An Archaeology of Elmina

Africans and Europeans on the Gold Coast, 1400-1900

by Christopher R. De Corse

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Extent: 266 pages

Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications

Subjects: African Studies, World Archaeology

Series: Foundations of Archaeology

Language: English

Hardback (Out of print)

(April 2001)

ISBN: 9781560989714

Price: $45.00

Out of stock

This volume examines a complex African settlement on the coast of present-day Ghana from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. European narratives and indigenous oral histories. As the first European trading post in sub-Saharan Africa, remarkable cultural continuity is seen in the midst of technological change.


An Archaeology of Elmina examines a complex African settlement on the coast of present-day Ghana from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries using the archaeological record, European narratives, and indigenous oral histories. Placing the site in broader context as the first European trading post in sub-Saharan Africa, Christopher DeCorse explores the developments there in light of Portuguese, Dutch, and British expansion and illustrates remarkable cultural continuity in the midst of technological change..

  • By (author) Christopher R. DeCorse

"DeCorse's thought-provoking study is a work of impressive scholarship. Scholars working in Ghanaian and West African history, Atlantic World studies, trans-Atlantic slave trade studies, and word-systems studies, and historical archaeology will find it a rich source of information and many new insights." Ray A Kea in Journal of African Archaeology "[A]n exceptionally well-written and well-sourced study of life in an evolving African coastal community during the era of the trans-Atlantic trade. The book will doubtlessly become a classic study of culture contact and change in Africa, and will serve as a valuable comparative case for historical archaeologists examining the contact setting in the New World." J. Cameron Monroe in International Journal of African Historical Studies "Twenty years ago Christopher DeCorse published the most comprehensive archaeological study of any historic site on the West African coast. In a new prologue, DeCorse reviews extensive new research that builds on his earlier findings-particularly in the areas of Atlantic transformations, settlement history, maritime cultural resources, skeletal remains, ceramic chronology, and cultural resource management." Leland Ferguson, University of South Carolina