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Treating an Interdisciplinary Allergy: Methodological Approaches to Pollen Studies for the Historian of Early Africa1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Schoenbrun
David Schoenbrun*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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Extract

The interdisciplinary task of reconstructing early African history demands more than a passing familiarity with many fields of knowledge. Not least among these is geography, in its broader conception as the pursuit of an understanding of physiographic processes and the role(s) played by people in shaping and responding to these processes. A standard beginning in many a history book takes the reader through annual rainfall figures, topographic generalities, and, perhaps a cursory pedological overview of the region in which the people(s) under study live. Rarely are these introductory remarks integrated into the historical narrative. We are too often left to ourselves in determining the relevance, for example, of a bi-modal rainfall to the local agriculture in a subregion of open grasslands and woody savanna ecotones on black clay valley bottoms. We trust these are data relevant to our understanding of the region's agriculturalists.

Many readers may know that such an area will be subject to heavy soil waterlogging during the wetter months. They may also realize that mound and ridge construction are excellent responses to the risks of root-drowning such waterlogging poses to crops such as beans, and as well, that the indigenous African grain crops Sorghum spp. and Pennisetum spp. can withstand waterlogged soils for brief periods without suffering significant loss of yield (Purseglove 1972:269-71). What is likely to be poorly understood are the forces of ecological and cultural change that have been at work in such an environment transforming the very nature of its vegetational cover and soil profile. In short, a historical perspective is necessary so that we do not run the risk of presenting Africa's ecological background in the same unchanging light as colonial ethnographers did Africa's past.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 18 , 1991 , pp. 323 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1991

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Footnotes

1.

I would like to thank Edward Alpers for providing the original stimulus to delve into this non-traditional source for Africa's history. I must also thank Emile Roche of the Palynology Unit at the Musee royal de l'Afrique centrale, Tervuren, for moral and intellectual support. Also, a special thanks go to la famille DE MARET for hospitality, friendship, and criticism, all given freely and kindly. None of these people is directly responsible for what follows. This article is part of a larger study carried out under a fellowship granted by the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies and under a grant from Fulbright Hays. I am grateful to those organizations for their material support. However, the conclusions, opinions, and other statements in this publication are my own.

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