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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Language Shift and its Reflection in African Archaeology: Cord Rouletting in the Uele and Interlacustrine Regions |
Author: | McMaster, Mary |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa (ISSN 1945-5534) |
Volume: | 40 |
Pages: | 43-72 |
Language: | English |
Notes: | biblio. refs., ills., maps |
Geographic terms: | Great Lakes region Congo (Democratic Republic of) Africa |
Subjects: | language history pottery archaeology prehistory Anthropology and Archaeology History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History, Archaeology Language and culture material culture history |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00672700509480413 |
Abstract: | This paper addresses an ongoing effort to elucidate the process of language shift as it relates to changes and continuties in material culture, with particular reference to Equatorial Africa. Aside from its contribution to current understanding of the later archaeology and linguistic history of the region, the paper also advances analytical and methodological approaches to the study of the interplay between language, culture and technique. The first phase of the research was carried out during 1978-1980 and involved an ethnographic and linguistic study of artisans, including potters, in the Uele region of the present Democratic Republic of Congo. The object of the second phase (conducted in the Kagera region of Tanzania between 1991-1993) was to locate groups of potters who currently produced cord-rouletted wares and speak Bantu languages but whose ancestors, conceivably, had shifted language while maintaining their own tradition of roulette embellished ceramics. The third phase was primarily a literature-based study conducted between 1998-1999 with the objective to locate as much comparative data concerning roulette wares and their makers from the interlacustrine region and neighbouring areas of Equatorial Africa. App., bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |