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The cosmopolitan borderland: western Ethiopia c. AD 600–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2021

Alfredo González-Ruibal
Alfredo González-Ruibal*
Affiliation:
Institute of Heritage Sciences, Spanish National Research Council, Spain (✉ alfredo.gonzalez-ruibal@incipit.csic.es)
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Abstract

The western Ethiopian borderland is remote from all centres of power in the Horn of Africa. As a result, local communities have often been regarded by scholars and state agents alike as isolated and antiquated. The picture that emerges from archaeological research, however, is more complex: borderland societies have, at different times from the mid first millennium AD onwards, embraced, reworked or rejected innovations from neighbouring polities. Indeed, borderland groups developed a type of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ integrating foreign customs and artefacts. As an old multicultural borderland spanning many centuries and involving a range of state and non-state actors, the region offers important lessons for our understanding of frontier societies in Africa and beyond.

Keywords

EthiopiaSudanHorn of Africalong-distance tradeconnectivitycosmopolitanism
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 95 , Issue 380 , April 2021 , pp. 530 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd.

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