Warning: file_get_contents(https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=32904899&cmd=llinks): Failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
in C:\Inetpub\vhosts\kidney.de\httpdocs\pget.php on line 215
Managing Epidemics in Ancestral Yoruba Towns and Cities: "Sacred Groves" as Isolation Sites #MMPMID32904899
Ogundiran A
Afr Archaeol Rev 2020[]; 37 (3): 497-502 PMID32904899show ga
The COVID-19 pandemic is firing up our imagination about how to account for the past epidemics in archaeological contexts. This essay is a reflection on some of the historical cases of epidemic outbreaks in Yoruba history, and what we can learn from social memory, oral traditions, and recent eyewitness accounts on how microbial attacks were managed in ancestral Yoruba urban centers. Malignant microbes usually thrive in the kind of settlement configurations-dense towns and cities-that supported the preferred sociopolitical organization among the Yoruba for over a millennium. Sacred groves were incorporated into the ancestral Yoruba urban planning. They served many roles, including as isolation centers for managing epidemic outbreaks. Such isolation sites are difficult to identify in archaeological contexts without the aid of historical sources. However, contemplating how these special spaces were embedded in the past Yoruba cultural lives could broaden our imagination of social regeneration processes in times of crisis (e.g., infectious disease).