Stephen A. Dueppen, PhD

ACLS New Faculty Fellow

BA (1999): University of California, San Diego
MA (2004), PhD (2008): University of Michigan
Tel: 541-852-2466 Email: dueppen@uoregon.edu
Curriculum vitae

I am an anthropological archaeologist with a general interest in the development of social and political complexity. My research in West Africa aims to add this understudied region to worldwide discussions on complexity, in particular by directly addressing the origins of societies with non-centralized political systems through the study of long-term trajectories. Currently, my primary focus is on the case study of Kirikongo, an Iron Age village community in Burkina Faso, where I am employing diverse analytic methods to improve our understandings of the origins and development of inequality, social ranking, decentralization, checks and balances in political systems, and the use of divine sources of power to create and legitimize all of these. In addition to my work in Burkina Faso, I have also done fieldwork in Senegal, Kenya, and New Mexico, and laboratory work at IFAN-Dakar, the NMNH (Smithsonian), and the Field Museum of Chicago.

TEACHING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

Anth 150: World Archaeology (Spring 2011, 2012)
Anth 310: Domestic Animals (Spring 2011)
Anth 310: Near Eastern and Egyptian Prehistory (Spring 2012)
Anth 410/510: African Prehistory (Fall 2010)
Anth 410/510: Social Contracts (Fall 2010, 2011)

CURRENT FIELD RESEARCH

Kirikongo Archaeological Project, Mouhoun Province, Burkina Faso

The archaeological site of Kirikongo, an extremely well preserved Iron Age village (occupied ca. 100-1700 CE), is contributing a significant new case study of a developmental trajectory leading to a modern egalitarian society. I started the project with an intensive excavation and mapping program at the site itself (2004 and 2005/2006 field seasons). Most recently, the field program has expanded to include survey of the surrounding area and excavations at three contemporary sites (2011 field season). Future fieldwork will continue the survey and excavations, and revisit Kirikongo as the site is threatened by the maintenance and planned improvement of Burkina Road #10.
Research at Kirikongo is carried out with the support and permission of the CNRST, Ministry of Culture, and Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Ouagadougou. The project has been facilitated from its inception by Dr. Lassina Koté, Chair of the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Ouagadougou and Director of the Local Museum of Douroula, where artifacts from Kirikongo are curated.
Field research and material analyses for the Kirikongo Archaeological Project have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the ACLS New Faculty Fellows Program with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oregon.

Summary of Major Results:

My research at Kirikongo has revealed a dynamic socio-political sequence, with the development of institutionalized inequalities over the course of the 1st millennium CE, followed by an egalitarian revolution in the early 2nd millennium CE. The consequent social formation, despite being structurally egalitarian was actually more complex than the vertically oriented system that preceded it, and calls into question common assumptions of directionality in socio-political evolution.
In addition to the socio-political reconstruction, research at Kirikongo has contributed to a variety of practical and theoretical issues in the region’s archaeology. For example:
• I employed ceramic seriation and architectural analyses, anchored by radiocarbon dates, to develop the first material culture sequence in the Mouhoun Bend, the regional applicability of which was demonstrated during the 2011 survey.
• Kirikongo’s chickens are currently the earliest known in sub-Saharan Africa, and I have argued that chickens are of greater relative importance in egalitarian political systems since they are less likely than other domestic animals to be a symbol of inequality.
• Hereditary craft specialists, particularly iron workers and potters are common in the region today. My analyses at Kirikongo indicate that these technologies became specialized along different pathways. Iron working began as a generalized practice, but became co-opted by elites in the mid 1st millennium CE, only to be removed to the exterior of the village after the early 2nd millennium CE revolution. Potting became specialized after the revolution, when it was coupled with iron-working.
• Following the revolution, Kirikongo’s residents stopped keeping cattle and began to participate in collective hunts. I have argued that this was a socially motivated change related to increasing equality, as this type of hunting practice often cross cuts individual houses and binds the community together, while cattle can be a source of individual or familial wealth.
• Research at Kirikongo points to the importance of savanna regional networks. I have found similarities in Early Iron Age ceramics throughout the region currently inhabited by Gur speakers, leading me to propose the existence of a “Voltaic Tradition”. In addition, my faunal analyses indicate that the Voltaic region may be a source area for small cattle and possibly chickens seen in the 1st millennium CE Inland Niger Delta.

Book

Dueppen, Stephen
Egalitarian Revolution in the Savanna: The Origins of a West African Political System.
Equinox Publishing, London (Expected Publication March 2012)

Articles

Dueppen, Stephen volume in prep
Burning the past, present, and future: The ancestor house at Kirikongo, Burkina Faso. For inclusion in Trials by Fire: Archaeologies of Burned Sites and Features, ed. by Alison Rautman and James Snead.

Dueppen, Stephen in press
From kin to great house: Inequality and communalism at Iron Age Kirikongo,
Burkina Faso. American Antiquity, expected January 2012

Dueppen, Stephen in press
Cattle in the West African Savanna: Evidence from 1st Millennium CE Kirikongo,
Burkina Faso. Journal of Archaeological Science, expected 2011.

Dueppen, Stephen 2011
Early evidence for chickens at Iron Age Kirikongo (ca. AD 100-1450), Burkina Faso. Antiquity 85:142-157

Dueppen, Stephen 2004
The Kirikongo Archaeological Project. GEFAME 1(1)

PhD Dissertation

Dueppen, Stephen (Chair Kent Flannery)
Reinventing Equality: The Archaeology of Kirikongo, Burkina Faso 2008

ACTIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS

Maadaga Archaeological Survey, Tapoa Province, Burkina Faso

Project Zooarchaeologist, 2006-present

Located adjacent to the Gobnangou Escarpment in southeastern Burkina Faso, this research project explores changes and continuities in landscape use over the past 2000 years. In addition to participating in two seasons of fieldwork (2004, 2006), I collaborate as the project zooarchaeologist and have worked with fauna from three excavated Iron Age sites. Identification and analyses were recently completed and preliminary results on the use of aquatic resources were presented at the 2011 SAA meetings. Publications for this project are in preparation.
This project is in collaboration with Project Director Dr. Daphne Gallagher (University of Oregon).

Diouboye (Central Faleme Project), Senegal

Project Zooarchaeologist, 2010-present

This research project is based at the early 2nd millennium CE village Diouboye, located along the Faleme River in eastern Senegal. Excavations at the site have yielded an exceptionally large faunal assemblage, the analysis of which will be a multi-year project leading to a significant contribution to our understanding of Iron Age subsistence in this region. In 2011, identifications from a preliminary subsample of the collection were checked using comparative collections at the NMNH (Smithsonian Institution).
This project is in collaboration with Project Director Cameron Gokee (University of Michigan)

Dragon Jar Project, Guthe Collection, Philippines (Housed at University of Michigan)

Ceramic Analyst, 2003-present

Focusing on vessels collected during an early 20th century University of Michigan expedition to the Philippines, this project is a good example the research potential of museum collections. My involvement with the greater Guthe Collection project (coordinated by Carla Sinopoli) began with the technological and stylistic analysis of the stoneware Dragon Jars, a class of storage vessel employed for transporting goods and valued in its own right as a trade item within east and southeast Asian and Indian Ocean networks of the 2nd millennium CE.
More recently I have employed anthropological theories of technology in conjunction with published excavation and shipwreck data to define a chronological sequence for the Guthe Collection jars, and proposed production areas in modern China and Vietnam. The application of these analyses has augmented our knowledge of maritime trading systems and interconnectivity in ancient southeast Asia. In the future, I hope to expand this research to include a larger sample of jars from other trading sites, particularly those on the Swahili Coast.

Dueppen, Stephen in press
Temporal variability in Southeast Asian dragon jars: A case from the Philippines
Asian Perspectives

Sinopoli, Carla M., Stephen Dueppen, Robert Brubaker, Christophe Descantes, Michael 2006
Glascock, Will Griffin, Hector Neff, Rasmi Shoocongdej, Robert J. Speakman
Characterizing the stoneware “dragon jars” in the Guthe Collection: chemical,
decorative, and formal patterning. Asian Perspectives 45 (2): 240-82.

Other Research Interests

African Pastoralism

I was introduced to West African archaeology through my involvement in the analysis of the beautiful rockshelter paintings of the Tassili-N-Ajjer. These elaborate panels depicting pastoral life provide a window into mid-Holocene societies of the central Sahara Desert. I maintain an active research interest in pastoral ideology, which I have also explored through textual analysis of historically recorded Fula songs and poems.

Holl, Augustin and Stephen Dueppen 1999
Iheren I: Research on Tassilian pastoral iconography. Sahara 11: 21-34.