The Archaeology of Shrines among the Tallensi of Northern Ghana: Materiality and Interpretive Relevance

Abstract

The material culture of the Tallensi is, comparatively speaking, somewhat analytically neglected in comparison to the wealth of ethnographic material available. The present paper seeks to redress this dearth of archaeological data by focusing on the history of a particular Tallensi shrine in the Tongo Hills of northern Ghana. Shrines, especially in the West African context, appear to serve as symbolic repositories of information and shared understanding about regional social processes, and ethnohistory and archaeological excavation of shrines and associated material culture can reveal much about settlement patterns, resource utilization, and ethnicity.