Heritage and Loss on the West African Coastline: An Historical-Archaeological Study of the Old Apa Site, Badagry, Nigeria

My study will examine the archaeology of the West African coastline using as a case study the Old Apa site in Badagry, Nigeria. Archaeological work has shown that parts of West Africa's coastline have been occupied for at least 3000-years, while historical records show that the region was an important interaction zone between Europeans and West Africans in the past 500-years.

However, previous studies of this later historical period have focused on the polities slightly inland and ignored the consequences of climate change on coastal cultural heritage. As such, the backdrop of the encounters between Europeans and West Africans, in particular, through the infamous trade in enslaved people and other goods, remains little understood.

To fill this gap in knowledge, my research will examine the Old Apa site, which once served as a slave port and is one of the oldest sites that contributed to the Atlantic trade networks. On the surface of this site (Old Apa site) are scattered smoking pipes, bottles, and potsherds, as well as remnants of slave chains and European constructions. Despite the abundance of materials on the surface of the site and its significance in the history of the West African coastline, less attempt has been given to investigate the site archaeologically, document the cultural practices of its past inhabitants, and examine the effects of a changing environment on the past and present tangible and intangible heritage.

Through interdisciplinary methods such as excavations of 6 test pits across the site, to obtain secure sequences of material culture (especially pottery) informing cultural and chronological affiliations; ethnographic interviews of the present inhabitants at New Apa across different occupations, sex, age, and status; surveying an area of 40,000m2 at Old Apa site, to assess the extent and the distribution of material culture on its surface; analysis of the assemblage of pottery and other artefacts to be recovered; and comparative studies of data from the Department of Archaeology, University of Abomey-Calavi (Republic of Benin) and the University of Ibadan (Nigeria), this research will reveal the history of the people who occupied the region; the nature of their material culture; and the effects of climatic change on cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible). This work will seek to contextualize the Old Apa settlement within the burgeoning field of West African coastal archaeology and thus add to an important developing body of research.

My study will expand scholarly knowledge of the coast and offer a pioneering investigation into how climatic change has affected the West African coast's history since European contact about 1480 CE. Since most historical knowledge of the West African coast comes from European sources and the experience of individuals who lived there is poorly understood, this research, therefore, will expose the cultural sequences of previous human cultures.