Kintampo complex in Ghana

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

This commingling of sahel and forest peoples is contemporary with Middle Kingdom Egypt.

Kintampo Complex

Between 4000 and 3500 BP dessication forced a southerly expansion of the Sahel, sweeping along with it the pastoral and agro-pastoral populations accustomed to living in a semi-arid landscape. In places these groups expanded further south, perhaps only seasonally, coming into contact with indigenous hunter-gatherers and incipient vegeculturalists. The best documented record of such contacts, come from the Savannah of modern Ghana and the sites of Ntereso, Kintampo, and Daboya[.]

There, ‘Saharan’ Kintampo complex projectile points, stone arm rings, beads, small stone axes and livestock appear in the midst of indigenous Punpun Phase microlithic quartz assemblages around 3500 BP. Subsequently, it would appear that instead of population replacement there was a type of population fusion, as the Kintampo complex quickly adapted to the subsistence potentials of the savanna-forest ecotone[.]

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"The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project is the first venture conducted under the auspices of the academic collaboration established between the Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana (UG) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). KARP is a field-based project designed around two separate areas of research, encompassing the Late Stone Age (LSA) Punpun (hunter-gatherers) and Kintampo Cultures (agro-pastoralists) and development and change within iron metallurgical technology in the region. "

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

From DougM

The Birimi Site

The Birimi Site is located at the top of the Gambaga Escarpment near the towns of Gambaga and Nalerigu in the Northern Region of Ghana. It was located in 1988 during the first surveys of the area under the direction of Dr. Francois J. Kense (1991). The site was attractive because it is a very large, intact Kintampo site that also had evidence for preserved organic remains. Unfortunately the potential of this site was only recognized during the last weeks of excavations. Other Kintampo sites in the area gave evidence for a substantial Kintampo occupation (Casey 2000), but Birimi had the potential to fill in the gaps in our understanding of who the Kintampo people are and what they do.

Kintampo appears at a critical time in West African prehistory, during the final desiccation of the Sahara Desert. At this time, significant changes become apparent in the archaeological record of Western Africa as people migrate from the Central Sahara, and evidence for domestic crops and settled lifestyles becomes evident. Kintampo is part of this trend toward sedentism, but it stands alone in time and space, separated by about 500 years and miles in any direction. Continued research will narrow the gaps in time and space between Kintampo and its neighbours, but at present it seems to arise almost without precedent and occurs only in Ghana.


The material culture of Kintampo is characterized by an artifact assemblage that includes most or all of the following: comb-stamped pottery, grinding stones, ground stone axes, stone arm bands, bored stones, grooved stones, geometric microliths, and a chipped stone tool industry predominantly in quartz. The fossile direteur of the Kintampo complex is the "terra cotta cigar", an elliptical object usually made of fine sandstone that has been scored or pecked and abraded on one or both sides.

Kintampo has been the focus of more investigations than any other single complex in Ghana, but archaeological research in Ghana in general has been patchy. While previously Kintampo appeared to have been a complex oriented toward the forest and savanna ecotone in central Ghana, in truth Kintampo is found almost everywhere that archaeologists look for it. True analyses of most of the Kintampo artifact types are lacking so it is difficult to compare Kintampo sites on the basis of the published record. Consequently it has been difficult to see relationships between sites and regions beyond the superficial similarities of a fairly generalized artifact assemblage.
One of the most pressing questions about Kintampo has been the nature of its subsistence base. Although sites of substantial size with permanent structures have suggested large populations and long-term occupation, evidence for domestic crops has been lacking. Their presence has been suggested by a faunal assemblage from central Ghana that indicates an increase through time in animals that prefer cleared fields (Stahl 1985), but no cultigens had ever been found.

At the Birimi Site, an intensive program of sampling and flotation throughout the excavations resulted in the recovery of domestic millet.

Joanna L. Casey PhD
www.cas.sc.edu/ANTH/Faculty/Caseyj/index.htm

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Kintampo sites are found in all major ecological zones; bone harpoons and fishhooks are found at some riverine sites, such as Ntereso along the Volta River (the Oti River is a major tributary of the Volta). I found a rasp (see drawing below) in the Bassar region of northern Togo. The Kintampo complex is characterized by the intensification of subsistence strategies (including oil palm and possibly yam and the appearance of domesticated goat or sheep), food processing, settlement, communication networks, exchange, personal ornamentation, and art (including shell ornaments and beads, polished stone armrings or bracelets and beads, polished stone axes of imported greenstone, and pottery with imported mica temper). Many scholars have argued for connections between the Kintampo cultural assemblage and earlier Saharan populations. It seemed therefore highly plausible that Kintampo sites were present along the Oti River, which would have served as a natural corridor for populations moving south from the ever-desiccating Saharan desert.


Stone rasp (1) and decorated potsherd (2) from Kintampo sites


Kintampo culture did not, in fact, have links with the Oti River Valley in Togo and appears to be restricted largely to Ghana, although Kintampo sites may still be found in the rock shelters and hills of the Dapango region in the far north of Togo.

Philip de Barros