Interest in egalitarianism and egalitarian behavior in complex societies has grown in recent years, spurred by anarchist approaches and collective action theory. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, has seldom figured in the discussions, despite the fact that it has been historically home to a diversity of societies that have either rejected political centralization altogether or put limits to it. The aim of this article is to examine, from an archaeological point of view, the forms of resistance that have restricted—or thwarted—monarchic power in the continent during the last two millennia. For this, I use the concept of traditions of equality. They can be defined as sets of political practices that are materially constituted, shaped by culture and transmitted through collective memory and that generate and structure egalitarian behavior in any given society. They occur across different types of sociopolitical organizations, from undivided societies of hunter-gatherers to strongly hierarchized kingdoms. Here, I will explore six of such traditions as they operate in Sub-Saharan Africa: relocation and isolation, anarchic and heterarchical settlements, adverse sacralization, equalizing technologies, counterinfrastructures, and revolution. 

近年来，在无政府主义方法和集体行动理论的推动下，人们对复杂社会中的平等主义和平等主义行为的兴趣有所增长。然而，撒哈拉以南非洲很少出现在讨论中，尽管它在历史上一直是各种社会的家园，这些社会要么完全拒绝政治集权，要么对其加以限制。本文的目的是从考古学的角度研究过去两千年来限制或挫败非洲大陆君主制权力的抵抗形式。为此，我使用了平等传统的概念。它们可以被定义为一系列政治实践，这些实践是由物质构成的，由文化塑造的，并通过集体记忆传递，并在任何特定社会中产生和构建平等主义行为。它们发生在不同类型的社会政治组织中，从未分裂的狩猎采集者社会到等级森严的王国。在这里，我将探讨撒哈拉以南非洲的六种传统：搬迁和孤立、无政府主义和异质化定居点、不利的神圣化、平等技术、反基础设施和革命。