Fragmentary Ancestors? Medicine, Bodies, and Personhood in a Koma Mound, Northern Ghana

Abstract

Excavation of a single mound at Yikpabongo, Koma Land, northern Ghana, recovered a significant assemblage of ceramic figurines and figurine parts radiocarbon dated to the early second millennium ad. Rather than haphazard deposition of waste materials, the contextual arrangements suggest meaningful intention, and that the mound might have been a shrine, possibly linked in part to a medicinal or healing function. Potentially, significant statements were also being made about bodies and persons via the figurines, their fragmentation and selection, and their association with selected human remains—skulls, teeth, long bones—and other materials—pottery, lithics, iron, and glass beads. Complex beliefs seemingly underpinned these actions and this is explored in relation to the concept of the ancestors and how this might have helped structure past personhood and ontology.