Retour sur l’archéologie mortuaire d’époque médiévale dans le sud-ouest du Nigéria

Abstract

To what extent could human bones identified in excavations since the 1960s in two major urban centers of medieval Nigeria bear witness - or not - to the passage of the plague pandemic in the second half of the 14th century? Our analysis is based on the bones of individuals found in a mass grave in Benin City in 1962-1963, the very partial remains of a child unearthed at the Oduduwa College II site in Ile-Ife in 2019, and on descriptions of human remains discovered during various archaeological projects in this central city of the Yoruba world. The stratigraphic position of the skeletons, the positioning of the bodies and the markings observed on certain bones are all elements that we take into account to feed our reflection on the plague and, more broadly, on mortuary practices in tropical Africa before the opening of Atlantic trade, and their consequences on archaeological deposits.

Keywords

• burial
• black death
• mass grave
• human remains