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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Social Behavior and Spatial Context (Nchumuru) |
Author: | Agorsah, E. Kofi |
Year: | 1983 |
Periodical: | African Study Monographs |
Volume: | 4 |
Pages: | 119-128 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | Cangborong settlement patterns Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration |
External link: | https://jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kiroku/asm_normal/abstracts/pdf/ASM%20%20Vol.4%201983/E.%20K.%20AGORSAH.pdf |
Abstract: | This is a study of the Nchumuru, a Guang-speaking people who in prehistoric times came to inhabit large parts of Ghana ans still maintain their traditional social system and subsistence practices. This paper examines how ethnographic data from the modern settlement of Wiae in the northern Volta Region of Ghana has been used to predict and explain spatial behaviour within Nchumuru archeological village sites. Using a model termed the Local rule (L-R) model of spatial behaviour, the paper explains that the Nchumuru social system has been observed to operate at individual, clan (kabuno), and phratry (kasuro) levels. Each of these levels of human social behaviour follows spatial patterns that can be explained by an understanding of the opportunities offered by social relationships (social resources) and the environment (natural resources). In general the organization rules of the Nchmuru are not as rigid as those operative in the physical world, but they exhibit sufficient regularities to be recognised and described firstly as part of a major social group (the Guang) and then as Nchumuru, and also to explain social and cultural continuities in the archeology of Nchumuru settlement history. Fig., maps, ref. |