AN ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF INDIGENOUS ARCHITECTURE AT OLD BUIPE, GHANA

ABSTRACT This thesis is an ethnoarchaeological investigation of indigenous buildings in Old Buipe, northern Ghana. It focuses on the types of buildings that are found in the contemporary settlement, the processes by which the buildings are constructed, used and abandoned, the layout of buildings and compounds in the settlement and how these relate to the environmental, historical, social and economic contexts of the local people. Using an eclectic approach that includes a study of information from archaeological, written and oral historical and ethnographic sources, the work attempts to show relationships that may be found between the built environment of the contemporary settlement and the archaeological record as revealed by various archaeological surveys in the study area. The results of the study suggest that most buildings in the settlement are characterized by rectilinear forms and are constructed of daub and mud-bricks, wood and thatch. While the daub and rectilinear buildings are similar to what has been found in the archaeological context and also reported by historians, mud-brick buildings constructions that are plastered with cement and roofed with aluminium/zinc sheets, nails and other non-traditional materials, reflect transformations that have occurred over the years with changing social and economic circumstances of the people. The results also suggest that the abandonment and collapse of buildings eventually result in the formation of what may be termed settlement mounds. The digging and use of clay from these mounds by the local people for building construction offer lessons for understanding archaeological site formation processes, as they cause distortions in the archaeological record.