Town · West Africa: the Sudan and Guinea · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Birim earthworks

One of the two clusters of ditched enclosures studied by Chouin and DeCorse: settlements surrounded by deep ditches and banks, built from the first millennium AD and abandoned before the mid-fifteenth century.

Occupied on 1 January 1200. The point marks the Birim valley near Akim Oda; the individual sites are not placed here.

Who holds it

Title
Not known
Since
Not known
Confidence
low

Lord in 1200

No lord known.

How things stand that morning

Occupied farming settlements.

Walls and castle

See summary.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Radiocarbon-dated archaeology (Chouin and DeCorse 2010); position of the point approximate.

Sources and studies

  1. G. Chouin and C. DeCorse, Prelude to the Atlantic trade: new perspectives on southern Ghana's pre-Atlantic history (800-1500), Journal of African History 51 (2010), abstract and summary as read on the publisher's page

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.