Tomos Llywelyn Evans

TOMOS EVANS, then a graduate student at College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, was awarded funding in October 2022 to aid research on “Monumental Amalgamation: An Inclusive Approach to Long-term Community Engagement with the Ìjèbú Yorùbá Earthwork System of Sungbo’s Eredo,” supervised by Dr. Neil Norman. This project focused on addressing questions of when, how, and why the 100-mile-long monumental bank-and-trench earthwork of Sungbo’s Eredo, southwestern Nigeria, was constructed and utilized from c.1400 AD to the present. Archaeological research was undertaken at two settlement sites in the vicinity of the monumental structure: Eredo Village and Augustine University. Excavation work focused on obtaining a full stratigraphic profile of the earthwork bank to understand methods of construction, as well as chronological and artefactual material to gain insights into the chronology of its construction and use, as well as evidence pertaining to its functionality and significance to successive local communities. Analysis of newly obtained artefacts, as well as material excavated from earlier field seasons, was also undertaken in order to begin developing a ceramic typology, date some of the deposits, and develop a better understanding of the activities and functioning of these sites in relation to the earthwork and its entranceways nearby. Preliminary interpretation of the stratigraphic, chronological, and artefactual data suggests that divergent construction practices occurred at different areas of the earthwork, and that it played both a defensive and regulatory role in promoting the Ìjẹ ̀bú Yorùbá kingdom’s policies of secrecy, insularity, and isolationism which helped ensure its longevity.