Institute of Archaeology

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Merrick Posnansky

PROFESSOR EMERITUS

Ph.D., Nottingham University, 1956

Office: 7288 Bunche Hall
Phone: (310) 206-7104
Fax: 310-206-4723
E-mail: merrick@history.ucla.edu

Mailing Address:

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
308 Charles E Young Dr. North
A210 Fowler Building/Box 951510
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1510

Personal Homepage

Class Websites

UCLA Appointments

Departments of Anthropology and History

Research Interests

The archaeology of state formation and urban growth in Ghana and Togo; archaeology of the African Diaspora; cultural conservation and archaeological education in tropical Africa; postage stamps and national cultural policy.

Selected Publications

The Hani ethnoarchaeological survey, initiated in 1970, involves monitoring daily and seasonal activities in a Ghanaian traditional community of around 2000 peasant cultivators some 270 miles northwest of the capital. This twenty-five year longitudinal study facilitated the observation of processes of change and the attitudes of the villagers to major environmental, economic, and political changes. Hani is the successor village to the medieval and early modern town of Begho (ca. AD 1100-1800) which with a probable population of over 10,000 was one of the largest towns in the southern part of West Africa at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in 1471. Excavations were conducted at the site from 1970 to 1979. Conclusions have been drawn as to the effects of different types of change. The work, initiated while Dr. Posnansky was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Ghana, has continued in close cooperation with former colleagues and students of that university. The project is now in the writing up stage and a summary account appears in the African Archaeological review for 2002.

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Featured Publication

The Construction of Value

Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

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