Ancient Middle Niger

Urbanism and the Self-organizing Landscape

Roderick J McIntosh author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:29th Sep '05

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Ancient Middle Niger cover

Survey of the emergence of the ancient urban civilization of Middle Niger.

This book looks at the ancient cities of Middle Niger, the most recently 'discovered' ancient urban civilization. Highly-illustrated throughout, it explores the emergence of these unique clustered city plans which developed without a centralised power and which have a profound effect on how archaeologists view ancient urbanism.The cities of West Africa's Middle Niger, only recently brought to the world's attention, make us rethink the 'whys' and the 'wheres' of ancient urbanism. The cities of the Middle Niger present the archaeologist with something of a novelty; a non-nucleated, clustered city-plan with no centralized, state-focused power. Ancient Middle Niger explores the emergence of these cities in the first millennium B.C. and the evolution of their hinterlands from the perspective of the self-organized landscape. Cities appeared in a series of profound transforms to the human-land relations and this book illustrates how each transform was a leap in complexity. The book ends with an examination of certain critical moments in the emergence of other urban landscapes in Mesopotamia, along the Nile, and in northern China, through a Middle Niger lens. Highly-illustrated throughout, this work is a key text for all students of African archaeology and of comparative pre-industrial urbanism.

"...an impressive, path-breaking explanation of the origin of urban settlements on the Middle Niger River, climaxed by a fascinating final chapter in which the author offers a comparative overview of the archaeology of urban landscapes in Mesopotamia, the Nile valley, and northern China." -David C. Conrad, Emeritus, SUNY Oswego, American Historical Review

ISBN: 9780521813006

Dimensions: 235mm x 160mm x 21mm

Weight: 574g

278 pages