oyo areas within a 128 km radius (Ogundiran 2000a: 320). The goal was to define stylistic attributes that would help to delineate the regional and chronological variability of ceramics that are relevant to understanding the regional cultural-historical relationships and socioeconomic networks. The focus was not only on decoration motifs but also on vessel forms. The decoration motifs are identified as the surface patterns made by a particular type of tool or method, whereas the vessel forms are defined on the basis of body shape, and rim, lip, and shoulder profiles.

The regional comparison, drawing from the previous studies by Agbaje-Williams (1983), Connah (1975), Eyo (1974), Garlake (1977), and Willett (1961a), identified three basic ceramic classes: jars, bowls, and lids. These comprise 26 morphologically distinct forms (based on rim morphology and shoulder/body angularity) and are associated with a variety of surface treatment and decoration cat- egories (FIGs. 3-4, TABLE 2). The result is the identification of two major ceramic spheres-the Ife and Oyo spheres (Agbaje-Williams 1983: 288-294; Eyo 1974: 410; Ogundiran 2000a: 372-377; Willett 1961a: 77). Both ceramic spheres are contemporaneous and developed respectively at Ile-Ife and Old Oyo during the 10th-llth centuries. The former encompassed the Ile-Ife, Owo, and Benin axis in the south and the later originally embraced Old Oyo, Igboho, Ipapo, Koso, and Ilorin areas in the north (see FIG. I).

The diagnostic motifs that characterize the Ife ceramic

sphere are embossed geometric and anthropomorphic motifs, reliefs of cordon and rosette motifs, hyphenated cross- hatched motifs, circular stylus impressions, and stamped geometric motifs. Other indices are rustication/incrustation and the application of red and white paint/slip, usually on the rims of vessels (FIG. 3; Eyo 1974; Connah 1975; Garlake 1974, 1977; Omokhodion 1988). The ceramic forms that define the Ife sphere are Jla (flared rims and ribbed necks), J6 (spheroidal vessels), B2 (ledged bowls), B3 (angular shoulder bowls), B4a (cordoned bowls), B5 (painted and grooved rim bowls), and B1l (FIG. 4). With the exception of B5 and Bll, which are consistently gray to dark gray in paste colors, all the other vessel forms generally vary from brown to yellowish red.

The decoration motifs that are diagnostic of the Ife ceramic sphere are also characteristic of markings on the terracotta sculptures during the Classical period (Willett 1967: 59). For example, the rectangular cordons on the shoulders of B2, B4, and Bll bowls (see motif 12a in FIG.

3) are represented as beads on the crowns, ankles, and wrists of the terracotta figures in Ife and Owo sites between the 12th and 16th centuries (Willett 1967: 87). Cowry motifs were also used at Ile-Ife on ritual clay vessels, terracotta stools, and terracotta sculptures. A vivid example is a piece of pottery with the relief of a ram's head (symbol of power, leadership, and royalty) and a representation of woven fabric (carved basket-work roulette) with a fringe of cowry shell motifs (FIG. 5). Likewise, hyphenated cross- hatched incised motifs were used at Ile-Ife, Owo, and Benin as surface patterns for terracotta sculptures including human and animal figures and stools (see Willett 1967: 83, 86, 144; Eyo 1976: 43-45). The representation of these motifs on more than one category of material culture indicates that they were symbolically potent style elements (Hegmon 1998: 277), and it is certain that both potters and sculptors drew from the same symbolic and stylistic vocabulary in the Ife ceramic sphere.

The second ceramic sphere originated at Old Oyo, 200 km north of Ile-Ife. There was a profound continuity in the ceramic traditions throughout the occupation of Old Oyo between the 10th and early 19th centuries, despite the sociopolitical transformations of the settlement from a village unit to an urban center and then to an imperial capital in the 15th-17th centuries (Agbaje-Williams 1983: 344). The diagnostic attributes that characterize Old Oyo pottery are burnishing, basting, brush marking, shell-edge, scallop impressions, dot punctates, and incised geometric symbols consisting of cross, triangular, square, and per- pendicular motifs (Agbaje-Williams 1983, 1989a, 1989b; Omokhodion 1978; Usman 2000; Willett 1961a). The vessel forms peculiar to the Oyo ceramic sphere are types


Table 2. Typology and function of vessels and lids from Yoruba-Edo Region. Type Description Function Ceramic sphere

J1 Jar with everted rim and globular, spheroid, or ellipsoidal shape. Storage, cooking, Jla: flared-everted rims sometimes with long and/or ribbed neck. transportation Ife Jlb: J1 with short and fluted everted rims (rolled or angular). Oyo

J2 Small pitcher with everted rim, short neck, and body shape Transportation, drink- Ife, Oyo similar to Jla. serving, storage

J3 Flask with flared-everted rim, long and ribbed neck, and spheroid Transportation, storage Ife, Oyo? or globular body.

J4 Flask with a very narrow orifice, vertical rim, and globular or Transportation of wine Ife, Oyo? ellipsoidal body. and drink-serving

J5 Large vat with vertical or inverted rim, usually with ellipsoidal shape. Storage Ife, Oyo J6 Spheroid jar, sometimes painted (Garlake 1977: 76). Unknown Ife

B1 Shallow hemispherical dish-bowl. Food-serving Ife, Oyo B2 Hemispherical bowl with horizontal ledge or flange. Food-serving Ife B3 Inverted rim and shouldered bowl with hemispherical body. Food-serving Ife B4 Bowl with vertical or inverted rim with hemispherical body. Food-serving

B4a: cordon relief at the shoulder. Ife B4b: without cordon relief at the shoulder. Ife, Oyo

B5 Hemispherical bowl with inverted, painted, and grooved rim. Primarily used in Ife ritual context

B6 Bowl with everted rim, vertical or slanted body, and flat base. Food-serving Oyo B7 Bowl with everted rim, vertical body, and round base. Cooking Oyo B8 Globular or spheroid bowl with everted, flared rim. Cooking Ife, Oyo B9 Bowl with flared or short everted rim, angular carinated shoulder, Cooking Oyo

and round base. B10 Globular bowl with short vertical rim. Cooking Oyo B11 Bowl with large flared rim, often painted, and small globular body. Primarily used in Ife

ritual context B12 Hemispherical bowl with short everted rim. Food-serving Ife, Oyo B13 Deep hemispherical bowl with flat or slightly-inverted rim Unknown Ife

(Connah 1975: 117). L1 Lid with solid conical knob. Stopper for J4 flasks Ife, Oyo L2 Solid horned-lid. Stopper for flasks, Ife, Oyo

ritual context only L3 Looped lid, with a knob or a strap-like handle at the center of Associated with all Ife, Oyo

the concave side. cooking bowls

L4 U-shaped lid with attenuated or round lip, often with a knob Associated with all Oyo handle on the dorsal side. cooking bowls

L5 Flat, straight walled lid. Associated with bowls Ife?, Oyo? L6 Angular, shouldered lid. Associated with Oyo

cooking bowls

B6, B7, B9, B10, L4, and L6, as well as the subtype Jlb with short, thick, rolled, and fluted rims. The bowls in the

Old Oyo assemblages generally have burnished-basted sur-

faces and are smoother and harder than the bowls of the Ife

ceramic sphere. The paste colors of ceramics at Old Oyo

vary from fawny gray to brown for jars, and dark gray to

black for bowls (Agbaje-Williams 1983: 411-419).

Ceramic Forms and Decorations in Ilare District

Five forms ofjars (J1-J5), twelve bowl forms (B1-B12), and six forms of lids (L1-L6) are identified in the ceramic

assemblages of Ilare district (FIG. 6). Associated with these

vessel forms are 15 decoration motifs. In addition to iden-

tifying the morphological and decoration attributes of the

ceramics, the paste colors of the sherds were recorded us-

ing Munsell Color Charts. Paste colors are affected by fir-

ing procedures and the environmental and geological con-

ditions of the local sources of clay, but they are good indi-

cators of variations in vessel forms that share similar mor-

phological and decorative attributes (Shepard 1956: 103). The ceramics from the Grove settlement show the least

variability in terms of decorations, vessel forms, and paste colors. All the sherds are yellowish red, 87% are plain, and

the decoration motifs on the remaining 13% are limited to

cord roulettes, grooves, incisions, and dot punctates. Jla and B4b are the only vessel forms identified in the ceram-

ic assemblage. Due to this obviously low variability, the ce-

ramic assemblage from Grove settlement is excluded from

the quantitative comparisons of the ceramic attributes in

Ilare district. The frequencies of the decoration attributes, vessel forms, lid types, and paste colors of rimsherds are

shown for Iloyi, Okun, and Iloja in Tables 3-6.

Journal of Field Archaeology/Vol. 28, 2001 33

Bt1 Brs2 Basted Burnished

5 5 Maize-cob

roulette

Painted and slip (red and white)

4. Cord roulettes 4. Cord roulettes

- m 6a 6b 6c 6d

Basket-work motifs Chevron motif Other 6. Carved roulettes

a a. \^^^{ mmm ** * | :>:>000

| wI 7a rf l7b * " * 7c I ? 7d L I 7e )@ 7f Geometric Dot punctates Fingernail/shell- Circular stylus

edge and scallop 7. Stamped motifs

s8l " [ 9a 9b /9c Grooves Hyphenated,

cross-hatched 9. Incised motifs

" 1-0b Oa. ' '-1 10b c I4V1 lia Geometric

10. Rustication and incrustation 1

~~99d Criss-cross

~11b Cowry-form

1. Applied motifs

@gs e9e Herringbone

F * n11c Rosette

l1d 1 2a 1 2b |e c 12 1 2d Guilloche 12. Applied cordon motifs

! /

0 5 cm

. 00. 13. Applied relief of snake with ovisac

Figure 3. Decoration forms of ceramics from Yoruba-Edo region.

Statistical Comparison of the Distribution of Ceramic Attributes

Pearson's chi-square and Cramer's V2 statistical tests were used to assess whether the differences in the distribution of decoration attributes (TABLE 5) and ceramic forms

(TABLE 3) among the Iloyi, Okun, and Iloja settlements

have statistical significance. The tests are based on two hypotheses: the null hypothesis or hypothesis of no relation-

ship (Ho) and hypothesis of relationship (H1). The probability level (a) for accepting or rejecting one of these two

hypotheses is set at 0.05. This means that the null hypothesis will be rejected (and therefore the hypothesis of rela-

I


B1B

!,2 (2

J3

7 ,

B3 B4

B6 B

B X J k11 L B1 Bl B B B

L1

L2 I L4

L3 ' L5 L6 0 20cm I I I I

Figure 4. Vessel forms of ceramics from Yoruba-Edo region. See Table 2 for description of forms.

tionship accepted) if the asymptotic significance associated with the chi-square statistics is less than the probability significance of 0.05 (SPSS 1998: 67; Shennan 1988: 143). The tests show that the asymptotic significance of the chi-

square statistics for the distribution of decoration motifs and vessel forms in Iloyi, Okun, and Iloja sites is less than the a level of 0.05 (TABLE 7). Hence the hypothesis of difference is accepted. In other words, there is a statistically significant difference in the distribution of decoration motifs and vessel forms among the three Ilare settlements. But the much more important statistic is the Cramer's V2 because it measures the strength of the statistical differences in the distribution of ceramic stylistic attributes among the three settlements. The Cramer's V2 values for the strength of difference in the distribution of ceramic decorations and vessel forms between Iloyi and Iloja are 64% and 89% re-

spectively, whereas the values between the Okun and Iloja assemblages are 58% and 88%. These show that there is a

statistically strong difference between Iloyi and Iloja, as well as between Okun and Iloja. In contrast, the V2 values for the difference in the distribution of decorative motifs and vessel forms between Iloyi and Okun assemblages are weak, being only 20% and 36% respectively (TABLE 7). The Cramer's V2 values therefore indicate similarities in the choice of decoration and ceramic forms in Iloyi and Okun on one hand, and a significant difference between Iloyi and Iloja, and Iloja and Okun on the other.

Ceramic Spheres and Shifting Regional Net- works in Ilare District

Comparing the ceramic attributes in Tables 3-5 with

Figures 3 and 4, it is certain that the diagnostic decoration motifs and ceramic forms of the Ife ceramic sphere characterize the ceramic assemblages in Iloyi and Okun, whereas the attributes of the Oyo ceramic sphere are predominant in Iloja. However, although Okun belongs to the Ife ce-

0


Figure 5. Pottery with ram's head, basketwork, and cowry motifs (8 inches tall).

ramic sphere, the settlement also has traces of the Oyo ceramic sphere because of the presence of B7, B9, and B10 vessel forms in its ceramic assemblages.

The Historical Context of the Ife Ceramic Sphere in Ilare District

The dynamics of events that are articulated in the re-

gional oral historical narratives indicate that the homoge- nization of ceramic styles in the Ife ceramic sphere took

place in the context of migrations and regional sociopolitical networks (Akinjogbin and Ayandele 1980; Egharevba 1968; Smith 1988). The replication of Ife ceramics in Iloyi settlement was simultaneous with the advent of centralized

political institutions in Ilare district, and the latter is associated in the local historical narratives with migrations and

sociopolitical links with Ile-Ife (Ogundiran 2001). Local historical narratives render these relationships in terms of

emigration of people, including political entrepreneurs, from the metropolis of Ile-Ife into Ilare district during the Classical period. The narratives suggest that these fron- tiersmen and women succeeded in displacing the aboriginal political authority and population at the Grove settlement and established an Ife-style sociopolitical entity at

Iloyi. Comparative regional histories indeed indicate that the local pressures created by the population increase and

political disenfranchisement that accompanied the centralized sociopolitical development in Ile-Ife between the 9th and 11th centuries were relieved by migrations to different

parts of the Yoruba region during the 12th-13th centuries

(Akinjogbin 1992: 110-115). Due to its proximity, sparse


~J1^; a^^ ^ ~i l b / ii\

'B2 "'... - B3i B4a--... .b. 1

;c:

BX U V BA 41I;? B7 ?

" B .. 9 I i"

*- -. - -

'B9

i r ^ ii .|

A iii

0 25 cm ' I1 I I I I B12

Figure 6. Diagnostic ceramic forms in Ilare district. Iloyi: Jla (i, ii); B2, B3, B4a, B4b, B5, B8, Bll, B12 (i); Okun: Jla (i, ii); B2, B3, B4a, B4b B5, B8, B10, Bll, B12 (i, ii); Iloja: Jla (i), Jib (i, ii), B4b, B6, B7, B10, B12 (iii).

population, and less developed institutional structures of social organization in comparison to Ile-Ife, Ilare district was one of the areas that experienced the direct inflow of Ife populations (for comparative studies, see Kopytoff 1987).

The profound impacts of the influence of Ile-Ife on the

political formation and cultural historical trajectories in Ilare district generates very elaborate historical narratives and royal festivals that survive until the present day (Hugh- es 1995: 5; Ogundiran 2000a: 114-115). These impacts are not only attested in the relocation of settlement from Grove to Iloyi and in the restructuring of political organi-

zation but also in changes of material culture. The most ob- vious material correlate to the settlement and political change is the ensemble of ceramic decorations and vessel forms in Iloyi, all bearing the hallmarks of Ife origins. Thus, ceramics constitute a class of material evidence for the frontier status of Ilare district in relation to Ile-Ife. The ceramic assemblage and the associated chronology in Iloyi suggest that Ilare district was a spatial threshold for the ab-

sorption of the population, cultural, and institutional ex-

pansion of Ile-Ife during the 13th century. The replication of the potent iconographic and stylistic ceramic elements of Ile-Ife in Ilare district throughout the 300 years of the lat-

B5 ,

B8 I

B10


Table 3. Distribution of ceramic forms, in percentages. See Table 4 for details of lids. Settlement Jla Jib J2 J3 J4 J5 B1 B2 B3 B4a B4b B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 Bll B12 Lids No. Iloja* 2.5 25.6 - - - 4.7 3.6 0.3 - - 7.0 - 8.4 17.8 0.3 14.2 7.2 0.3 0.6 7.5 359 Okun 32.7 - 1.5 0.5 0.2 0.5 0.7 4.2 11.2 3.8 7.1 7.2 - 1.4 1.0 9.0 1.0 9.8 6.7 1.5 553 Iloyi 20.8 - 4.8 0.2 0.2 0.7 4.0 16.9 6.7 7.3 10.6 11.4 - - 6.3 0.2 - 7.5 1.6 0.8 615 *

Chronology of settlements: Iloja (ca. 1750-1870); Okun (ca. 1550-1750); Iloyi (ca. 1280-1550)

Table 4. Distribution of lid forms, in percentage of total ceramic forms (see TABLE 2). Settlement 11 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 No. lids Iloja - - 0.8 1.4 - 5.3 27 Okun 0.4 0.2 0.5 0.4 - - 8 Iloyi 0.3 - 0.3 - 0.2 - 5

Table 5. Distribution of decoration attributes, representing the percentages of attributes on all sherds, not the frequency of sherds.

Iloja Okun Iloyi (ca. 1750- (ca. 1550- (ca. 1280- Grove

Decoration attribute 1870) 1750) 1550) (pre-1250?) Burnish 16.2 1.5 4.1 - Basting 10.8 - - Paint 0.2 1.3 1.4 Cord roulettes 25.8 62.6 64.2 58.6 Maize-cob roulettes 21.9 3.7 - - Carved roulettes 1.1 4.7 6.0 Stamped geometric 0.2 0.6 1.4 -

motifs Stamped shell-edge 1.2 1.4 0.3

and scallop motifs

Stamped circular - 1.0 0.6 stylus motifs

Dot punctates 5.4 1.1 0.4 17.0 Grooves/incisions 14.7 18.9 18.0 24.0 Incised geometric 2.5 0.1 - -

motifs Incised herringbone - 0.2 0.5

motifs Incised hyphenated - 1.3 0.8

cross-hatched motifs Rustications - 0.7 0.5 0.4 Applied/reliefs - 0.9 1.8 No. 2378 4126 5791 271

ter's existence suggests the vitality of the information network that connected Iloyi with its home or patron metropolis. The types and range of these connections can only be subject to speculation at this point but it is certain that both Ile-Ife and Iloyi drew their stylistic expressions from the same cognitive and symbolic reservoir.

The adoption of Ife ceramic elements in Ilare district during the 13th century was not, however, an isolated development. Ife ceramic characteristics also emerged in Owo and Benin during the same century, simultaneously with the advent of centralized political structures and ideologies. The expansion of the Ife ceramic sphere from its

homeland around the 11th century to Ilare, Owo, and Benin in the 13th century seems to parallel the political and cultural influence of Ile-Ife in the Yoruba-Edo region. On one hand, the Ife ceramic sphere can be viewed as the regional acculturation to the materials of the metropolitan polity with the longest history, and the most elaborate material forms, of sociopolitical complexity. On the other hand, the ceramic sphere served as the marker of a regional system in which subgroups (social groups and communities) had access to the material correlates of a coherent system of "ideological structures that established and orga- nized their place in the social world" (MacEachern 1994: 207). The evidence at Iloyi shows that Ilare district served as an outlet for the distribution of populations, ideas, and goods that defined the spatial threshold of the Ife ceramic sphere between the 13th and 16th centuries.

Transitions and Multiple Fields of Regional Interactions

The abandonment of Iloyi was a consequence of the in- tense factional conflicts that raged across Ilare district during the early 16th century (Early Intermediate), leading to the establishment of the Okun settlement by a segment of the population from Iloyi during the second half of the 16th century. This was also a period that witnessed the economic expansion of the Upper Osun area, north of Ile-Ife as an entrepot of trading networks and a major production center for iron, dye, and cloth (Belasco 1980: 157; FIG. 7). Okun was located adjacent to this entrepot, and the settlement itself was bisected by an artery that linked Ilare district to the major centers of economic activities in the northern and southern parts of Yoruba country (FIG. 8). The emergence of Okun coincided with the period of political expansion of Benin and Old Oyo, and the weakening of the regional political-economic influence of Ile-Ife (Ogundiran 2000a: 230-231). The expansion of the Old Oyo hegemony during the 17th and 18th centuries in an attempt to control the trading networks that connected the interiors of Yorubaland to the Atlantic coast brought the easternmost boundary of the Empire about 30 km closer to Okun. As the regional trade networks came under the control of Old Oyo and Benin in the 17th century, the regional importance of Ile-Ife dwindled. The ties of Ile-Ife to its frontier and client settlements/polities became weak,


Table 6. Distribution of paste colors in vessel forms, in percentages, based on a random sample of 1079 rimsherds (72.6% of the vessel rimsherds).

Settlements Paste colors Ji J2 J3 J4 J5 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 Bll B12

Iloyi/Grove Brown 62.1 88 - - 25* 20 23.3 10.6* 39 8* - - 20* - - Yellowish-red 32.8 12* 100* 100* - 80 - 26.3 37.5 35 - - 30 - - - 100

Gray - - - - 75* - 48 36.8 - 22 - - 50 - - 11.1

Dark gray 5.1 - - - - 28.7 26.3 23.5 35 - - - - - 88.9 Black - -- -.. -- Greenish gray - - -- - - -__ _ -

Okun Brown 2.4 - 66.7* - 33.3* - 5* - -- - - 4.3* Yellowish-red 3.2 - - - - 1.9* - -- -

Gray 56 100 33.3*100* 66.7* 100* 55 40.7 26 78.4 - 66.7* 40 - - 26.1

Dark gray 14.4 - - - - - 40 29.6 38 21.6 - 33.3* 40 - 100 69.6 31.3 Black - - - - - - -- - - - 9.3*

Greenish-gray 24 - - - - - - 27.8 36 - - - 20 - - 59.4

Iloja Brown 19.2 - - - 76.5 - - 35 - - - -25 - -

Yellowish-red 25 - - - 100 - - - 13.9 -

Gray 21.1 - - - - - - 13 - 31 13.9 - - -

Dark gray 30.8 - - - 23.5* - - - 26 - 51 63.9 100* 100 41.7 Black 3.9 - - - - - - 26 - 18* 22.2 - - 19.4 -

Greenish-gray - - - - - -

No. 256 33 3 4 24 42 94 73 137 83 25 42 76 13 41 92 41

*Percentages of counts less than 5.

and a number of these frontier polities were incorporated into the Oyo Empire during the early 17th century (Hor- ton 1992: 135).

Expectedly, the diagnostic Oyo ceramic attributes were

predominant in some of the areas that were brought under the direct political control of Old Oyo between the 16th and 18th centuries (Usman 2000: 57-58; Willett 1961a:

77). Two of these areas, Ipo and Esie, are contiguous to Ilare district. It has been suggested that the prevalence of

Oyo ceramic elements in these areas was due to a combi- nation of several factors, including increased immigration of Oyo population into the periphery communities, and

inter-marriage and trading connections between the me-

tropolis and its political periphery (Usman 2000: 59; Wil- lett 1961a: 77). Although a few stylistic elements of the

Oyo ceramic sphere were found in the ceramic assemblage of Okun, the forms and design attributes of the Ife ceram-

ic sphere were dominant in the settlement. The Ilare dis-

trict may not have been incorporated into the Old Oyo Empire although the district had a close proximity to the easternmost boundary of Oyo hegemony. It is, however, of

interest that the Oyo ceramic forms at Okun were decorated with the characteristic Ife decoration motifs. For exam-

ple, B7 and B9 bowls were decorated with circular stylus stamps (a decoration motif absent in the Oyo ceramic

sphere) and their surfaces were, unlike the situation at Old

Oyo, without basting. It is therefore likely that the two di-

agnostic Oyo vessel forms were not produced in the heartland of the Oyo metropolis but were imitations made in the peripheries and the boundary areas.

The presence of Oyo ceramic elements in Okun is a material manifestation of the new routes of contact that connected Ilare district to Old Oyo area during the 16th-18th centuries. The intersection of Ife and Oyo ceramic elements at Okun confirms the local historical narratives that the settlement was one of the nodes of trade networks con-

necting the northern and southern areas of Yoruba-Edo re-

gion. Local history, in particular, describes Okun as a pro- visioning settlement for itinerant traders and porters carry-

ing goods between the southern rainforest and the north-

ern savanna belts (FIG. 7; Ogundiran 2000a: 231). The

new ideas associated with the traffic of people and goods

along the trading arteries no doubt broadened the repertoire of ceramic decorations and vessel forms in Ilare dis-

trict from the late 16th to 18th centuries.

Despite the stylistic similarities that situate Okun with-

in the Ife ceramic sphere, there were marked differences in

paste colors between the ceramics at Iloyi, Ile-Ife, and

Benin on one hand and those at Okun on the other. In con-

trast to Iloyi and Ile-Ife in particular, the ceramic assem-

blage at Okun reveals a drastic reduction in ceramics with

yellowish-red pastes, an increase in gray and dark gray, and

Journal ofField Archaeology/Vol. 28, 2001 39

Table 7. Chi-square test of inter-settlement comparison of decoration and vessel form. Asymptotic value is consistently less than 0.05.

Pearson's Minimum Valid chi-square expected Cramer's cases value count V2

Decoration lloyi-Okun 9917 376.158 1.25 0.20 Okun-Iloja 6504 2220.601 3.29 0.58 Iloyi-Iloja 8169 3337.572 7.28 0.64

Vessel forms loyi-Okun 1111 147.280 0.50 0.36

Okun-loja 865 672.518 6.52 0.88 Iloyi-Iloja 910 720.809 2.55 0.89

the emergence, for the first time, of greenish-gray ceramics (TABLE 6). The differences in paste colors of ceramics between Iloyi and Okun are most noticeable in Jla, B3, B4, B8, and B12 forms. These variations are no doubt indica- tions of changes in the ceramic production processes and sources of clay. Yet it seems that despite the settlement relocation, population shuffling, and the weakened institutional link of Ile-Ife to Ilare district during the 16th-18th centuries, the production centers that supplied ceramics to Okun continued to draw from the stylistic traditions that originated from Ile-Ife during the 13th century.

The Incorporation of Ilare District into the Oyo Ceramic Sphere

The reasons for the abandonment of the Okun settlement in the late 18th century remain unclear, but one of the settlements that was established in Ilare district before the end of the 18th century was Iloja. This settlement developed as a rural market center where weekly fairs were held for the exchange of agricultural and manufactured goods. The occupation of Iloja between ca. 1780 and 1870 overlapped with the decline of Old Oyo's imperial hegemony. The decline was followed by the collapse of the Em- pire and the evacuation of its capital and its satellite settlements between 1810 and 1836 (Law 1977: 271-259). All ceramics in Iloja have the same decorations and vessel forms as those that characterized the heartland of the Oyo ceramic sphere during the 15th-19th century, especially Old Oyo, Igboho, Ipapo, and Koso (Agbaje-Williams 1983, 1989a, 1989b). The ceramic assemblage at Iloja therefore demonstrates the complete shift of Ilare district from Ife to Oyo ceramic sphere during the late 18th through the 19th century.

By the second quarter of the 19th century, the core areas of the Ife ceramic sphere, especially Ile-Ife and Benin, were also infiltrated by Oyo pottery. At Ile-Ife, Oyo ceramic elements included jars with fluted rims, some with heavily rolled and everted rims, and lids with strap handles.

Other Oyo elements at Ile-Ife include B9, L4, and L6 forms with burnished and basted surface, gray and black fabric, and thin walls decorated with incised patterns, often in geometric shapes filled with a very fine and regular incised hatching (Garlake 1977: 85). To the north of Ile-Ife, the fine gray/black wares of Old Oyo, especially the black basted and burnished bowls, have been excavated in the palace premises of Ilesa in a context dated to the third quarter of the 19th century (Willett 1961b, 1973). At Benin, Oyo ceramics were also found in the 19th- and early 20th- century deposits. Connah (1975: 133) refers to these imported ceramics as "Ilorin black burnished ware" and they are characterized mainly by lidded bowls with flared rims (especially B7 and B9 bowls) and decorated with pattern burnishing.

The expansion of the Oyo ceramic sphere in the last decades of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century into the peripheries and cores of the Ife ceramic sphere took place as a consequence of the collapse of the Old Oyo Empire. The southward population dispersal from the Oyo metropolis and many of its satellite towns followed the sack of the capital in the second or third decade of the 19th century. Some of these Oyo migrants would have been potters who set up production centers in their new homes at Ibadan, Ijaye, and even in the outskirts of Ile-Ife (Ajekigbe 1998: 134; Allsworth-Jones 1996: 317; Fatunsin 1992: 10-11; Willett 1973). Ethnoarchaeological and historical research indicates, however, that by the mid-19th century, large-scale production and distribution of Oyo pottery was best achieved at Ilorin (Anifowose 1984; O'Hear 1987; Willett 1961a). Hence, the Oyo pottery that was traded to Benin, Ilesa, Ile-Ife and other parts of the Yoruba-Edo region attracted the label of "Ilorin wares" before the end of the 19th century, a confirmation of the prominence of Ilorin in the production and redistribution of Oyo pottery during the century. The proliferation of Oyo ceramic elements, especially their far-flung distribution from Ilorin in- to the heartland of the Ife ceramic sphere, reflects the expansion and increased integration of regional trade networks, demographic change and, perhaps, changes in the organization of production. But whereas Oyo ceramics did not replace the ceramic complexes of the Ife sphere in Ile- Ife and Benin, the ceramic complex in Ilare district was pre- dominantly of Oyo characteristics during the 19th century. The link of Ilare district to the Oyo ceramic production centers would have been accentuated by the position of Iloja settlement as one of the rural centers for the redistribution and exchange of manufactured products, foods, and processed agricultural products, especially palm oil (Ogundiran 2000a: 286). The increasingly intensified spe- cialization of craft production that is alluded to in the writ-


OYO EMPIRE

Major trading _ center

I /

I /

I/

* Old Oyo

BENIN KINGDOM

Benin Benin

0 50 km I I

Figure 7. Iare district and directions of influence of Oyo and Benin (17th-18th century).

ten and oral historical traditions of the period may explain the dependency of Ilare district on ceramic imports rather than on local production (O'Hear 1987; Peel 1983:

21-22).

Summary and Conclusion

This study demonstrates that changes in the ceramic

styles of Ilare district were products of the shifting intersocietal networks that bounded the regional periphery to its

metropolitan neighbors. The ability to make inferences on the conditions and processes of regional connections and interactions from the distribution of ceramic forms and decorations is, however, enriched by the understanding of the historical contexts of sociopolitical development and

collapse, migrations, and socioeconomic relations. The intra-settlement uniformity of paste colors, decora-

tion motifs, and vessel forms indicates that each communi-

ty procured its ceramics from the same sources, and that at different periods between the 13th and 19th centuries, Ilare district belonged to two ceramic spheres. The exten- sion of these spheres to Ilare district is indicative of the district's participation in regional interactions and exchanges. The evidence at Iloyi settlement shows that Ilare district was aligned with the Ife-Benin-Owo axis and was a nexus

for the distribution of Ife pottery and peoples between the 13th and 16th centuries. The adoption of the Ife-style ceramics in Ilare district was associated with population ex-

pansion from Ile-Ife and the proliferation of centralized

political institutions in the 12th-13th centuries. The economic and technological development and cultural elabo- ration that went hand in hand with sociopolitical com-

plexity in Ile-Ife stimulated the imitation of its styles and

iconographic symbols in the central and eastern parts of the Yoruba-Edo region. Thus, the similar decorative motifs of ceramics in the Ife-Benin corridor during the 13th-16th centuries seem to constitute active iconic signs for institut-

ing and maintaining regional identities and sociopolitical relations.

The unidirectional network between Ilare district and Ile-Ife was replaced during the 16th century by a plurality of interaction networks. Although ceramic forms and decorations cannot fully capture the complex gamut of these networks, the intersection of the local imitations of the

Oyo ceramic attributes and the continuity of the repertoire of Ife ceramics indicate the adjustment of Ilare district to the transformations in regional networks. There is, on the one hand, evidence that Ife traditions provided order, sta-

bility, and predictability in ceramic styles despite the so-

\

\

I

I I \

\

I X A

\ /

Ife

1

Directions of influence

4/

/ I

, ,

-1

'Northern I

"I\

I

I

* /

.II.


Figure 8. Okun: central artery road, looking north.

ciopolitical and physical displacements in Ilare district. On the other hand, the incorporation of the Oyo ceramic elements into the ceramic assemblages at Okun settlement at- tests to the linkage of Ilare district to the Oyo territory. Al-

though Ilare district was one of the first loci in the Ife ceramic sphere to adopt the Oyo ceramic elements, no such

contemporaneous intrusion of Oyo ceramic elements was evident at Ile-Ife and Benin in the 16th-18th centuries. Thus, we are able to identify archaeologically that the shift in regional networks of interaction occurred earlier at Ilare district than at Ile-Ife and Benin, the two political metropolises in the Ife ceramic sphere.

The period that spanned the late 18th-19th centuries, however, witnessed the full incorporation of Ilare into the

Oyo ceramic sphere and the adoption of Oyo pottery in the

political centers of the Ife ceramic sphere. The expansion of the Oyo ceramic distribution resulted from both regional population shifts and the expanding economic networks in Yorubaland during the 19th century. These two parallel de-

velopments are indicated respectively by the dispersal of

Oyo populations into different parts of Yorubaland following the collapse of Old Oyo and by the emergence of Ilorin as successor to the ceramic industries of the defunct

Empire (O'Hear 1987; Drewal and Mason 1998: 48). The ceramic industries at Ilorin achieved a wider distribution of

Oyo pottery in Yoruba-Edo region than was attained by the Oyo metropolis itself.

The strong link in the ceramic characteristics between

Iloyi and Ile-Ife possibly indicates a conscious reinforce- ment of sociocultural relationships between the frontier and its metropolis, with the ceramics serving as templates for affirming common identities and close social relations. On the other hand, the iconic-stylistic elements of the Ife ceramic sphere at Okun were possibly a residual continua- tion of structures that began to lose their meanings in Ilare district as the social distance between the district and Ile- Ife widened. The evidence at Iloja indicates that ceramics ceased to be a class of objects for expressing coherent systems of symbols and ideologies in the district during the late 18th and 19th centuries. Rather, the choice of ceramic styles seems to have responded more to utilitarian pur- poses and market conditions than to any symbolic com- municative function and delineation of social boundaries.

The foregoing study indicates the usefulness of ceramic

stylistic attributes in demonstrating long-term stability and mutually exclusive tendencies at regional metropolises. It is at such centers that ceramic decorations and vessel forms should be expected to convey the sense of a stable universe

despite the changes in the characteristics of regional interactions. In contrast, due to the frequent cycles of change and poorly developed institutions, the ceramics at the periphery or non-centers are less likely to be culturally bound. The case study in Ilare district demonstrates that the ceramic styles of the regional periphery were determined by relationships with the major political centers and the events that originated from them. In other words, the ceramic as-


semblages in Ilare district do not have the central patterns and mutually exclusive tendencies that often characterize the core areas; rather, they mirror those of the dominant political centers in the Yoruba-Edo region.

Acknowledgments This paper benefited from the advice and encourage-

ment of Julie Hansen, Michael DiBlasi, and Babatunde Ag- baje-Williams. The comments by an anonymous reviewer and Philip Allsworth-Jones are also highly appreciated. My gratitude to the following individuals and institutions for

graciously giving me access to ceramic collections from Yorubaland: Anthonia Fatunsin (National Museum, Ibadan), Bayo Johnson (National Museum, Ile-Ife), Peter Dada (Archaeological Unit, Obafemi Awolowo Universi-

ty, Ile-Ife), Raphael Alabi and Sonny Okundia (University of Ibadan). The ceramic illustrations and analyses were

completed with the assistance of Moses Ogunleye, Bukola

Ogundiran, and Kayode Oyadeji. John Drewal enthusias-

tically permitted the reproduction of Figure 5. The fieldwork in Ilare district was sponsored in part by a Boston

University Humanities Foundation research award (1996).

Akinwumi Ogundiran (Ph.D. Boston University, 2000) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Florida International University, Miami. He has conducted interdis-

ciplinary fieldwork on the archaeology of landscape and com-

munity history in Nigeria. His ongoing research focuses on the

archaeology of social memory and the impact ofAtlantic commerce on economic and sociopolitical transformations in the Yoruba-Edo region. Mailing address: Florida International

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