Creation by fire: ritual burning and ancestor shrines in West Africa

Fire-hardened walls, burned floors and completely burned structures are common features of archaeological sites in central West Africa, often forming distinct strata in sites that developed into large mounds, or tells. Despite their ubiquity, the presence of burning on architectural remnants plays a very minor role in archaeological interpretations. We suggest that burned features are frequently the result of different forms of sacrificial burning that created durable ancestor shrines to anchor the past, living and future community. We contextualize ritualized burning within a broader cultural setting where fire is transformative and creative, with extensive religious dimensions that are both central to the important historic social status of blacksmiths and potters and fundamental to sacrificial practices more broadly. We argue that architectural burning is part of this broader corpus of transmutation by fire involving both divine power and extensions of the human soul that created material attachments critical to ancestral presence.