Despite major advances in archaeological coverage of West Africa over the past several decades, interpretations remain hampered by the analytical bifurcation of the region’s past into northern (active) and southern (reactive) economic and political trajectories. Building on the expanding corpus of scholarship, I argue that northern origins models centering the arid zones have limited our ability to see broader economic and political processes. The region has been intricately interconnected for millennia, and a dispersed network of culturally diverse farmers (and larger nodes) is visible by the second millennium BC. The network shaped the development of diverse cities, influenced statecraft and governance in regional polities, and supported a centrally located autonomous region. I integrate data from West Africa with emerging archaeological research foci on diverse forms of urbanism and the agencies of nonelite and local settings within kingdoms and empires. I highlight the distinctive contributions of the complex historical autonomies found along the central Mouhoun/Black Volta commercial corridor. An egalitarian ethos had a transformative effect in societies in this region, and communities may have viewed inequalities as an impediment to exchange systems for critically important goods.

尽管过去几十年来西非的考古报道取得了重大进展，但对该地区过去的经济和政治轨迹的分析分歧仍然阻碍了解释。基于不断扩大的学术库，我认为以干旱地区为中心的北方起源模型限制了我们看到更广泛的经济和政治进程的能力。几千年来，该地区一直错综复杂地相互联系，到公元前第二个千年，一个由文化多元化的农民（和更大的节点）组成的分散网络就可见一斑。该网络塑造了多元化城市的发展，影响了地区政治的治国方略和治理，并支持了位于中心的自治区。我将西非的数据与新兴的考古研究相结合，重点关注不同形式的城市化以及王国和帝国内的非精英机构和当地环境。我强调了穆洪/布莱克沃尔特中央商业走廊沿线复杂的历史自治的独特贡献。平等主义精神对该地区的社会产生了变革性的影响，社区可能将不平等视为至关重要的商品交换体系的障碍。