WEST AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

REVUE OUEST AFRICAINE d’ARHEOLOGIE

ISSN 0331-3158

Edited by

DAVID A. AREMU

Assisted by

JONATHAN O. ALERU

And OBARE B. BAGODO

Volume 47 (2017)

Published on Behalf of West African Archaeological

 Association by the Editorial Board of WAJA

EDITORIAL

This is the First Volume of West African Journal of Archaeology on Line. The Journal had been in Publication for the past forty-six years. The first publication came out in 1971. We cannot forget the contributions of our heroes past who founded the journal: Late Prof. Thurstan Shaw, S.G.H. Daniels, Nicholas, David and Ekpo Eyo. Late Prof. Bassey Andah came on board of the journal in 1977 and 1978 as Assistant Editor, and Editor- in- chief in 1979 until 1997. Within the eighteen years of his services to WAJA he edited twenty-two Volumes with five of them being Special book issues. Such a committed leader needs to be remembered. Bassey Andah went to be with the Lord in 1997, some twenty years ago.  We devote this volume to him in appreciation of his great contributions to the existence of West African Journal of Archaeology up till today.

He sustained the international standard of the journal and succeeded in winning more subscribers from within and outside Nigeria to patronize the Journal. He encouraged many of his younger colleagues to publish in the journal and the publication served as an invaluable source of academic information for scholars in Archaeology and Anthropology in West Africa and other parts of the world.    Professor Andah was very much alive to the responsibility of sustaining and improving the Archaeology programme he inherited at the University of Ibadan. It is to his credit that this journal is still alive. It has become a challenge to the Editorial Board to ensure that the good works of this great scholar and others who had contributed to the survival of this International journal before and after him should not go into oblivion.

West African Journal of Archaeology publishes original research and review articles on the Archaeology, cultural resources and cultural history of West Africa in continental and global contexts. We welcome field reports and applied studies that use material culture and related sources to address community centered and environmentally sustainable development process and policies. Theoretical, scientific and policy topics that make use of indigenous knowledge systems are also integral to the goals of the journal.

Volume 47 (2017), have ten articles. Three of the articles are in French and the remaining seven are in English. They are research reports and applied studies from Benin Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria and Togo in commemoration of late Professor Bassey Andah.  We encourage our readers to patiently go through each of the papers.