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Méma

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(Redirected from Mema) Region and former country in present-day Mali "Mema" redirects here. For other uses, see MEMA (disambiguation).
Méma
8th century CE–c. 1450
StatusKingdom
Common languagesSoninke language
Religion African traditional religions, Islam
GovernmentMonarchy
History 
• Established 8th century CE
• Independence from Mali 1433
• Conquest by the Songhai c. 1450
Succeeded by
Songhai Empire

Méma is a region and former state in Mali, Africa, a key constituent kingdom in the Wagadou, Mali and Songhai Empires.

Description

A plain of alluvial deposits, Méma is situated north of Massina, west of Lake Debo and the Inner Niger Delta, and southwest of the Lakes Region. 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.

History

Méma 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.

Historically, Méma was one of the smaller Soninke states, an important vassal or province of the Wagadou Empire. According to local legends it was founded by Biranin Tounkara, a slave or companion of Dinga, the legendary founder of Wagadou. Historian Dierk Lange has argued that Ghana, rather than being situated to the northwest of the Niger Delta, was in fact centered in the Méma area.

After Wagadou's collapse around the end of the 12th century, Méma was one of the most important Soninke successor states. 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. In 1433 the kingdom regained its independence before falling to the Songhai Empire by the middle of the century.

Archaeology

Toladié

Toladié, which dates between at least 430 CE and 670 CE, is the largest occupation site (76 hectares) in Mema. 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.

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. 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.

References

  1. Togola 1996, p. 92.
  2. Anderson, David; Rathbone, Richard (2000). Africa's Urban Past. James Currey Publishers. pp. 27–. ISBN 978-0-85255-761-7. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  3. 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.
  4. Levtzion, Nehemia (1973). Ancient Ghana and Mali. Taylor & Francis. pp. 27, 50. GGKEY:H6DG0T4PJC4. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  5. ^ Togola 1996, p. 95.
  6. Togola 1996, p. 96.
  7. 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. JSTOR 3171939. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
  8. 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.
  9. MacDonald, Kevin (Jul 4, 2013). Complex Societies, Urbanism, And Trade In The Western Sahel. OUP Oxford. p. 839. ISBN 978-0-19-162614-2.
  10. Holl, Augustin F.C. (Aug 16, 2000). Metals and Precolonial African Society. AltaMira Press. pp. 57–58. ISBN 9781461705925.
  11. ^ 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.

Sources

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