This paper is the first in a series summarizing, for the benefit of historians and archaeologists from other areas, the latest developments in radiocarbon dating for the later prehistory of western and northern Africa. These articles will appear every two years, alternating with similar surveys of eastern and southern Africa. A selection of more than 200 dates from those not previously published in this Journal is discussed, and dates obtained by thermoluminescence are quoted for the first time. It should be emphasized that most of the dates included are published in advance of full reports which are being prepared by the archaeologists concerned. The conclusions reached are therefore provisional and may well require modification in the light of a fuller examination of the related archaeological data.

Theories about the Negro origin of the Ancient Egyptians have been with Egyptology ever since its beginnings. Also, certain Negroid features can be found in the morphological appearance of the contemporary Egyptian population, more obviously in Upper Egypt than in Lower Egypt. Modern genetically orientated studies, e.g. of the blood groups, show the penetration of the Egyptian population by Negro genes. The question remains, however, whether the Negroid admixture is connected with the origin of the settled population in Egypt or whether it took place in later, that is to say, in prehistoric, historic or modern times.

The relationships of the peoples of southern Africa after the establishment and expansion of the white settlement in the mid-seventeenth century can be seen in terms of both conflict and interdependence, both resistance and collaboration. The conflict often split over into warfare, not only between black and white, but also within both groups. As time passed, firearms came to be used by ever-widening circles of the combatants, often as much the result of the increased collaboration and interdependence between peoples as of the increased conflict. As Inez Sutton has pointed out, ‘in contrast to most of the rest of [sub-Saharan] Africa, the presence of a settler population ensured that the supply of arms was the most modern rather than the most obsolete’, and on the whole non-whites were acutely aware of changes in the manufacture of firearms in the nineteenth century.

The Portuguese historian of Mozambique, Alexandre Lobato, has referred to the ‘arms and powder, which guaranteed an overwhelming military superiority’ in the Zambezi hinterland, but a rapid survey of the evidence most easily available would suggest that, until the introduction of the maxim gun, the use of firearms seldom, if ever, constituted a decisive military advantage in Central Africa. Guns might sometimes decide the fate of battles, but by themselves they were insufficient to win a campaign. Yet cannon and muskets were undoubtedly the most valuable, and probably the most envied, commodity possessed by the Portuguese on the Zambezi, and the political and commercial role of firearms may well have been quite considerable.

The tradition of religious revolution directed against partially Muslim rulers is traced to the religious reform movement among the zwāya of Mauritania in the 1660s, and to the jihad that brought them briefly into control of Futa Toro, Cayor, Walo, and Jolof in the 1670s. In spite of the reconquest of these states by their secular rulers and the re-establishment of Hassānī control in southwestern Mauritania, the tradition of religious revolt and the aim of establishing an imamate under religious leadership lived on, to reappear in other Fulbe states. It came a generation later, with the jihad of Malik Sy in Bundu during the 1690s, and direct connexions can be traced between the leadership in Bundu and the leadership in the later jihad in Futa Jallon. The jihad in Futa the 1770s and 1780s followed in the same tradition. This evidence suggests that the external influence of the mid-eighteenth-century revival of Islam in Arabia and the Middle East has been overemphasized in West African religious history. Forces working for the reform of Islam based in Africa itself were already at work.

Studies of firearms in Africa undertaken at the University of London, 1967–1970, tentatively suggest that their initial impact was less than had been expected, and that their success in war rapidly declined thereafter. Local manufacture of firearms was very limited, perhaps through lack of necessity, though gunpowder was widely produced. Identifying types of firearms is a problem, though general conclusions may be drawn from contemporary references to certain types of weapons.

Effective use of firearms by Africans in war often depended on muskets being used primarily for hunting and crop protection. Availability of firearms may well have made agriculture possible in areas otherwise overrun with game. For these purposes, military arms would be less suitable than the African muskets cheaply manufactured at Birmingham, all parts being handmade and thus capable of being hand-repaired in the field. Twenty million are said to have been shipped from Birmingham, and another three million from Liège; millions of surplus military weapons must also have found their way to Africa.

Yet the subject can be properly studied only in Africa, where old firearms may still be found, often with their owners still available to describe their use.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of oral tradition is its inability to establish and maintain an accurate assessment of the length of the past it purports to relate. As time passes, societies without calendrical systems tend to become either very vague about this time depth or to relate it to present, changing circumstances. The most common method of measuring the past in many societies is in terms of king lists or genealogies. A comparison of orally transmitted king lists and genealogies in various places and times, for example, the early Mediterranean world and the Ancient Near East, the native states of India, Africa and Oceania, indicates that certain patterns of chronological distortion seem to emerge, sometimes telescoping but more often lengthening the past.

The former may occur through omission of usurpers, however defined, periods of chaos or foreign domination, or by the personification of an entire epoch by a founding folk-hero. If the reasons for artificial lengthening are obvious, the mechanisms are less so. In this respect a survey of both welldocumented cases and of orally transmitted lists can be instructive. Lengthening is often the result of euhemerism; more often subtler themes emerge. These include longer reigns in the earlier, less known period, the arranging of contemporary rulers as successive ones and, most importantly, extended father/son succession throughout the list or genealogy. This last is of direct and profound chronological importance, and its occurrence is widespread enough to be termed stereotypical. Yet it is not often recognized as aberrant, even though its documented occurrence is exceedingly rare. The consequent equation of reigns with generations will almost always result in an exaggerated conception of the antiquity of the beginning of the genealogy. Other weaknesses of orally transmitted king lists include lack of multiple reigns and dynastic changes, and suspiciously perfect rotational succession systems.

Within its scope this article only attempts to hint at the origin, shape and effects of these distortions. Its main thesis is that much light can be cast on African cases of this nature through a comparative analysis drawing from a whole range of societies and sources.

This paper examines the internal disputes which the Ọyọ kingdom suffered during the eighteenth century, and which had as their ultimate issue a coup d'état in ca. 1796 which is traditionally held to mark the beginning of the disintegration of the kingdom. The troubles began with a conflict within the capital of the kingdom, between the Alafin (king) and the Ọyọ Mesi, a group of non-royal chiefs led by the Baṣọrun, and the first phase of the troubles culminated in 1754 in a seizure of power by the Baṣọrun. It is suggested that this struggle between the Alafin and his chiefs had its origins in competition for control of the new sources of wealth derived from the expansion of the kingdom. In 1774 the Alafin overthrew the Baṣọrun and recovered power in the capital by calling in the assistance of the subject towns of the kingdom. It is argued that this action proved fatal to the Ọyọ kingdom, by involving the rulers of the provincial towns in the political disputes of the capital and revealing the military impotence of the divided capital. In ca. 1796 the provincial rulers intervened at the capital on the other side, assisting the Baṣọrun to overthrow the Alafin. But the coalition of dissident metropolitan chiefs and dissident provincial chiefs immediately broke up, and many of the latter began to disregard the divided capital and make themselves independent.

According to Egharevba, firearms arrived in the Benin Kingdom in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and they were first employed in Benin campaigns during the reign of Oba Esigie. Another writer states that ‘the Ekiti had encountered firearms as early as the sixteenth century, when Benin soldiers, armed with guns, supported the Ikerre in a war against the Ado’. The view that Benin military prowess in the sixteenth century derived from a monopoly in the use of firearms is current in several publications; however, the role of guns in sixteenth century Benin military history has been overestimated, for although some Portuguese arquebusiers accompanied Benin armies on expeditions and assisted the Benin rulers in their military affairs, the Benin troops did not possess the new weapons.

In the Islamic history of tropical Africa, prayer has often played an important, sometimes even a decisive, part. The functions of prayer may be ceremonial, instrumental (directed to the achievement of specific objectives), and disciplinary. In the military context the two latter are particularly significant. The discipline of Muslim prayer is strict, and has sometimes underpinned military discipline.

Before the difaqane, warfare among the Sotho was usually little more than cattle-raiding. Some attacks were combined operations executed by all the fighting men of a chiefdom, but most were the exploits of a few adventurous individuals. The raiders would each be armed with a bunch of long spears, a knobkerrie and a light oxhide shield, and they would usually approach the enemy's cattle along river beds and through mountain kloofs, relying partly on surprise to achieve their ends. Occasionally the men who were guarding the herds would have prior warning of the attack, in which case they would be specially reinforced and would offer a spirited resistance, but more often they would be taken unawares, and they would then beat a hasty retreat and sound the alarm in the village: all the able-bodied men would thereupon join together in pursuit of the attackers in the hope of recovering their stock as it was being driven away. When the warriors of two chiefdoms clashed, they generally conducted their fighting at a considerable distance from each other, for their spears were more suitable for throwing than for stabbing, and their small shields were not designed to be impenetrable barriers in close conflict but to deflect missiles. If the two groups did come to grips with each other, the spears' bamboo handles could be broken and they could then be used for stabbing, but the most favoured weapon in this situation was the knobkerrie. Desperate battles, however, were rare, and in most of the Sotho's skirmishes their casualties were light.

Any survey of the effects of the possession and use of firearms among the Tswana and, to the north of them, the Ndebele and Shona peoples, must start with a brief investigation of firearms among the Khoikhoi and the mixed Khoikhoi-white groups. The latter were in some respects the vanguard of the expansions of the white frontier in southern Africa. They originated in unions between Khoikhoi and white hunters, traders and farmers, and probably never existed without firearms; from an early date they also acquired horses. In the middle years of the eighteenth century the Khoikhoi-whites and the Khoikhoi peoples, whose economic basis and political structure had been broken by various aspects of white settlement amongst them, were being armed by the whites to take part in commando expeditions against the San. There is evidence that some Khoikhoi trekked from the colony to avoid this service.

It is well known that during the eighteenth century and most of the nineteenth century the problem of mortality limited the European presence in West Africa. Disease and death in appalling proportions plagued whites who settled along the coast. Phrases such as ‘the white man's grave’ popularized theories concerning survival in West Africa that were based mainly on race. The belief that black people by virtue of their race would fare better than whites in Africa affected certain historical events. Hence religious groups began to train blacks in the Caribbean for missionary work and then sent them to Africa, while other groups such as the American Colonization Society encouraged black people to emigrate back to Africa. The present study is a quantitative examination of the black population that emigrated to Liberia through the American Colonization Society from 1820 to 1843. Particular attention is given to their mortality experience.

Although a total of 4,571 emigrants arrived in Liberia during the 1820 to 1843 period, by the year 1843 only 1,819 emigrants were still living in the settlements. The overwhelming reason for the Liberian population decline, despite constant additions throughout the period, was a high death rate after arrival in Liberia. By examining the various characteristics of the population such as age, sex, place of origin, place of arrival and the like, a clearer picture of mortality in West Africa emerges. A picture which seems to have little relationship to race per se, but rather to the ways in which disease environments in isolated areas affect incoming populations.

The earliest mention of firearms in the central Sudan appears to be from the time of Idris Alooma, ruler of Bornu in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Ibn Fartuwa says of Alooma:

Among the benefits which God (Most High) of His bounty, beneficence, generosity, and constancy conferred upon the Sultan was the acquisition of Turkish musketeers and numerous household slaves who became skilled in firing muskets.

From the mid-seventeenth century until 1861, the Shilluk, notoriously successful raiders, dominated the White Nile. Their population was largely concentrated in the riverain strip which is Shilluk-land today, yet they had undisputed control of the river down to Eleis, and raided as far north as the confluence with the Blue Nile. This ascendancy was based upon the canoe: the characteristic Shilluk tactic was the surprise mass canoe-raid upon herds or villages within striking distance of the river bank. Before the advent of Turco-Egyptian sailing ships, Shilluk canoes were the only really navigable craft on the White Nile. Another important Shilluk asset was the manpower provided by their comparatively high numbers. Most raids were carried out independently of the Shilluk king. The raiding pattern was probably established before the development of the Shilluk ‘divine’ kingship.

From 1820 the Shilluk became more closely involved with the Muslim Sudan. It seems that the beginning of the ivory boom led Kordofan djellabas to open regular trade with the Shilluk. And in ever-increasing numbers, Muslim refugees from Turkish officialdom migrated into Shilluk territory. Trade between Shilluk and Muslim was largely confined to the settlement of Kaka. Its most profitable sector, the ivory trade, was governed by a strict royal monopoly, the maintenance of which gives some proof of the Shilluk king's authority. Wealth thus gained may have led to a short-lived increase in royal power. The mass of the Shilluk were unable to develop any economic alternative to the traditional raids, which continued unabated. In a new raiding pattern, Shilluk of the Kaka region joined Muslim immigrants in raids on the Dinka. Once Kaka had become a slave-market, slave raiding was probably the essential aim of these joint expeditions. Tensions between Shilluk and immigrant traders precipitated a crisis in 1860–1.

Military organization and technology have been important factors in the history of Upper Volta. The innovation of the horse in the fifteenth century as an instrument of war played an important part in the establishment of the Mossi states, formed as they were by conquering cavalry from Mamprusi. In the late nineteenth century, the new innovation of firearms threatened to contribute to equally significant political change in the region.

About 1867 Fulbe living in the Mandingo kingdoms of Tomani and Jimara on the south bank of the Gambia river revolted against their Mandingo landlords. Under their leader, Alfa Molo, the Fulbe went on to destroy the decadent Mandingo state system over much of the Gambia's south bank, and south into Portuguese Guinea, in one of the few determinative conquests in Gambia history. A new state emerged from this revolution which was based on the political dissatisfactions and ethnic consciousness of the Fulbe, its institutions moulded by the political skills and vigorous personality of Alfa's son, Musa Molo. Before 1867, the Fulbe living in the Gambia region were politically highly fragmented, having no tradition of centralized authority. Their dealings with other groups, both stranger and Fulbe, were highly particularized and characterized generally by either accommodation or flight.

The earliest substantial references we have to the reaction of Zulu to firearms date from the 1820s and they show that any previous contact with such weapons must have been slight. The diaries of the English traders who arrived in the kingdom in the latter part of the 1820s point to a widespread fear of firearms on the part of Shaka's subjects—a fear not necessarily related to the missiles the guns discharged, but to the noise and smoke they emitted when fired. Dingane, in a discussion on strategy with his councillors which Isaacs overheard in 1830, said that:

if the white people were to come here to fight us, they need not fire at us, as the report from their pieces would strike you with terror, and while you ran one way, the Malongoes (whites) would drive off your cattle the other.

The overthrow of the Sokoto empire at the beginning of this century was facilitated by the interplay of three major factors—the internal political situation of the empire which allowed too much autonomy to the constituent emirates, the rise of Mahdism in the eastern emirates, and European (British, French and German) competition leading to invasion. Each factor was a potential cause of instability, making the task of the invading forces much easier. This article is an attempt to examine the efforts of Hayatu ibn Sa'id, great grandson of Uthman dan Fodio, to transform latent feelings of expectations of the Mahdi in the Sokoto empire into a positive movement linked to the Sudanese Mahdiyya in the late nineteenth century. It also looks at the impact of Hayatu's activities on Adamawa.