Borno Museum Society Newsletter nos.
68-69 & 70-71
49
The Emergence of social complexity in the southern Chad Basin towards
500 BC: Archaeological and other evidence
Dierk Lange*
Even today the remarkable culture of the Kotoko city-states, located...
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Borno Museum Society Newsletter nos.
68-69 & 70-71
49
The Emergence of social complexity in the southern Chad Basin towards
500 BC: Archaeological and other evidence
Dierk Lange*
Even today the remarkable culture of the Kotoko city-states, located south of
Lake Chad, impresses visitors.
According to oral traditions collected by
anthropologists, the founders of the city-states were the Sao from whom the
Kotoko claim to descend.
1 Archaeologists discovered that the beginning of
settlement in the southern Chad Basin was linked to Mega Chad’s desiccation
and dated this retreat to the early first millennium BC.
2 Yet, the question of
the emergence of the Sao urban culture as such and hence of social
complexity remained until recently largely unsolved.
Followers of the Culture History School interpreted the Sao urban culture on
the basis of architectural features, furniture, and techniques as remnants of
an old Mediterranean civilisation that was once wide-spread acros
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