Méma
Méma is a region in Mali, Africa. A plain of alluvial deposits, it is situated north of Massina; west of Lake Debo and the Inner Niger Delta; and southwest of the Lakes Region.[1] The now-senescent basin may have been the first settlement area for communities who migrated from distressed homelands of the Sahara during the last two millennia BC.[2]
Mema was inhabited by 3800 BCE at the earliest by migrants from Azawad fleeing the drying Sahara. It was host to a large number of Stone Age villages, succeeded by hundreds of Iron Age cities, far pre-dating the settlement of Djenne-Jeno.[3]
Historically, Mema was one of the smaller Soninke states; it was also at one time a province of Ghana Empire.[4] Historian Dierk Lange has argued that Ghana, rather than being situated to the northwest of the Niger Delta, was in fact in the Mema area.[5]
Mema was one of the most important successor states to the Ghana Empire. It appears several times in the Epic of Sundiata. The Tunkara (king) of Mema shelters Sundiata when he flees the Manding region, then provides cavalry to help him overthrow Soumaoro Kante and establish the Mali Empire, within which Mema held a special, more autonomous status.[6]
Toladié
Toladié, which dates between at least 430 CE and 670 CE, is the largest occupation site (76 hectares) in Mema.[7] As a primary center in the region, Toladié utilized smelted iron tools produced by the communities of Akumbu, Boubou, Boundou, Boulel, Kobadie, Kolima, and Nampala for purposes of tribute and trade with the Ghana Empire.[8]
Akumbu
At the Akumbu mound complex, in Mema, its archaeological findings date between 400 CE and 1400 CE; at the cultural deposit of AK3, which contained three human remains, the dates range between 400 CE and 600 CE.[9] While two out of three human remains were in a fully decomposed state, one of the human remains were able to be determined to be a young adult (17–25 years old) female, who was buried with two copper bracelets - one on each wrist, 13 cowrie shells, 11 stone beads, and a fully intact pot.[9]
- Togola, Téréba (2008). Archaeological investigations of Iron Age sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa). Archaeopress. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-4073-0178-5. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
- Anderson, David; Rathbone, Richard (2000). Africa's Urban Past. James Currey Publishers. pp. 27–. ISBN 978-0-85255-761-7. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
- Gomez, Michael (2018). African dominion : a new history of empire in early and medieval West Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 15-6. ISBN 9780691177427.
- Levtzion, Nehemia (1973). Ancient Ghana and Mali. Taylor & Francis. pp. 27, 50–. GGKEY:H6DG0T4PJC4. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
- Lange, Dierk (1996b). "La Chute De La Dynastie Des Sisse: Considerations Sur La Dislocation De L'Empire Du Ghana A Partir De L'Histoire De Gao". History in Africa (in French). 23: 155–78. doi:10.2307/3171939. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
- Levtzion, Nehemiah (1977). "5 - The western Maghrib and Sudan". In Oliver, Ronald (ed.). The Cambridge History of Africa Volume 3: From c.1050 to c.1600. Cambridge University Press. pp. 377–9. ISBN 9781139054577. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
- MacDonald, Kevin (Jul 4, 2013). Complex Societies, Urbanism, And Trade In The Western Sahel. OUP Oxford. p. 839. ISBN 978-0-19-162614-2.
- Holl, Augustin F.C. (Aug 16, 2000). Metals and Precolonial African Society. AltaMira Press. pp. 57–58. ISBN 9781461705925.
- Togola, Tereba (May 1993). "Archaeological investigations of Iron Age sites in the Mema region, Mali (West Africa)" (PDF). University Microfilms International. p. ii., 112–113. doi:10.30861/9781407301785. ISBN 9781407301785. OCLC 213478595. S2CID 129143321.