Henry T. Wright (ed.). Early state formation in central Madagascar: an archaeological survey of Western Avaradrano.

Pearson, Mike Parker

HENRY T. WRIGHT (ed.). Early state formation in central Madagascar: an archaeological survey of Western Avaradrano (University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoirs 43). xvi+311 pages, 231 illustrations, 24 tables. 2007. Ann Arbor (MI): Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan; 978-0-915-70363-0 paperback $38.

The archaeology of Madagascar is not well known in the Anglophone world. It might seem of minor importance since the island was settled late in world prehistory, despite being separated by only 300 miles of Indian Ocean from the East African cradle of humanity. Yet Madagascar's colonisation from distant Indonesia was one of the longest prehistoric sea migrations. Its series of human-assisted megafaunal extinctions, the rapid development of Malagasy political complexity, and the interactions with Swahili traders, European pirates and colonial powers make its history and archaeology truly remarkable.

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Henry Wright became a leading light of the New Archaeology in the late 1960s, developing processual models of early state formation. He realised that the eighteenth-century Malagasy kingdom of Imerina could be considered as an example of pristine state formation, protected in its highland fastness from external influences by its inhospitable coastal zones. Here was an opportunity to work with archaeological evidence, oral histories and written texts to examine an early state's formation on a par with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the late 1960s, in cooperation with Madagascar's Museum of Art and Archaeology and building on a long tradition of French and Malagasy research, he began studying the region's ceramic chronology, leading to field surveys and small-scale excavations in the 1970s and 1980s in the 120[km.sup.2] region of western Avaradrano, within Imerina and north of today's capital of Antananarivo.

Wright's team of American and Malagasy archaeologists have subsequently assembled an important record of settlement sites and hillforts, ceramic assemblages, stone tombs and standing stones, carbonised plant remains and subsistence practices since the thirteenth century AD. Whilst Madagascar's first settlers arrived probably around 2000 years ago, the central highlands provide no evidence for human occupation before the second millennium AD. The Merina sequence begins with the Fiekena phase (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries AD), after which settlements moved onto hilltops in the Antanambe phase (fifteenth-early sixteenth century AD) and the Ankatso and Angavobe phases (sixteenth century AD). The sixteenth century appears to have been a period of social dissolution and conflict whereas the seventeenth century was a time of population growth and settlement proliferation. During the Ambohidray phase (seventeenth century AD) a town emerged at Ambohimanga. During the Kaloy phase (eighteenth-early nineteenth century AD) this early capital at Ambohimanga was massively fortified within deep ditches and defended entranceways. This was the time of Andrianampoinimerina ('the noble desired in the heart/navel of Imerina'), the great Merina ruler who extended his kingdom across the highlands in the period 1787-1810.

Historians and social anthropologists have speculated on the sequence and causes of Merina state formation but the archaeological evidence gathered by Wright's team has allowed these competing models to be evaluated. For example, Maurice Bloch's 1977 model of tribute-based relationships between hilltop and lowland communities is contradicted by the archaeological evidence which shows an almost total settlement shift to hilltops prior to the seventeenth century. Similarly, Conrad Kottack's Carneiro-inspired prime mover model of population growth and increased food production also fails the archaeological test.

The book is divided into six chapters detailing the landscape, the ceramics, the settlements, their development and a commentary. Most of the book consists of appendices: the site catalogue, absolute dates, palaeoethnobotany, subsistence economy and political ideology. The latter is an excellent study by Susan Kus of Ambohimanga's symbolism and ideology, examining how Andrianampoinimerina incorporated island-wide cosmological concepts of space and time in the construction of this capital and the legitimation of his rule. Students of Malagasy history will find the book's overall treatment of historical sources somewhat light but this is intentional. This monograph is intended as the first of several volumes which will address both historical and archaeological evidence in more detail.

This is an important book for several reasons. It documents the first joint archaeological project between Anglophone and Malagasy scholars after independence in 1960; the project has proved to be a blueprint for subsequent post-colonial, collaborative archaeological research in Madagascar. Secondly, it provides a solid empirical contribution to the study of Merina state formation, hitherto dominated by historical studies. It will be of interest to anyone studying early state formation, wherever their research area, as well as to European prehistorians looking for comparative studies of hillforts and megalithic monuments. This book, long awaited, is not just an archaeological survey report bur is a significant milestone in the social archaeology of the western Indian Ocean.

MIKE PARKER PEARSON

Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK

(Email: m.parker-pearson@sheffield.ac.uk).