440 ray a. kea
Based on original Arabic-language sources, this stimulating work bridges the historiographical
divide between north and west African history. Through a close analysis of texts and oral inter-
views, it examines the long-distance commercial and cultural relationships of merchant families
from southern Morocco to the basins of the Senegal and upper and middle Niger rivers.
Magnavita, S. et al. (2009) Crossroads/Carrefour Sahel: Cultural and Technological Developments
in First Millennium BC/AD West Africa, Journal of African Archaeology. Monograph Series 2.
Frankfurt am Main: Africa Magna.
A bilingual, multi-authored and archaeologically-orientated volume, the text explores a wide
range of topics at different levels of aggregation, including metallurgy, technologies and
ideologies pertaining to productive activities, ceramics, historical demography, north-
African–Saharan–west-African trade relations, and state-building projects.
Mattingly, D.J. (ed.) (2003) The Archaeology of Fazzan, volume 1, Synthesis, London: Society
for Libyan Studies.
This volume presents a comprehensive and detailed account of the archaeology and history
of the little-known Garamantian Kingdom, from the first millennium bce to the mid-first
millennium ce. It locates the specificities of the kingdom’s history with reference to the
classical Mediterranean world and the lands adjoining the Sahara.
McIntosh, R.J. (2005) Ancient Middle Niger: Urbanism and the Self-Organizing Landscape,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Drawing on the data of two decades of archaeological fieldwork, the study explores the
development of urbanism in the middle Niger basin from the first millennium bce to the
second millennium ce. It reveals that urbanization began in the region nearly 1000 years
earlier than conventional histories allowed and that urban development was intimately tied
to local and Saharan connectivities.
Nixon, S. (2009) Excavating Essouk-Tadmakka (Mali): New archaeological investigations of
early Islamic trans-Saharan trade. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 44: 217–255.
This article describes the first systematic archaeological study of Essouk-Tadmakka, a leading
commercial center in west Africa from the seventh to the fourteenth century. It provides
new information about the city’s regional, Saharan, and Mediterranean connections and
their importance.
Welsby, D.A. (2002) The Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia: Pagans, Christians, and Muslims along
the Middle Nile, London: The British Museum Press.
The study focuses on the emergence and development of Christian Nubian Kingdoms in the
middle Nile valley from late antiquity to the fifteenth century. It covers a wide range of top-
ics and situates the kingdoms’ interconnections in a context ranging from the Mediterranean
to the Indian Ocean and from the Red Sea to west Africa and the central Sahara.
Wilson, A. (2012) Saharan trade in the Roman period: Short-, medium-, and long-distance
trade networks. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 47: 409–449.
Full of interesting data drawn from archaeological expeditions, the article calls for a
re-interpretation of Garamantian, west African, and Roman trade from the late first millen-
nium bce to the mid-first millennium ce. Recent archaeological research reveals the
intensity, scale, and regularity of a multilevel commerce that encompassed the Roman
Mediterranean world, the Saharan world of the Garamantes, and the middle Niger and
Chadian basins.