LOCAL CRAFTMANSHIP OR EXTERNAL INTERVENTION? A COMPOSITIONAL STUDY OF CLAY TOBACCO PIPES IN A YORUBA INTERIOR CA. 1600-1840.

My research examines tobacco pipes from Ede-Ile, a historic settlement whose occupation spanned the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Historically, Ede-Ile was established as a frontier camp of the Oyo Empire and was strategically situated such that it linked the capital of the empire, Oyo-Ile, to the Atlantic coast. Archaeological investigations into the material life and domestic economy of Ede-Ile indicate that the colony transformed into a thriving and self-sustaining town. This was partly due to craft specialization, including the acquisition of new tastes and goods from the Atlantic coast, adapted to local needs. Tobacco consumption, an Atlantic import, constitutes an essential facet of the quotidian life of the Ede-Ile population, as indicated by the presence of clay smoking pipes. Typological analysis revealed that Ede-Ile smoking pipes resemble those from Oyo-Ile. However, it is uncertain whether tobacco pipes were part of the specialized production activities at Ede-Ile or whether the pipes were traded from elsewhere. My project combines typological with compositional analyses, using Portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) and Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to determine and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the chemical variations of these artifacts while offering a unique insight into complex cultural interactions and developments in Yorubaland during the Atlantic Age. Results from this study will lay the groundwork for provenance analysis, which can, in future studies, be supplemented by mineralogical techniques.