Canonical title:
Civilisation Atlas Chronology | West African Forest Zone |
Deep Substrate–2026

Specification: CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.SPEC.V1.0
Specification status: Canonical Working Standard
Parent clock: CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.WORLD.MASTER.V1.1
Coverage object: 07 of 60
Canonical object ID:
CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.REGION.WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE
Machine ID:
CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.REGION.WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE.V1.1
Record namespace: CA.WAFZ
Source namespace: WAFZ.S
Graph namespace: WAFZ.G
Connector namespace: WAFZ.C
Track namespace: WAFZ.T
Version: 1.1
Cut-off: 23:59 Asia/Singapore, 29 July 2026
Format: UTF-8 plain text
Canonical filename: WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE_CHRONOLOGY_MASTER.txt
Reader format: World-Master-enriched, Scaffold-V1.1-bound
CAT Scan role: high-resolution regional longitudinal spine, evidence surface,
relationship graph and diagnostic launch point.

Scaffold bindings:
CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.001.V1.1 — Universal Civilisation Atlas Scaffold
CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.002.V1.1 — Civilisation CAT Scan
CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.003.V1.1 — Genome / Pressure / Ouroboros
CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.004.V1.1 — Portable Civilisation / Simulation / Fission

Primary interfaces:
Object 05 — Sahara and Maghreb
Object 06 — West Africa / Sahel
Object 08 — Central Africa / Congo Basin
Object 20 — Atlantic Europe and Atlantic systems
Object 21 — Americas and Atlantic diasporas

Release status: First canonical Object-07 release

V1.1 RELEASE NOTE

This release implements Object 07 in the canonical sixty-object World Coverage
Queue. It maps the Upper and Lower Guinean forest zones, the forest–savanna
mosaics and the Atlantic littoral through changing ecological, human, material,
political and institutional systems. Ife and wider Yoruba worlds, the Kingdom
of Benin, Akan and Asante systems, and Dahomey/Danxomè are anchor cases, not
containers into which every neighbouring history is forced.

The parent World Master V1.1 ends at 28 July 2026. This child release extends
W068 by one observed day, to 29 July 2026, without rewriting the parent file.
A future World Master V1.2 should reconcile that child-clock extension.

NUMBERING NORMALISATION

The World Master is controlling:

Object 06 = West Africa / Sahel
Object 07 = West African Forest Zone
Object 08 = Central Africa / Congo Basin

The first Central Africa / Congo Basin child file accidentally identifies
itself as Region/Geographic Spine 07. That local header is a known metadata
conflict. Its subject remains canonical Object 08. This Object-07 file does not
inherit or propagate the conflict.

No publication, event or office change after the cut-off is represented as
observed history. Plans are typed as plans; claims as claims; forecasts as
forecasts.

===============================================================================
0. REGIONAL ARCHITECTURAL STATEMENT
===============================================================================

THIS IS NOT A LADDER IN WHICH “STONE AGE” BECOMES IFE, IFE BECOMES BENIN,
BENIN BECOMES ASANTE OR DAHOMEY, AND PRECOLONIAL KINGDOMS BECOME MODERN STATES.

THIS IS NOT THE HISTORY OF ONE TIMELESS “FOREST CIVILISATION.”

THIS IS NOT A MAP OF MODERN NATIONAL OWNERSHIP PROJECTED BACKWARD.

The correct architecture is braided:

GEOLOGICAL AND ECOLOGICAL SUBSTRATE
↳ DEEP HUMAN OCCUPATION AND ARCHIVE-LOSS CONDITIONS
↳ FORAGING, FISHING, PLANT MANAGEMENT AND FOOD-PRODUCTION MOSAICS
↳ IRON, COPPER ALLOY, GLASS, TEXTILE, CERAMIC AND EARTH TECHNOLOGIES
↳ LINEAGE, AGE, GENDER, SHRINE, GUILD, MARKET AND ASSOCIATIONAL SYSTEMS
↳ VILLAGE, TOWN, CAPITAL, PORT, FOREST PATH, RIVER AND LAGOON NETWORKS
↳ IFE AND PLURAL YORUBA POLITICAL / SACRED WORLDS
↳ BENIN / EDO COURT, GUILD, EARTHWORK AND ATLANTIC WORLDS
↳ AKAN GOLD, KOLA, MARKET, STOOL AND STATE WORLDS
↳ ASANTE UNION, IMPERIAL, COLONIAL AND LIVING INSTITUTIONS
↳ AJA–FON–EWE / TADO–ALLADA–OUIDAH–DANXOMÈ WORLDS
↳ IGBO-UKWU, NRI, ARO, CROSS-RIVER AND NIGER-DELTA SYSTEMS
↳ UPPER-GUINEA, MANO-RIVER, KRU, MENDE, TEMNE, VAI AND RELATED SYSTEMS
↳ ATLANTIC COMMERCE, ENSLAVEMENT, DIASPORA AND RETURN
↳ COLONIAL TERRITORIAL MACHINES AND COMMODITY CORRIDORS
↳ DECOLONISATION, STATES, CITIES, PARTIES, COUPS, WARS AND REPAIR
↳ COCOA, GOLD, OIL, PALM, FOREST, POWER, DATA AND HERITAGE SYSTEMS.

No braid is presumed to be the origin, owner or inevitable destination of the
others. A relationship must be demonstrated by a carrier, direction, interval,
evidence and confidence value.

0.1 PRINCIPAL QUESTION

How did people in forest, forest-edge, lagoon, delta, river and coastal
landscapes repeatedly assemble durable capability through:

— ecological knowledge and mixed food systems;
— towns and institutions built substantially in earth, timber and fibre;
— markets, paths, rivers, lagoons, ports and long-distance brokerage;
— lineage, shrine, guild, title, stool, crown, council and association;
— glass, iron, brass, gold, ivory, textile and information technologies;
— oral, material, performative, written, digital and diasporic memory;
— resistance to and participation in coercive Atlantic systems;
— recovery from conquest, enslavement, colonial extraction, war and epidemic;
— and present attempts to reconcile planetary commodity demand with human
security, ecological survival and cultural repair?

0.2 THE FOREST RULE

Forest is neither an empty barrier nor an untouched opposite of civilisation.
It is a changing, inhabited and repeatedly engineered social landscape. Groves,
oil-palm concentrations, farm fallows, charcoal, paths, sacred forests, forest
islands, earthworks, river landings and species distributions can preserve
human action even where masonry and written archives do not.

The archaeological surface is structurally uneven because:

— acidic tropical soils destroy bone, seed, wood, leather and fibre;
— heavy vegetation limits visibility and survey;
— rain, roots, termites, rivers and construction disturb deposits;
— earth and timber architecture can return visually to the landscape;
— excavation clusters near roads, cities, dams and famous sites;
— colonial collecting detached objects from provenance;
— illicit excavation, looting, war and development remove context;
— and radiocarbon-date density partly measures research funding.

An empty map therefore means PRESENTLY UNDOCUMENTED unless absence is
independently demonstrated.

0.3 ASSOCIATED-SYSTEMS RULE

Ife/Yoruba, Benin, Akan/Asante and Dahomey/Danxomè are named in the queue
because their archives and institutions are unusually visible. “Related” does
not mean subordinate. Igbo-Ukwu and Nri, Aro and Cross River, Ijaw and Niger
Delta ports, Ga-Dangme, Ewe and Adja, Fante, Bono, Denkyira, Akwamu, Akyem,
Anyi, Baoulé, Gyaman, Kru, Grebo, Bassa, Gola, Kpelle, Dan, Vai, Mende, Temne,
Bullom, Limba, Sherbro and many other systems retain their own clocks.

0.4 FAILED STAIRCASE AND CORRECTION

Rejected staircase:

primitive forest → migrating farmers → kingdoms → European discovery
→ colonies → independent nation-states → modernisation.

Corrected reading:

overlapping lifeways; repeated settlement cycling; local invention and
selective borrowing; many scales of authority; asymmetric Atlantic contact;
coerced movement; colonial state creation; postcolonial repair and renewed
dependency; living institutions interacting with formal states.

European arrival is an event inside existing African histories, not the
beginning of those histories. Independence is a legal-political transition,
not the end of colonial infrastructure or commodity dependence.

===============================================================================

SCOPE, OVERLAPS, NAMES AND CATEGORY GUARDRAILS

1.1 CORE HUMAN-GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATE

The core includes:

— the Upper Guinean forests from southern Guinea through Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo;
— the Dahomey Gap and Ghana–Togo highland forest;
— the Lower Guinean forests and forest–savanna mosaics of southern Nigeria;
— the Volta, Comoé, Tano, Pra, Ankobra, Birim, Densu, Mono, Ouémé, Ogun,
Osun, Benin, lower Niger, Cross and coastal-river systems;
— lagoons, deltas, estuaries, coastal forts and Atlantic ports;
— present-day southern Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea,
Togo, Benin and Nigeria as locators only.

1.2 CONTROLLED OVERLAPS

OBJECT 06 — WEST AFRICA / SAHEL
Kintampo, Nok’s southern interfaces, Bono, Begho, forest gold, kola, Dyula
brokerage, Oyo–Ilorin and northern corridors are shared. Object 06 retains
Sahelian system detail; Object 07 retains internal forest-zone histories.

OBJECT 08 — CENTRAL AFRICA / CONGO BASIN
Cross River, southeastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Bantu-language, oil-palm and
Lower-Guinean ecological interfaces are shared. The Sanaga and Congo Basin
remain Object 08 detail.

ATLANTIC OBJECTS
European, American and diasporic systems enter here where they materially
change forest-zone people, institutions, ecology or memory. Their complete
external histories remain in their own objects.

1.3 CANONICAL NAME RULES

YORÙBÁ / YORUBA
Yorùbá is a broad language and cultural field, not one eternal polity. Ilé-
Ifẹ̀, Ọ̀yọ́, Ìjẹ̀bú, Ọ̀wọ̀, Èkìtì, Ìjẹ̀ṣà, Ondo, Egba, Ibadan, Lagos and
other communities possess distinct clocks. ASCII forms are retained for
search; diacritics are preferred where reliable.

IFE
Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is a living city and sacred centre. “Classic Ife” is an analytical
archaeological/art-historical interval, not a vanished race or a licence to
make every similar object an Ife colony.

ODÙDUWÀ AND Ọ̀RÀNMÍYÀN
Traditions about Odùduwà, Ọ̀rànmíyàn and dynastic dispersal are evidence for
political memory, sacred charter and claims to legitimate kingship. They are
not automatically exact contemporary annals.

BENIN / EDO / REPUBLIC OF BENIN
The Kingdom of Benin and Benin City lie in modern Nigeria and are associated
principally with Edo language and institutions. They are not the modern
Republic of Benin, which took that name in 1975. “Bini” appears as a common
historical/English label; Edo is preferred for people and language where
appropriate.

BENIN “BRONZES”
The category includes brass, bronze, ivory, wood and other royal works.
Many famous plaques are leaded brass. Material, maker, commission, looting
event, custody, legal ownership and ritual authority must remain distinct.

AKAN / ASANTE / ASHANTI
Akan denotes a related language-cultural field, not one state. Bono,
Denkyira, Akwamu, Akyem, Fante, Asante, Anyi, Baoulé and Gyaman are not
interchangeable. ASANTE is canonical for the polity and living nation;
ASHANTI is retained as an English and colonial alias and in official titles.

DAHOMEY / DANXOMÈ / BENIN
Danxomè/Dahomey denotes the historical Fon-centred kingdom with its capital
at Abomey. It is not coterminous with all Aja, Fon, Ewe or Gbe-speaking
people and is not identical to the modern Republic of Benin. The Republic
was called Dahomey from independence in 1960 until 1975.

“AMAZONS”
The women’s military formations of Danxomè are described as women soldiers,
regiments or by locally specific terms where sources permit. “Amazons” is
retained as an external historical label, not an unexamined native category.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURE AND ETHNICITY
Kintampo, Nok, an Ife pavement phase or a ceramic sphere is not by itself a
named ethnicity, language, dynasty or state. Artefacts can move without
people; people can change artefacts without moving.

ENSLAVEMENT
Enslaved people are never typed as commodities. Atlantic and internal slave
systems are coercive institutions involving capture, sale, transport,
labour, resistance, survival and descendant communities. African agency does
not make coercion neutral; European demand does not erase African political
choice; neither simplifies millions of individual histories.

MODERN BORDERS
Modern state names are locators, not retrospective sovereignty. A precolonial
entity is not labelled Ghanaian, Nigerian, Beninese, Togolese, Ivorian,
Liberian, Sierra Leonean or Guinean unless the statement concerns modern
location or later memory.

1.4 ORAL, WRITTEN AND MATERIAL ARCHIVES

Oral tradition is evidence, not an inferior placeholder for writing. It is
dated, attributed, compared and located in its performance or collection
context. Palace histories, stool narratives, praise poetry, Ifá corpora,
festivals, songs, proverbs, regalia, earthworks, graves, shrine deposits,
guild practice, plantation landscapes, colonial documents and digital
catalogues are different archive types. No single archive automatically
overrules all others.

===============================================================================
2. INHERITED CLOCK, EVIDENCE AND MACHINE-CONVERSION CONTRACT
===============================================================================

2.1 WORLD CLOCK BANDS

Every protected record maps to one or more inherited synchronisation bands.
The W-band is an index, not a claim of shared causation.

W000 4.54–4.0 Ga
W001 4.0–2.5 Ga
W002 2.5 Ga–541 Ma
W003 541–66 Ma
W004 66–7 Ma
W005 7–3.3 Ma
W006 3.3–2.6 Ma
W007 2.6–1.8 Ma
W008 1.8 Ma–800 ka
W009 800–300 ka
W010 300–130 ka
W011 130–70 ka
W012 70–50 ka
W013 50–20 ka
W014 20–11.7 ka
W015 9700–8000 BCE
W016 8000–6000 BCE
W017 6000–5000 BCE
W018 5000–4000 BCE
W019 4000–3500 BCE
W020 3500–3000 BCE
W021 3000–2500 BCE
W022 2500–2000 BCE
W023 2000–1500 BCE
W024 1500–1200 BCE
W025 1200–1000 BCE
W026 1000–800 BCE
W027 800–600 BCE
W028 600–500 BCE
W029 500–300 BCE
W030 300–100 BCE
W031 100 BCE–1 CE
W032 1–200 CE
W033 200–400 CE
W034 400–600 CE
W035 600–800 CE
W036 800–1000 CE
W037 1000–1200 CE
W038 1200–1300 CE
W039 1300–1400 CE
W040 1400–1500 CE
W041 1500–1600 CE
W042 1600–1700 CE
W043 1700–1750 CE
W044 1750–1800 CE
W045 1800–1850 CE
W046 1850–1870 CE
W047 1870–1900 CE
W048 1900–1914 CE
W049 1914–1918 CE
W050 1918–1929 CE
W051 1929–1939 CE
W052 1939–1945 CE
W053 1945–1950 CE
W054 1950–1960 CE
W055 1960–1970 CE
W056 1970–1980 CE
W057 1980–1990 CE
W058 1990–2000 CE
W059 2000–2008 CE
W060 2008–2014 CE
W061 2014–2019 CE
W062 2020
W063 2021
W064 2022
W065 2023
W066 2024
W067 2025
W068 1 January–29 July 2026

2.2 DATE STATUS

2.3 RECORD CLASS

EVENT | CONDITION | PROCESS | TRANSITION

2.4 EVIDENCE TYPES

2.5 CONFIDENCE

A — direct, convergent or exceptionally secure
B — strong evidence with limited interpretive dispute
C — reasonable but materially uncertain
D — weak, indirect, late or strongly disputed
E — speculative proposition retained because it shapes debate
U — presently unknown

2.6 TIME ZOOM

Z0 — planetary / geological
Z1 — evolutionary / palaeoenvironmental
Z2 — millennial
Z3 — centennial
Z4 — generational
Z5 — annual
Z6 — event / day

2.7 CAPABILITY, LIFECYCLE AND HABITAT — KEEP SEPARATE

CAPABILITY STAGE
FOUNDATION 0 — adaptive worlds before durable surplus administration
STAGE 1 — settlement, stored surplus and specialised exchange
STAGE 2 — administrative, recorded, monetised or institutionally
durable civilisation
STAGE 3 — industrial, territorial and mass-institution civilisation
STAGE 4 — planetary network civilisation
STAGE 5 — regenerative and reliably self-correcting civilisation

Stages are capabilities, not moral ranks. A mobile forest livelihood, an Ife
glass workshop, an Asante road system and a mobile-money network solve
different coordination problems. Higher leverage may deepen lower-floor
dependency. No present system here is securely Stage 5 or habitat-independent.

PHASE FREQUENCY remains separate from lifecycle: how often a system repeats a
cycle is not the direction of that cycle.

2.8 BASEFLOOR, CONTROL AND MOTION

2.9 PROTECTED RECORD SCHEMA

RECORD_ID
CLASS
TIME
DATE_STATUS
ZOOM
WORLD_BAND
LOCAL_PERIOD
PLACE
ENTITY
TYPE
SCALE
EVENT
DOMAIN
EVIDENCE
EPISTEMIC
CONFIDENCE
SOURCE_KEYS
GRAPH_SEED

File-level Version and Cut-off are inherited by every record.

2.10 MACHINE NORMALISATION

Preserve the human-readable TIME string.
Add normalised start/end values only in a derivative dataset.
Never convert CONTESTED, INFERRED or UNKNOWN to exact years.
Preserve place locator separately from sovereignty.
Preserve diacritics; add ASCII aliases only in search fields.
Separate language, genes, artefacts, crops and institutions.
Separate narrated event, oral performance and collection date.
Type legal ownership, custody, possession and ritual authority separately.
Represent control as layered, fuzzy, time-bound geometry.
Preserve allegation, denial and independently established finding.
Preserve record and source keys across revisions.
Never overwrite uncertainty without a version note.

===============================================================================
3. SCAFFOLD AND CIVILISATION CAT SCAN CONTRACT
===============================================================================

3.1 UNIVERSAL SCAFFOLD

Each entity can be expanded into:

identity; type; scale; time; place; state; function; part/whole;
relationships; flows; lineage; dependencies; hosts; evidence;
epistemic status; controversy; crosswalks; graph seeds.

The reader route is:

ZOOM → CONNECT → TRACK

ZOOM locates the scale. CONNECT exposes demonstrated relations. TRACK follows
change without confusing geographic persistence with institutional continuity.

3.2 CAT SCAN

The CAT Scan does not rank splendour. It scans the supporting body:

FLOOR ecology, food, water, health, shelter, safety, care
BODY population, labour, settlement, institutions, infrastructure
FLOW material, energy, food, money, people, authority, waste
MEMORY language, ritual, education, archives, art, law, digital records
SENSOR lived experience, markets, councils, journalism, science, audit
CONTROL household, lineage, guild, stool, crown, council, company, state
REPAIR maintenance, redistribution, justice, conservation, learning
EDGE people, species and places carrying cost outside the official map

NOBODY is the diagnostic position occupied by anyone or anything whose cost,
knowledge, labour, injury or future is excluded from the controlling account.
It is not a social class or a claim that people lack identity.

3.3 GENOME, PRESSURE AND OUROBOROS

GENOME means recurring operating instructions—inheritance, training, office,
ritual, law, craft sequence, market convention—not biological destiny.

PRESSURE FIELD records simultaneous loads:
ecological, demographic, military, commercial, fiscal, legitimacy,
knowledge, health, external and technological.

OUROBOROS follows returned consequence:

extraction → hidden cost → delayed return → fracture
or
sensing → assigned responsibility → repair → learning → stronger floor.

The diagnostic relation is:

RepairRate ≥ DriftRate

It is an orientation rule, not a false single-unit equation.

3.4 PORTABLE CIVILISATION, SIMULATION AND FISSION

A capability is portable only if people can:

understand it; reproduce it; maintain it; teach it; power it; source its
inputs; govern its risks; and repair it away from the founding centre.

Political fission is not automatic civilisational extinction. Yoruba settlement
cycling, Akan state recombination, diaspora religious continuity, restored
Benin guilds and post-war Mano River communities show that people, knowledge
and institutions can reassemble after capitals or states fracture.

===============================================================================
4. ONE-PAGE CHRONOLOGICAL SPINE
===============================================================================

DEEP SUBSTRATE
West African cratonic, Birimian gold and Gulf-of-Guinea geological systems
create mineral, soil, river and coastal conditions later used by people.

PLEISTOCENE–EARLY HOLOCENE
Archaeological visibility is sparse, not evidence of an empty region.
Iwo Eleru preserves terminal-Pleistocene human remains; Bosumpra and other
sites preserve long plant-use, microlithic and settlement sequences.

c. 2500–1000 BCE
Kintampo communities combine pearl millet, cowpea, livestock, pottery,
grinding, storage and forest products. Oil palm and other managed plants
remain important; lifeways do not become uniformly agricultural.

c. 1000 BCE–800 CE
Iron production, cultivation, fishing and settlement expand unevenly.
Opi/Lejja early-iron dates remain debated. Nok’s southern interfaces belong
to the forest–savanna braid, not a direct dynastic ancestry.

c. 800–1000 CE
Igbo-Ukwu deposits demonstrate technically extraordinary copper-alloy work,
beads, regalia and ritual institutions. Ife, Bono and other settlement fields
intensify; exact relations among language, population and artefact remain open.

c. 1000–1450
Classic Ilé-Ifẹ̀ becomes a major urban, sacred, artistic and industrial
centre. Glass is made locally; terracotta, stone and copper-alloy arts,
pavements, walls, shrines and courtyards materialise plural institutions.
Bono Manso and Begho connect forest gold and kola with savanna trade.
Nri, Lower Niger, Cross River, Old Oyo, Owo and early Benin trajectories
develop on their own clocks.

c. 1400–1600
Benin centralises and expands under a sequence of rulers; court guilds,
earthworks and palace arts grow. Portuguese contact begins in 1486.
Elmina Castle is built in 1482. Sapi ivory, Akan gold, Atlantic shipping and
coastal forts bind the region to a widening, unequal oceanic system.
Oyo experiences crisis, exile and reconstruction.

c. 1600–1700
Oyo, Denkyira, Akwamu, Fante, Allada, Hueda/Ouidah, Benin, Niger Delta and
Cross-River systems compete and connect. Danxomè forms inland. European
fort competition intensifies; Atlantic enslavement expands.

1700–1800
Asante defeats Denkyira at Feyiase in 1701 and builds a powerful union and
imperial network. Danxomè conquers Allada (1724) and Ouidah (1727), then
contests and pays tribute within Oyo’s field. Oyo reaches imperial scale.
Gold, kola, cloth, firearms, palm products and enslaved people move through
coercive Atlantic and internal systems. Diasporic Yoruba, Akan, Gbe, Igbo,
Cross-River and Upper-Guinea inheritances transform the Americas.

1800–1874
Abolition laws do not immediately end trafficking. Slave and palm-oil
systems overlap. Oyo fractures; Ilorin, Ibadan, Abeokuta and new political
orders emerge amid Yoruba wars and mass displacement. Freetown and Liberia
become Atlantic-return and colonial-settler projects. Britain annexes Lagos
in 1861. Anglo-Asante wars and coastal political experiments intensify.

1874–1914
British, French and German conquest destroys or subordinates independent
states. Kumasi is attacked in 1874; Dahomey is conquered in 1892–94; Benin
City is invaded and looted in 1897; Yaa Asantewaa’s war occurs in 1900.
Colonial borders, taxation, forced labour, chiefs, rail and commodity zones
are assembled. Nigeria is amalgamated in 1914.

1914–1961
Cocoa, palm produce, timber, mining, ports, schools, churches, Islam,
wage labour, newspapers, unions and nationalism rework the region.
Colonial subjects fight in two world wars. Ghana becomes independent in
1957, Guinea in 1958, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Dahomey/Benin and Togo in 1960,
and Sierra Leone in 1961; Liberia has been sovereign since 1847.

1961–1999
New states expand education and administration but inherit export corridors,
uneven borders and coercive institutions. Coups, one-party and military
rule coexist with civil organisation. The Nigeria–Biafra war (1967–70),
Liberian civil wars (from 1989) and Sierra Leone war (from 1991) reveal
severe floor fracture. Benin’s 1990 National Conference and Ghana’s 1992
Fourth Republic become important democratic repair cases.

2000–2019
Liberia and Sierra Leone end civil wars and rebuild. Côte d’Ivoire passes
through partition, civil conflict and the 2010–11 post-election war.
Mobile communications, cities, remittances, regional trade and cultural
networks expand. Ebola (2014–16) exposes care, trust and border dependencies.
Heritage restitution becomes a major institutional programme.

2020–29 JULY 2026
COVID-19 stresses health and informal economies. Abomey treasures and Benin
objects begin significant physical return; Digital Benin reconnects dispersed
records. Gola–Tiwai enters the World Heritage List in 2025. Ghana, Togo,
Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Benin pass through consequential political changes.
Cocoa, illegal mining, oil and gas, coastal insecurity, forest loss, urban
pressure, debt, digital capability and restitution define a high-capability
but unequal and ecologically stressed present. ECOWAS elects Bassirou
Diomaye Faye chair on 19 July 2026 while negotiating a fractured regional
order after the Sahel-state withdrawals.

===============================================================================
5. PROTECTED CHRONOLOGY RECORDS
===============================================================================

Reader projection:

5A. SUBSTRATE, DEEP HUMAN TIME AND FOOD-PRODUCTION MOSAICS

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000001 — [SUBSTRATE-001] WEST AFRICAN CRATON
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z0 | TYPE: GEOLOGICAL_SYSTEM | SCALE: CONTINENTAL
TIME: principally Archean–Palaeoproterozoic formation | WORLD_BAND: W001–W002 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DEEP_SUBSTRATE | PLACE: West African cratonic region
ENTITY: ancient crust beneath much of West Africa.
EVENT: Long-lived geological stability, weathering and later drainage provide the deep physical floor on which forest-zone soils, minerals and settlement develop.
DOMAIN: GEOLOGY; ENVIRONMENT; MINERALS.
EVIDENCE: GEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: measured synthesis | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S010; WAFZ.S011.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G001 craton -> weathering/ore/soil -> later human landscapes.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000002 — [SUBSTRATE-002] BIRIMIAN GOLD SYSTEMS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z0 | TYPE: GEOLOGICAL_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: Palaeoproterozoic formation; human extraction much later | WORLD_BAND: W002 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DEEP_SUBSTRATE | PLACE: present Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and connected belts
ENTITY: Birimian terranes and associated gold deposits.
EVENT: Mineralisation creates goldfields that later support Akan, Dyula, Atlantic, colonial and industrial extraction systems; geology enables but does not cause a polity.
DOMAIN: GEOLOGY; MINERALS; LATER_ECONOMY.
EVIDENCE: GEOLOGICAL; ECONOMIC | EPISTEMIC: measured/inferred relation | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S010; WAFZ.S062.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G002 ore -> miners/brokers/states -> gold routes -> ecological return.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000003 — [SUBSTRATE-003] GULF OF GUINEA MARGIN
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z0 | TYPE: GEOLOGICAL_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: principally Mesozoic–Cenozoic | WORLD_BAND: W003–W004 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DEEP_SUBSTRATE | PLACE: Gulf of Guinea margin
ENTITY: rifted Atlantic margin, sedimentary basins, deltas and coastal plains.
EVENT: Continental separation, sedimentation and river deposition create lagoons, estuaries, deltas and later hydrocarbon basins that become settlement, exchange and extraction corridors.
DOMAIN: GEOLOGY; COAST; ENERGY.
EVIDENCE: GEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: measured synthesis | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S010; WAFZ.S011.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G003 margin -> lagoon/delta/port/oil systems.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000004 — [SUBSTRATE-004] RIVER, LAGOON AND FOREST MOSAIC
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z1 | TYPE: ECOSYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: Quaternary, repeatedly changing | WORLD_BAND: W007–W016 | LOCAL_PERIOD: PLEISTOCENE_HOLOCENE | PLACE: Upper and Lower Guinean zones
ENTITY: forests, savannas, gallery forests, rivers, wetlands, mangroves and lagoons.
EVENT: Climate oscillation repeatedly shifts vegetation and water boundaries; “forest” and “savanna” are moving mosaics rather than permanent cultural containers.
DOMAIN: PALAEOENVIRONMENT; ECOLOGY; MOBILITY.
EVIDENCE: PALEOENVIRONMENTAL; BOTANICAL | EPISTEMIC: measured/modelled | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S012; WAFZ.S014.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G004 rainfall/fire/humans <-> mosaic boundary.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000005 — [SUBSTRATE-005] DAHOMEY GAP
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z1 | TYPE: ECOSYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: late Quaternary–present, variable | WORLD_BAND: W013–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: PALAEOENVIRONMENT_TO_PRESENT | PLACE: southeastern Ghana, Togo and Benin
ENTITY: savanna corridor interrupting the Upper Guinean forest.
EVENT: Climatic history, fire and human land use combine in a corridor that enables east–west contact while differentiating forest histories; a natural-only explanation is inadequate.
DOMAIN: ECOLOGY; MOBILITY; HUMAN_ENVIRONMENT.
EVIDENCE: PALEOENVIRONMENTAL; BOTANICAL; MULTI_SOURCE | EPISTEMIC: debated weighting | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S012; WAFZ.S014.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G005 corridor <-> migration/trade/ecology.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000006 — [METHOD-001] FOREST ARCHIVE LOSS
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: KNOWLEDGE_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: all archaeological periods | WORLD_BAND: W008–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: META_CHRONOLOGY | PLACE: forest-zone archaeological record
ENTITY: preserved evidence surface.
EVENT: Acidic soils, organic architecture, vegetation, erosion, survey bias, looting and development make surviving evidence a filtered sample; silence cannot be read directly as absence.
DOMAIN: ARCHAEOLOGY; EPISTEMOLOGY; HERITAGE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: methodological rule | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S004; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G006 past activity -> preservation/survey filters -> visible record.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000007 — [DEEPHUMAN-001] EARLY-PLEISTOCENE EVIDENCE DEFICIT
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: UNKNOWN | ZOOM: Z1 | TYPE: HUMAN | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: before c. 50 ka | WORLD_BAND: W007–W012 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DEEP_PLEISTOCENE | PLACE: West African forest-zone coordinate
ENTITY: early hominin and human occupation.
EVENT: Regional occupation is plausible within wider African population history, but the present forest-zone record is too sparse for a continuous local sequence or named population history.
DOMAIN: HUMAN_EVOLUTION; ARCHAEOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: absence-qualified | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S020; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G007 evidence gap -/-> empty landscape.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000008 — [DEEPHUMAN-002] LATER STONE AGE OCCUPATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: POPULATION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: late Pleistocene into Holocene | WORLD_BAND: W013–W016 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LATER_STONE_AGE | PLACE: present Nigeria, Ghana and wider forest margins
ENTITY: diverse mobile and semi-sedentary communities.
EVENT: Microlithic technologies, hunting, fishing, plant use and repeated shelter occupation document adaptive worlds; no single “Late Stone Age people” is inferred.
DOMAIN: SUBSISTENCE; TECHNOLOGY; MOBILITY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: regional synthesis | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S021; WAFZ.S025; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G008 mobility + plant knowledge + stone technology.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000009 — [IWOELERU-001] TERMINAL-PLEISTOCENE HUMAN FOSSIL
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: HUMAN | SCALE: SITE
TIME: approximately 16.3–11.7 ka | WORLD_BAND: W014 | LOCAL_PERIOD: TERMINAL_PLEISTOCENE | PLACE: Iwo Eleru, southwestern Nigeria
ENTITY: Iwo Eleru calvaria and associated burial context.
EVENT: Uranium-series constraints place the only currently known Pleistocene human fossil from western Africa in the terminal Pleistocene; distinctive morphology informs, but does not settle, models of deep population structure.
DOMAIN: HUMAN_EVOLUTION; BURIAL; POPULATION_HISTORY.
EVIDENCE: PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: dated fossil with interpretive dispute | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S020; WAFZ.S019.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G009 fossil -> population-model constraint, not ethnic ancestor claim.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000010 — [HOLOCENE-001] FOREST EXPANSION AND ADAPTATION
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: ECOSYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: after c. 9700 BCE, uneven | WORLD_BAND: W015–W018 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_HOLOCENE | PLACE: Upper and Lower Guinean zones
ENTITY: postglacial ecological and human systems.
EVENT: Warmer, wetter conditions expand many forest habitats; communities adjust mobility, plant use, fishing and toolkits without one simultaneous region-wide “Neolithic revolution.”
DOMAIN: CLIMATE; SUBSISTENCE; SETTLEMENT.
EVIDENCE: PALEOENVIRONMENTAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: regional synthesis | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S014; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G010 climate shift -> mosaic adaptation, not deterministic replacement.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000011 — [BOSUMPRA-001] TEN-MILLENNIUM PLANT-USE SEQUENCE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: SITE | SCALE: LOCAL
TIME: approximately last 10,000 years | WORLD_BAND: W015–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: HOLOCENE | PLACE: Bosumpra Cave, Ghana
ENTITY: long archaeological plant-use sequence.
EVENT: Canarium, oil palm and other plant remains show persistent forest-resource knowledge, later joined by Kintampo-era crops; cultivation does not erase gathering.
DOMAIN: FOOD_SYSTEM; BOTANY; KNOWLEDGE_CONTINUITY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; BOTANICAL | EPISTEMIC: excavated sequence | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S021.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G011 plant knowledge -> mixed food floor across transitions.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000012 — [IRESI-001] LONG HILL OCCUPATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: SITE | SCALE: LOCAL
TIME: from c. 5653 BP (approximately 3700 BCE) | WORLD_BAND: W019–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: MIDDLE_HOLOCENE_TO_PRESENT | PLACE: Iresi Hills, southwestern Nigeria
ENTITY: changing hill occupation.
EVENT: Microlithic evidence precedes pottery and ground stone in a long sequence, warning against equating one technology with one incoming people.
DOMAIN: SETTLEMENT; TECHNOLOGY; SUBSISTENCE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: published archaeological interpretation | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S025.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G012 local sequence -> technological addition, not automatic replacement.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000013 — [KINTAMPO-001] KINTAMPO LIFEWAYS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: CULTURE | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c. 2100–1400 BCE | WORLD_BAND: W022–W024 | LOCAL_PERIOD: KINTAMPO | PLACE: present Ghana and adjoining forest–savanna margins
ENTITY: Kintampo archaeological assemblages and communities.
EVENT: Settlements combine pottery, ground stone, storage, pearl millet, cowpea, livestock and forest products; site variability rules out one uniform package.
DOMAIN: FOOD_SYSTEM; SETTLEMENT; TECHNOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; BOTANICAL | EPISTEMIC: material-cultural label only | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S022; WAFZ.S023; WAFZ.S024.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G013 savanna crops/livestock <-> forest resources/settlements.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000014 — [KINTAMPO-002] PEARL MILLET AND COWPEA
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: FOOD_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: second millennium BCE | WORLD_BAND: W023–W024 | LOCAL_PERIOD: KINTAMPO | PLACE: central and northern Ghana interfaces
ENTITY: domesticated pearl millet and cowpea use.
EVENT: Archaeobotanical finds document crops moving into mixed economies at the forest margin; their arrival does not date an ethnicity or language.
DOMAIN: AGRICULTURE; EXCHANGE; ECOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: BOTANICAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: direct remains with contextual limits | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S023; WAFZ.S024.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G014 crop transfer -> local adoption -> mixed food system.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000015 — [FOOD-001] OIL PALM, YAM AND FOREST MANAGEMENT
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: FOOD_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: Holocene; locally different intensification dates | WORLD_BAND: W015–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LONG_HOLOCENE | PLACE: Guinean forest zones
ENTITY: managed and cultivated forest foods.
EVENT: Oil palm, yams, tree crops, fruits, nuts and fallow ecologies support dense knowledge systems; preservation makes their beginnings harder to date than cereals.
DOMAIN: FOOD; ECOLOGY; LABOUR.
EVIDENCE: BOTANICAL; LINGUISTIC; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: convergent but unevenly dated | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S021; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G015 plant management <-> settlement/fallow/forest composition.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000016 — [IRON-001] OPI–LEJJA EARLY-IRON PROBLEM
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: CONTESTED | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: TECHNOLOGY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: proposed second–first millennia BCE; secure local sequences vary | WORLD_BAND: W023–W031 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_IRON_PROBLEM | PLACE: Nsukka region, southeastern Nigeria
ENTITY: furnaces, slag and iron-production claims at Opi and Lejja.
EVENT: Some dates imply very early iron working, but context, old wood, association and publication disputes require ranges and site-specific evaluation; no single diffusion story is accepted.
DOMAIN: METALLURGY; TECHNOLOGY; EPISTEMOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: contested chronology | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S026; WAFZ.S003.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G016 furnace/date/context -> uncertainty node.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000017 — [NOK-001] NOK SOUTHERN INTERFACES
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: CULTURE | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: broadly c. 1000 BCE–300 CE | WORLD_BAND: W026–W033 | LOCAL_PERIOD: NOK_HORIZON | PLACE: central Nigeria and southern interfaces
ENTITY: Nok archaeological/material-cultural horizon.
EVENT: Terracotta, iron, farming and settlement assemblages connect savanna and forest margins, but Nok is not a kingdom, ethnicity or demonstrated direct ancestor of Ife.
DOMAIN: MATERIAL_CULTURE; METALLURGY; SETTLEMENT.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: culture label guarded | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S027; WAFZ.S003.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G017 material horizon <-> regional exchange; no dynastic arrow.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000018 — [IRON-002] UNEVEN IRON AND FARMING DISPERSALS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: TECHNOLOGY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: first millennium BCE–first millennium CE | WORLD_BAND: W027–W035 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IRON_AGE_MOSAICS | PLACE: forest and forest-edge West Africa
ENTITY: plural iron-working and food-producing communities.
EVENT: Iron, pottery, cultivation and settlement intensify by multiple routes and local experiments; language shift, population movement and technology transfer must be tested separately.
DOMAIN: METALLURGY; AGRICULTURE; LANGUAGE_INTERFACE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; LINGUISTIC | EPISTEMIC: regional synthesis | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S026; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G018 technologies/crops/languages = separate tracks with tested edges.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000019 — [SETTLEMENT-001] FOREST SETTLEMENT CYCLING
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: SETTLEMENT | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: first millennium CE onward | WORLD_BAND: W032–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LONG_SETTLEMENT_HISTORY | PLACE: West African forest-zone coordinate
ENTITY: villages, hamlets, towns, farm zones and sacred landscapes.
EVENT: Communities repeatedly aggregate, divide, relocate and reuse places; abandoned capitals can coexist with continuous institutions and living descendant memory.
DOMAIN: SETTLEMENT; POLITICAL_ECOLOGY; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION; MULTI_SOURCE | EPISTEMIC: comparative model | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G019 fission/reassembly -> continuity without fixed urban footprint.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000020 — [LANGUAGE-001] LANGUAGE FIELDS WITHOUT PURE MIGRATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: INFERRED | ZOOM: Z2 | TYPE: LANGUAGE | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: deep Holocene–present | WORLD_BAND: W015–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LANGUAGE_HISTORY | PLACE: Atlantic-Congo and Mande interfaces
ENTITY: Yoruba, Edoid, Igboid, Cross River, Gbe, Akan and other language fields.
EVENT: Comparative linguistics reconstructs branching and contact, but cannot by itself provide exact migration dates, biological ancestry or state boundaries.
DOMAIN: LANGUAGE; POPULATION; CONTACT.
EVIDENCE: LINGUISTIC | EPISTEMIC: modelled | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S028; WAFZ.S040.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G020 language innovation/contact -/-> pure population polygon.

5B. FIRST-MILLENNIUM AND EARLY-SECOND-MILLENNIUM COMPLEXES

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000021 — [BONO-001] EARLY BONO-REGION SETTLEMENTS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: SETTLEMENT | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c. fifth–eleventh centuries CE | WORLD_BAND: W034–W037 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_AKAN_BONO | PLACE: Bono and Bono East regions, modern Ghana
ENTITY: Amowi, Bonoso, Kranka Dada and related settlement fields.
EVENT: Iron production, pottery, agriculture, shrines and exchange precede later Bono state consolidation; oral emergence traditions and excavated sequences are kept distinct but compared.
DOMAIN: SETTLEMENT; METALLURGY; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: convergent, dates site-specific | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S060; WAFZ.S061.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G021 settlement fields -> later Bono institutions, not single founding event.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000022 — [IFE-001] EARLY IFE SETTLEMENT CLUSTERS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: SETTLEMENT | SCALE: URBAN_REGION
TIME: approximately sixth–tenth centuries CE | WORLD_BAND: W035–W036 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_ILE_IFE | PLACE: Ilé-Ifẹ̀, southwestern Nigeria
ENTITY: clustered hamlets and emerging urban field.
EVENT: Occupation coalesces over centuries; iron-working agricultural communities, shrines and neighbourhoods precede Classic Ife’s high-density urban and artistic phase.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; SETTLEMENT; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: synthesis, boundaries debated | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S045.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G022 hamlet clusters -> urban aggregation -> sacred centre.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000023 — [IGBOUKWU-001] IGBO-UKWU CEREMONIAL DEPOSITS
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: SITE | SCALE: LOCAL
TIME: principally ninth century CE; dating history contested | WORLD_BAND: W036 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IGBO_UKWU | PLACE: Igbo-Ukwu, southeastern Nigeria
ENTITY: Igbo Isaiah, Igbo Richard and Igbo Jonah deposits.
EVENT: Excavations reveal a burial/ritual complex, storage and objects of exceptional copper-alloy, ceramic and bead craftsmanship; older objections to ninth-century dating remain part of the audit trail.
DOMAIN: RITUAL; METALLURGY; EXCHANGE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: strong core with dating debate | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S030; WAFZ.S029.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G023 ceremonial institution -> specialist casting + long-distance materials.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000024 — [IGBOUKWU-002] COPPER-ALLOY TECHNICAL SYSTEM
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: TECHNOLOGY | SCALE: LOCAL_TO_REGIONAL
TIME: c. ninth century CE | WORLD_BAND: W036 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IGBO_UKWU | PLACE: lower Niger, southeastern Nigeria
ENTITY: lost-wax casting and assembled copper-alloy works.
EVENT: Complex vessels, regalia and ornaments demonstrate independent technical mastery; stylistic brilliance is evidence of institutions and labour, not proof of a large territorial empire.
DOMAIN: TECHNOLOGY; LABOUR; ART.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: direct objects, social form inferred | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S030; WAFZ.S049.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G024 craft genome -> apprenticeship/material supply/ritual demand.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000025 — [IGBOUKWU-003] BEADS AND LONG-DISTANCE CONNECTION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: TRADE_SYSTEM | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: c. ninth century CE | WORLD_BAND: W036 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IGBO_UKWU | PLACE: Igbo-Ukwu and external supply routes
ENTITY: tens of thousands of glass and stone beads and imported metal.
EVENT: Non-local materials establish far-reaching exchange, but the precise routes, intermediaries and exported counter-values remain open; slavery must not be inserted without direct support.
DOMAIN: EXCHANGE; MATERIALS; UNCERTAINTY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: connection secure, route uncertain | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S030; WAFZ.S028.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G025 distant material -> unknown broker chain -> Igbo-Ukwu.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000026 — [NRI-001] NRI RITUAL-POLITICAL FORMATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL_NETWORK
TIME: approximately tenth–thirteenth centuries onward | WORLD_BAND: W036–W038 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_NRI | PLACE: Igbo-speaking lower Niger region
ENTITY: Nri ritual kingship and associated communities.
EVENT: Ezè Nri authority develops through ritual precedence, title, purification and exchange rather than a standing conquest army; foundation traditions are not exact accession lists.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; RITUAL; NETWORK.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S031; WAFZ.S032.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G026 ritual authority -> distributed communities; non-territorial control.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000027 — [BEGHO-001] EARLY BEGHO
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: TOWN | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: approximately eleventh–thirteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W038 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_BEGHO | PLACE: Hani/Begho, modern Ghana
ENTITY: emerging multi-quarter market settlement.
EVENT: Akan/Bono settlement and later Mande-speaking Muslim merchant quarters form a forest–savanna brokerage town; quarter sequence is archaeological, not a timeless ethnic map.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; TRADE; MULTILINGUALISM.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: excavated, scale estimates variable | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S061; WAFZ.S062.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G027 forest goods <-> Begho brokers <-> Middle Niger routes.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000028 — [BONO-002] BONO MANSO CONSOLIDATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: approximately eleventh–fourteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W039 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BONO_FORMATION | PLACE: Bono Manso, modern Ghana
ENTITY: Bono political, ritual and market centre.
EVENT: Settlement and authority consolidate near gold and kola routes; exact state-foundation dates vary between archaeology and oral chronology.
DOMAIN: STATE_FORMATION; TRADE; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: range required | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S060; WAFZ.S061.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G028 settlement/gold/ritual -> Bono centre.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000029 — [IFE-002] IFE URBAN TAKEOFF
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: CITY | SCALE: URBAN
TIME: c. 1000–1200 CE | WORLD_BAND: W037 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CLASSIC_IFE_TAKEOFF | PLACE: Ilé-Ifẹ̀
ENTITY: Classic Ife urban system.
EVENT: Neighbourhood aggregation, walls, shrines, courtyards, streets and craft concentrations make Ife a major urban and sacred centre without requiring one centralised imperial blueprint.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; GOVERNANCE; RELIGION.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ARCHITECTURAL | EPISTEMIC: strong, political geometry debated | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S045.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G029 neighbourhoods/shrines/crafts -> city-scale coordination.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000030 — [IFE-003] PAVEMENTS, WALLS AND COURTYARDS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: INFRASTRUCTURE | SCALE: URBAN
TIME: principally eleventh–fifteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CLASSIC_IFE | PLACE: Ilé-Ifẹ̀
ENTITY: potsherd and stone pavements, earthworks and planned compounds.
EVENT: Built surfaces organise movement, cleanliness, ceremony and neighbourhood identity; preservation favours fired clay and stone over the timber/earth superstructures they served.
DOMAIN: INFRASTRUCTURE; URBANISM; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ARCHITECTURAL | EPISTEMIC: direct structures | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S045.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G030 built surface -> circulation/ritual/status.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000031 — [IFE-004] INDIGENOUS GLASS PRODUCTION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: TECHNOLOGY | SCALE: URBAN_TO_INTERREGIONAL
TIME: main production c. eleventh–fifteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CLASSIC_IFE | PLACE: Igbo Olokun, Ilé-Ifẹ̀
ENTITY: primary glassmaking and bead-production system.
EVENT: Crucibles, glass, cullet, beads and production waste demonstrate a largely independent local glass technology, not merely imported beads or recycled foreign glass.
DOMAIN: TECHNOLOGY; CRAFT; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: excavated/compositional | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S043; WAFZ.S044.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G031 local raw materials -> glass workshop -> prestige/exchange networks.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000032 — [IFE-005] TERRACOTTA COMMEMORATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: ARTIFACT_SYSTEM | SCALE: URBAN
TIME: principally eleventh–fourteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W039 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CLASSIC_IFE | PLACE: Ilé-Ifẹ̀
ENTITY: naturalistic and abstract terracotta traditions.
EVENT: Workshops create heads, figures and ritual forms associated with commemoration, ancestry and social personhood; “portrait” interpretations remain contextual rather than automatic.
DOMAIN: ART; MEMORY; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: objects secure, use partly inferred | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S041; WAFZ.S042; WAFZ.S045.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G032 workshop -> commemorative object -> lineage/ritual memory.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000033 — [IFE-006] COPPER-ALLOY SCULPTURE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: ARTIFACT_SYSTEM | SCALE: URBAN
TIME: principally twelfth–fourteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W039 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CLASSIC_IFE | PLACE: Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and connected Lower Niger contexts
ENTITY: cast copper and copper-alloy heads and figures.
EVENT: Technically accomplished works materialise authority, memory and sacred presence; material analysis and context reject racialised claims that outsiders must have made them.
DOMAIN: METALLURGY; ART; POLITICAL_MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: direct objects | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S041; WAFZ.S042; WAFZ.S045.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G033 metal supply/caster guild/patronage -> commemorative authority.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000034 — [IFE-007] SACRED KINGSHIP AND PLURAL POWER
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: INSTITUTION | SCALE: URBAN_TO_REGIONAL
TIME: second millennium CE, changing | WORLD_BAND: W037–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IFE_LONG_DURATION | PLACE: Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and wider Yoruba worlds
ENTITY: Oòni, shrines, lineages, title holders and ritual communities.
EVENT: Ife’s sacred centrality links creation traditions and royal legitimacy, while effective power remains distributed among offices, compounds, cults and settlements.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; RELIGION; LEGITIMACY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ETHNOHISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: living and reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S041.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G034 sacred centre <-> distributed political field.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000035 — [YORUBA-001] ODÙDUWÀ MEMORY FIELD
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: UNKNOWN | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: KNOWLEDGE_SYSTEM | SCALE: TRANSREGIONAL
TIME: narrated deep past; versions recorded much later | WORLD_BAND: W037–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DYNASTIC_MEMORY | PLACE: Yoruba worlds and diaspora
ENTITY: Odùduwà creation, migration and dynastic traditions.
EVENT: Multiple versions charter sacred origin and crowned kingship; they are mapped as memory relations and political claims, not collapsed into one exact biography.
DOMAIN: ORAL_HISTORY; LEGITIMACY; IDENTITY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: tradition-as-evidence | CONFIDENCE: B for importance, D for exact date.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S041.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G035 narrated origin -> legitimacy edges; no forced calendar date.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000036 — [YORUBA-002] Ọ̀RÀNMÍYÀN DISPERSAL TRADITIONS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: CONTESTED | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: LINEAGE | SCALE: TRANSREGIONAL
TIME: conventionally placed c. thirteenth–fourteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W038–W039 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DYNASTIC_MEMORY | PLACE: Ife, Oyo, Benin and related courts
ENTITY: traditions linking Ọ̀rànmíyàn to multiple dynasties.
EVENT: Traditions encode inter-court relationship and precedence; archaeology supports interaction but not a simple one-person founding chain for every polity.
DOMAIN: ORAL_HISTORY; POLITICS; CONNECTION.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: contested historicisation | CONFIDENCE: C/D.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S050; WAFZ.S053.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G036 court-memory claims <-> tested material/contact edges.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000037 — [OWO-001] OWO REGIONAL ART AND POWER
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c. twelfth–seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: MEDIEVAL_EARLY_MODERN | PLACE: Ọ̀wọ̀, southwestern Nigeria
ENTITY: Owo political and artistic system.
EVENT: Ivory, terracotta and copper-alloy traditions combine local forms with Ife- and Benin-related interaction; similarity is not political subordination by default.
DOMAIN: ART; POLITY; EXCHANGE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: relation strong, direction variable | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S046; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G037 Owo <-> Ife/Benin/Ijebu craft and court networks.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000038 — [ESIE-001] ESIE SOAPSTONE ASSEMBLAGE
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: ESTIMATED | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: SITE | SCALE: LOCAL
TIME: often estimated twelfth–fifteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W037–W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: MEDIEVAL_YORUBA | PLACE: Esie, modern Nigeria
ENTITY: large corpus of soapstone figures.
EVENT: More than a thousand figures and evidence of deliberate damage form a major but poorly contextualised archive; date, makers and vandalism event remain uncertain.
DOMAIN: ART; MEMORY; HERITAGE.
EVIDENCE: ART_HISTORICAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: under-contextualised | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S045; WAFZ.S040.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G038 object corpus -> uncertain maker/date/use/destruction.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000039 — [OYO-001] EARLY OLD OYO
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: CITY | SCALE: URBAN
TIME: c. thirteenth–fifteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W038–W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_OYO | PLACE: Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé / Old Oyo
ENTITY: early Oyo capital and settlement field.
EVENT: Potsherd pavements, walls and settlement remains precede the later imperial capital; oral regnal back-calculation cannot make the founding year exact.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; STATE_FORMATION; ARCHAEOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: range | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S047; WAFZ.S040.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G039 early capital -> later Oyo institutional lineage.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000040 — [BENIN-001] PRE-OBA AND DYNASTIC MEMORY
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: CONTESTED | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: URBAN_REGION
TIME: before and around c. thirteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W037–W038 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_BENIN | PLACE: Benin City region, modern Nigeria
ENTITY: Ogiso traditions, Edo communities and emergent Benin institutions.
EVENT: Court histories remember an Ogiso order before the Oba dynasty; exact lists and dates are late reconstructions and must be compared with archaeology rather than treated as annals.
DOMAIN: ORAL_HISTORY; STATE_FORMATION; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: tradition with material interfaces | CONFIDENCE: C/D.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S050; WAFZ.S052; WAFZ.S053.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G040 pre-dynastic memory -> later court charter.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000041 — [BENIN-002] EARLY OBA DYNASTY
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: INSTITUTION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: conventionally c. thirteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W038 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_OBA | PLACE: Benin City
ENTITY: Eweka dynasty and office of Oba.
EVENT: Dynastic traditions connect a new sacral kingship to Ife and local Edo institutions; the relationship is historically significant but not reducible to external “founding.”
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; LEGITIMACY; ORAL_HISTORY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: approximate | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S050; WAFZ.S052; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G041 local institutions + external legitimacy memory -> Oba dynasty.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000042 — [BENIN-003] THIRTEENTH–FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SETTLEMENT
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: CITY | SCALE: URBAN
TIME: c. thirteenth–fourteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W038–W039 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_BENIN_CITY | PLACE: Benin City
ENTITY: stratified urban occupation.
EVENT: Excavation reveals precolonial buildings, wells, cisterns, compounds and metallurgical activity beneath the modern city, establishing a material sequence independent of regnal lists.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; WATER; CRAFT.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; SCIENTIFIC | EPISTEMIC: excavated, sequence refining | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S053; WAFZ.S058.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G042 built/water/craft layers -> Benin urban continuity.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000043 — [BENIN-004] BENIN EARTHWORKS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: INFRASTRUCTURE | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: built and modified over many centuries | WORLD_BAND: W038–W047 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_LONG_DURATION | PLACE: Benin City and surrounding Edo landscapes
ENTITY: nested banks, ditches and settlement enclosures.
EVENT: Earthworks materialise boundaries, settlement organisation, defence, authority and labour at multiple scales; one ruler and one construction date cannot explain the whole system.
DOMAIN: INFRASTRUCTURE; LABOUR; CONTROL_GEOMETRY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ARCHITECTURAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: cumulative system | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S052; WAFZ.S053.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G043 households/quarters/polity -> nested boundary geometry.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000044 — [LOWERNIGER-001] REGIONAL COPPER-ALLOY SPHERE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c. fourteenth–seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W039–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LOWER_NIGER_CASTING | PLACE: Ife, Owo, Ijebu, Benin and lower Niger
ENTITY: related but distinct casting centres.
EVENT: Technical and stylistic exchange produces a Lower Niger sphere; an object’s resemblance does not prove its workshop, ethnicity or political owner.
DOMAIN: TECHNOLOGY; ART; EXCHANGE.
EVIDENCE: ART_HISTORICAL; SCIENTIFIC; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: network model | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S046; WAFZ.S049; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G044 workshop nodes <-> itinerant knowledge/material/patronage.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000045 — [BEGHO-002] BEGHO AT REGIONAL SCALE
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: TOWN | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: c. fourteenth–seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W039–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BEGHO_FLOURISHING | PLACE: Begho/Hani, modern Ghana
ENTITY: multi-quarter market and craft town.
EVENT: Bono/Akan, Mande-speaking Muslim and artisan quarters connect gold, kola, ivory, textiles, salt, beads and metals; population estimates remain model-dependent.
DOMAIN: TRADE; URBANISM; CRAFT; RELIGION.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: strong with scale uncertainty | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S061; WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S063.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G045 gold/kola south -> Begho -> savanna markets; salt/textile/metals return.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000046 — [AKAN-001] GOLD-DUST WEIGHT AND MARKET SYSTEM
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: ECONOMIC_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: developed by late medieval/early modern centuries; continued to colonial demonetisation | WORLD_BAND: W039–W048 | LOCAL_PERIOD: AKAN_GOLD_SYSTEM | PLACE: Akan-speaking regions
ENTITY: gold dust, balances, weights, boxes and market conventions.
EVENT: Standardised weighing enables divisible currency, taxation, savings and proverb-bearing art; precision rests on institutions and trust, not metal alone.
DOMAIN: MONEY; TRADE; KNOWLEDGE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ART_HISTORICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: well attested | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S063; WAFZ.S066.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G046 ore -> dust/weight/trust -> market/state finance.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000047 — [NRI-002] NRI NETWORK FLOURISHING
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: INSTITUTION | SCALE: REGIONAL_NETWORK
TIME: c. thirteenth–seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W038–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: NRI_FLOURISHING | PLACE: Igbo-speaking region
ENTITY: ritual specialists, title systems and linked communities.
EVENT: Purification, conflict settlement, title, sacred authority and market relations extend influence without simple territorial conquest; local communities retain autonomy.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; RELIGION; SOCIAL_ORDER.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S031; WAFZ.S032.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G047 distributed ritual services -> networked authority.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000048 — [CROSSRIVER-001] EKPE AND NSIBIDI KNOWLEDGE FIELD
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: UNKNOWN | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: KNOWLEDGE_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL_NETWORK
TIME: origins undated; securely documented in later centuries | WORLD_BAND: W039–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CROSS_RIVER_LONG_DURATION | PLACE: Cross River and adjoining Cameroon interface
ENTITY: Ekpe/Ngbe associations and nsibidi sign practices.
EVENT: Associations regulate initiation, law, trade and authority; graphic signs communicate context-dependent knowledge. Colonial collection dates do not date origins.
DOMAIN: ASSOCIATION; LAW; WRITING_SIGN; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: MATERIAL; TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: function attested, origin unknown | CONFIDENCE: B/D.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S033; WAFZ.S034.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G048 association membership -> controlled knowledge/sign circulation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000049 — [NIGERDELTA-001] DELTA AND LAGOON BROKERAGE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: first–second millennia CE, intensifying after 1400 | WORLD_BAND: W035–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DELTA_LONG_DURATION | PLACE: Niger Delta and coastal lagoons
ENTITY: Ijaw, Itsekiri, Urhobo, Isoko and related riverine/coastal communities.
EVENT: Canoe transport, fishing, salt, markets and estuarine knowledge support polities and broker networks whose architecture differs from inland territorial kingdoms.
DOMAIN: WATER; TRADE; SETTLEMENT; POLITY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: long-duration synthesis | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S095; WAFZ.S096.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G049 creek/estuary expertise -> port brokerage/control.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000050 — [UPPERGUINEA-001] UPPER-GUINEA POLITICAL MOSAICS
CLASS: CONDITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z3 | TYPE: COMMUNITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: before fifteenth century and continuing | WORLD_BAND: W037–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: UPPER_GUINEA_LONG_DURATION | PLACE: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and western Côte d’Ivoire
ENTITY: Temne, Bullom, Limba, Sherbro, Gola, Kissi, Kpelle, Kru, Grebo, Bassa, Dan and other communities.
EVENT: Lineage, town, age, gender, ritual, market and war institutions form plural political worlds; later labels and borders cannot be projected unchanged into deep time.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; IDENTITY; ECOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; LINGUISTIC; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: heterogeneous | CONFIDENCE: C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S080; WAFZ.S081; WAFZ.S083.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G050 plural local institutions <-> trade/migration/association networks.

5C. FIFTEENTH–SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ATLANTIC AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000051 — [ATLANTIC-001] PORTUGUESE ARRIVAL ON THE GUINEA COAST
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: NETWORK | SCALE: TRANSOCEANIC
TIME: 1440s–1470s | WORLD_BAND: W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_ATLANTIC | PLACE: Upper Guinea, Gold Coast and Gulf of Guinea
ENTITY: African coastal polities, mariners and Portuguese expeditions.
EVENT: Maritime contact adds a sea route to existing inland and coastal networks; African rulers and brokers negotiate trade, while coercion and raiding are present from the early Atlantic system.
DOMAIN: TRADE; DIPLOMACY; VIOLENCE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: contemporary but outsider-heavy archive | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S080; WAFZ.S091.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G051 Atlantic ships <-> coastal brokers <-> inland systems.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000052 — [ELMINA-001] SÃO JORGE DA MINA
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: INFRASTRUCTURE | SCALE: COASTAL
TIME: 1482 | WORLD_BAND: W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_ATLANTIC | PLACE: Elmina, modern Ghana
ENTITY: Portuguese castle and African Elmina settlement.
EVENT: Portugal constructs São Jorge da Mina through negotiation and force within an existing African commercial zone; the fort first centres gold and later becomes deeply implicated in Atlantic enslavement.
DOMAIN: TRADE; FORTIFICATION; COLONIAL_PRESENCE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ARCHITECTURAL | EPISTEMIC: well dated | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S092; WAFZ.S093.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G052 fort/port -> gold then slave-trade corridor; local town remains actor.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000053 — [BENIN-005] OBA EWUARE AND CENTRALISATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: conventionally mid-fifteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_EXPANSION | PLACE: Benin City and surrounding regions
ENTITY: Oba Ewuare’s reign and remembered reforms.
EVENT: Court tradition associates Ewuare with military expansion, urban reorganisation, festivals, offices and fortification; individual attributions sit inside a longer cumulative earthwork and institutional sequence.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; URBANISM; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: approximate reign tradition | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S050; WAFZ.S052; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G053 royal reform + existing institutions -> centralisation/expansion.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000054 — [BENIN-006] PORTUGUESE–BENIN CONTACT
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: DIPLOMATIC_SYSTEM | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: 1486 onward | WORLD_BAND: W040 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_BENIN_ATLANTIC | PLACE: Benin Kingdom and Atlantic coast
ENTITY: Benin court and Portuguese agents.
EVENT: Diplomatic and commercial contact begins; pepper, ivory, textiles and enslaved captives enter exchanges for metals, cloth, coral and military support under terms repeatedly negotiated by Benin authorities.
DOMAIN: DIPLOMACY; TRADE; ENSLAVEMENT.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ART_HISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: documented, archive asymmetric | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S051; WAFZ.S055; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G054 Benin court <-> Portuguese crown/merchants; goods/people/metal flows typed separately.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000055 — [SAPI-001] SAPI IVORY AND ATLANTIC PATRONAGE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: ARTIFACT_SYSTEM | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: late fifteenth–sixteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W040–W041 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_ATLANTIC | PLACE: Sierra Leone/Upper Guinea and Europe
ENTITY: Sapi carvers, African patrons and Portuguese buyers.
EVENT: Ivory workshops create saltcellars, horns and other works combining local knowledge with commissioned Atlantic forms; “Afro-Portuguese” describes interaction, not diluted authorship.
DOMAIN: ART; TRADE; CROSS_CULTURAL_TRANSLATION.
EVIDENCE: ART_HISTORICAL; MATERIAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: objects secure, makers’ identities reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S080; WAFZ.S083.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G055 African workshop <-> foreign commission -> hybrid object/meaning.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000056 — [MANE-001] MANE MOVEMENTS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: MIGRATION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: principally mid–late sixteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W041 | LOCAL_PERIOD: UPPER_GUINEA_TRANSFORMATION | PLACE: Sierra Leone and Liberia
ENTITY: Mane-speaking war bands, migrants and incorporated communities.
EVENT: Movements and warfare reshape Temne, Mende, Bullom, Vai and neighbouring political fields through conquest, alliance, incorporation and cultural exchange; “invasion” alone is insufficient.
DOMAIN: MIGRATION; WAR; STATE_FORMATION; IDENTITY.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; LINGUISTIC | EPISTEMIC: reconstructed from uneven sources | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S081; WAFZ.S082.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G056 movement/war/marriage -> new political and identity configurations.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000057 — [OYO-002] NUPE CRISIS AND OYO EXILE
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: early sixteenth century; chronology approximate | WORLD_BAND: W041 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_EXILE | PLACE: Old Oyo, Borgu and Igboho
ENTITY: Alaafin and Oyo political community.
EVENT: Nupe pressure and internal crisis lead to abandonment of the old capital and an exile sequence remembered through Borgu and Oyo-Igboho; exact reign-years remain uncertain.
DOMAIN: WAR; MIGRATION; POLITICAL_CONTINUITY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S048; WAFZ.S040.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G057 capital loss -> mobile court -> institutional survival.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000058 — [OYO-003] OYO-IGBOHO RECONSTRUCTION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: sixteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W041 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_IGBOHO | PLACE: Oyo-Igboho and marches
ENTITY: exiled Alaafin’s court and allied communities.
EVENT: Oyo reconstitutes authority through new settlements, Borgu relations and military adaptation; fission demonstrates that a civilisation’s offices can outlive a capital.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; ADAPTATION.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S048; WAFZ.S047.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G058 portable offices/alliance knowledge -> political relaunch.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000059 — [BENIN-007] ESIGIE, IDIA AND IDAH WAR MEMORY
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: early sixteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W041 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_HIGH_COURT | PLACE: Benin Kingdom and Niger interface
ENTITY: Oba Esigie, Queen Mother Idia, court factions and Idah conflict.
EVENT: Court memory connects succession struggle, the institution of Iyoba, military victory and Portuguese relations; royal arts become a major archive of dynastic legitimacy.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; GENDER; WAR; ART.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ART_HISTORICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: convergent but court-centred | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S050; WAFZ.S051; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G059 succession/queen-mother office/war -> dynastic consolidation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000060 — [BENIN-008] PALACE PLAQUES AND GUILD SYSTEMS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: INSTITUTION | SCALE: URBAN_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: principally sixteenth–seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_PLAQUE_PERIOD | PLACE: Benin City
ENTITY: royal brass-casting, ivory-carving and associated guilds.
EVENT: Specialist guilds transform imported and recycled metals and local materials into plaques, heads, ivories and regalia that record hierarchy, ritual, war and foreign contact; most famous plaques are leaded brass.
DOMAIN: LABOUR; ART; MEMORY; POLITICAL_ECONOMY.
EVIDENCE: ART_HISTORICAL; MATERIAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S055; WAFZ.S057; WAFZ.S054.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G060 court patronage -> guild genome -> material archive.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000061 — [BENIN-009] BENIN’S WESTERN AND LOWER-NIGER RELATIONS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITICAL_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: fifteenth–seventeenth centuries, with changing intensity | WORLD_BAND: W040–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_NETWORKED_EMPIRE | PLACE: Benin, Owo, Ijebu, Lagos and lower Niger
ENTITY: Benin court, tributary or allied rulers, merchants and frontier communities.
EVENT: Benin influence travels through war, dynastic relations, ritual claims and trade, but its reach is not a permanently occupied block; Lagos, Owo, Ijebu and Niger communities retain changing degrees of agency.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; TRADE; WAR; DIPLOMACY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: extent varies by period and source | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S046; WAFZ.S051; WAFZ.S052; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G061 court -> layered tributary/alliance/trade edges, never one undifferentiated sovereignty edge.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000062 — [LOWER-NIGER-002] IJEBU, OWO AND CORRIDOR AUTONOMY
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: approximately fifteenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W040–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LOWER_NIGER_CORRIDORS | PLACE: Ijebu, Owo, Ondo and adjoining routes
ENTITY: Yoruba-speaking and Edo-linked courts, towns, markets and ritual specialists.
EVENT: Corridor polities broker movement between Ife, Benin, the lagoon coast and the interior; shared styles and titles register exchange and competition rather than proof of a single political origin.
DOMAIN: TRADE; GOVERNANCE; ART; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION; ART_HISTORICAL | EPISTEMIC: relational reconstruction | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S046; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G062 multiple courts <-> corridor markets <-> ritual/artifact transmission.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000063 — [OYO-004] RETURN TO OLD OYO
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: late sixteenth–early seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_REFOUNDATION | PLACE: Old Oyo and northern Yoruba savanna edge
ENTITY: Alaafin’s court, Oyo lineages and allied communities.
EVENT: Oyo reoccupies its northern capital zone and rebuilds an outward-facing state whose mobility, cavalry access and delegated offices connect forest and savanna.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; URBANISM.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: sequence firmer than exact reign dates | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S047; WAFZ.S048.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G063 portable court + savanna corridor -> refounded capital/state.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000064 — [CROP-001] AMERICAN CROPS ENTER FOREST ECONOMIES
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: SUBSISTENCE_SYSTEM | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: sixteenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ATLANTIC_BIOTIC_EXCHANGE | PLACE: West African forest and forest–savanna zones
ENTITY: maize, cassava, groundnuts, peppers and farming communities.
EVENT: American crops are selectively adopted into older yam, oil-palm, grain and tree-crop systems; uptake is uneven and can support population, market and crisis resilience without replacing indigenous food histories.
DOMAIN: FOOD; ECOLOGY; DEMOGRAPHY; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOBOTANICAL; TEXTUAL; LINGUISTIC | EPISTEMIC: crop-specific chronologies | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S028; WAFZ.S089; WAFZ.S099.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G064 Atlantic crop transfer -> local selection -> recomposed food genomes.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000065 — [ATLANTIC-003] FORTIFIED COASTAL COMPETITION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: TRADE_INFRASTRUCTURE | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: sixteenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FORT_COAST | PLACE: present-day Ghana coast and adjacent Gulf of Guinea
ENTITY: African coastal authorities and Portuguese, Dutch, English, Danish, Swedish and Brandenburg agents.
EVENT: Forts and lodges multiply through treaties, rent, coercion and war; African rulers and brokers control landward access while European companies compete seaward. Fort ownership does not equal territorial possession of the hinterland.
DOMAIN: TRADE; DIPLOMACY; WAR; INFRASTRUCTURE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHITECTURAL; TEXTUAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: well documented but company-centred | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S091; WAFZ.S092; WAFZ.S093.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G065 court/broker <-> fort/company <-> ocean shipping; sovereignty and trade edges separate.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000066 — [ATLANTIC-004] ESCALATION OF ATLANTIC ENSLAVEMENT
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: COERCIVE_FLOW | SCALE: OCEANIC
TIME: sixteenth–nineteenth centuries; peaks vary by embarkation region | WORLD_BAND: W041–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ATLANTIC_SLAVE_TRADES | PLACE: Upper Guinea, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra
ENTITY: captive people, African polities and merchants, European and American carriers, plantation systems.
EVENT: Warfare, raiding, judicial seizure, kidnapping and sale feed forced Atlantic deportation; captives are people under coercion, never a neutral commodity class. Regional participation, resistance and exposure change over time.
DOMAIN: ENSLAVEMENT; WAR; DEMOGRAPHY; DIASPORA.
EVIDENCE: VOYAGE_DATABASE; TEXTUAL; ORAL_HISTORY; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: documented minimums and modelled estimates | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S090; WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S095.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G066 capture -> forced march -> embarkation -> ocean crossing -> coerced labour; mortality/resistance on every edge.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000067 — [GBE-001] TADO, ALLADA, HUEDA AND GBE POLITICAL FIELDS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: approximately sixteenth–seventeenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: PRE_DAHOMEY_GBE_WORLDS | PLACE: lower Mono–Ouémé region and Bight of Benin
ENTITY: Adja/Gbe-speaking communities, Tado-linked traditions, Allada, Hueda and coastal towns.
EVENT: Dynastic migrations, kinship claims, markets and lagoon routes generate several interacting polities; later Dahomey narratives do not erase this plural prehistory.
DOMAIN: MIGRATION; GOVERNANCE; TRADE; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; LINGUISTIC; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: genealogies are political charters as well as memories | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S070; WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S073.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G067 Tado/Adja memories -> multiple descendant courts, not a single linear kingdom.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000068 — [COAST-001] GA-DANGME AND EWE COASTAL–INLAND SYSTEMS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: SOCIETY_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: sixteenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EASTERN_GOLD_COAST_PLURALITY | PLACE: Accra plains, lower Volta and Togo–Benin corridor
ENTITY: Ga, Dangme, Ewe and neighbouring communities and polities.
EVENT: Towns, shrines, clans, markets, fishing, farming and migration traditions produce political landscapes that interact with Akwamu, Anlo, European forts and inland trade while retaining distinct languages and institutions.
DOMAIN: SETTLEMENT; GOVERNANCE; TRADE; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; LINGUISTIC | EPISTEMIC: local sequences vary | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S089; WAFZ.S091.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G068 coast/lagoon/inland mobility -> plural town-and-clan systems.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000069 — [AKAN-005] COASTAL AKAN AND FANTE BROKERAGE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITICAL_ECONOMY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: sixteenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W041–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: AKAN_COASTAL_NETWORKS | PLACE: central Gold Coast
ENTITY: Fante states, coastal towns, asafo companies, merchants and inland Akan suppliers.
EVENT: Coastal Akan communities mediate fish, salt, gold, cloth, firearms and enslaved people between forts and inland networks; confederated action and town autonomy coexist.
DOMAIN: TRADE; GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; LABOUR.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: archive weighted toward forts | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S069; WAFZ.S091.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G069 town/asafo/merchant <-> fort <-> inland state.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000070 — [ELMINA-002] DUTCH CAPTURE OF ELMINA
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: FORT_TRANSFER | SCALE: COASTAL
TIME: 1637 | WORLD_BAND: W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DUTCH_GOLD_COAST | PLACE: Elmina
ENTITY: Dutch West India Company, Portuguese defenders and Elmina authorities.
EVENT: Dutch forces take São Jorge da Mina from Portugal; the fort’s European controller changes, while African land, town politics and commercial leverage remain separately negotiated.
DOMAIN: WAR; TRADE; COLONIAL_COMPETITION.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ARCHITECTURAL | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S092; WAFZ.S093.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G070 fort operator transfer != automatic transfer of African sovereignty.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000071 — [DAHOMEY-001] FORMATION OF DANXOMÈ
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: later seventeenth century; conventional dynastic dates vary | WORLD_BAND: W042 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_DANXOME | PLACE: Abomey plateau
ENTITY: Fon-speaking communities and the Aladaxonou dynasty.
EVENT: A palace-centred kingdom consolidates around Abomey through settlement, lineage alliance, conquest and ritual. “Dahomey” is the common historical exonym; Danxomè is retained as a local-form name.
DOMAIN: STATE_FORMATION; RITUAL; WAR.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; PALACE_ARCHAEOLOGY; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: foundation traditions layered | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S070; WAFZ.S072; WAFZ.S073; WAFZ.S074.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G071 palace/lineage/army/ritual -> expanding polity.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000072 — [AKWAMU-001] AKWAMU EXPANSION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: later seventeenth–early eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: AKWAMU_ASCENDANCY | PLACE: eastern Gold Coast, Accra plains and lower Volta
ENTITY: Akwamu state and subject, allied or resisting communities.
EVENT: Akwamu uses military organisation and control of routes to project power across the eastern Gold Coast; its expansion reorganises Ga-Dangme and Ewe political fields before Akyem-led defeat in 1730.
DOMAIN: WAR; TRADE; GOVERNANCE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: regional reconstruction | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S091.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G072 route control + army -> tribute network -> coalition backlash.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000073 — [OYO-005] OYO IMPERIAL ASCENDANCY
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: later seventeenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_IMPERIAL | PLACE: northern Yoruba country, middle Niger corridors and Bight of Benin hinterland
ENTITY: Oyo metropolis, provincial towns, vassals, merchants and cavalry forces.
EVENT: Oyo combines cavalry access, market corridors, tribute, diplomacy and delegated officials to become a major savanna–forest power; control is strongest along nodes and routes, not uniform over mapped territory.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; TRADE; INFRASTRUCTURE.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: high-level sequence secure | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S047; WAFZ.S048; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G073 capital/cavalry/corridor -> layered tribute-and-market system.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000074 — [DENKYIRA-001] DENKYIRA HEGEMONY
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: approximately 1660–1701 | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DENKYIRA_ASCENDANCY | PLACE: south-central Ghana
ENTITY: Denkyira state and tributary Akan polities.
EVENT: Denkyira builds a gold- and tribute-centred hegemony connecting interior production to Atlantic exchange; its pressures help catalyse an Asante coalition.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; GOLD; TRADE; WAR.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: well reconstructed, dates sometimes approximate | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S064.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G074 gold routes + tribute pressure -> hegemony and anti-hegemonic coalition.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000075 — [ASANTE-001] ASANTE UNION
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: CONFEDERATED_POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: later seventeenth century–1701 | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_FORMATION | PLACE: Kumasi and surrounding Akan states
ENTITY: Oyoko leadership under Osei Tutu, Kumasi and allied amans.
EVENT: Previously distinct Akan polities coordinate military, judicial and ritual authority; union is built through negotiated offices and common war as well as dynastic leadership.
DOMAIN: STATE_FORMATION; GOVERNANCE; WAR; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: formation sequence reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S065.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G075 autonomous aman + shared stool/army/council -> confederated Asante.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000076 — [ASANTE-002] GOLDEN STOOL POLITICAL THEOLOGY
CLASS: INSTITUTION | DATE_STATUS: TRADITIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: SOVEREIGNTY_OBJECT | SCALE: CONFEDERAL
TIME: conventionally associated with Osei Tutu and Okomfo Anokye, late seventeenth–early eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_FORMATION | PLACE: Kumasi
ENTITY: Sika Dwa Kofi (Golden Stool), Asante nation and office-holders.
EVENT: Tradition makes the Stool the embodied soul and collective sovereignty of Asante, above any individual Asantehene; the narrative encodes constitutional order rather than supplying a datable eyewitness transcript.
DOMAIN: RITUAL; CONSTITUTION; MEMORY; MATERIAL_CULTURE.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; RITUAL_CONTINUITY; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: charter tradition | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S067.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G076 people -> sovereignty object -> office; ruler is custodian, not owner.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000077 — [ASANTE-003] FEYIASE AND THE END OF DENKYIRA HEGEMONY
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: CONVENTIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: WAR | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: conventionally 1701 | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_ASCENDANCY | PLACE: Feyiase, near Kumasi
ENTITY: Asante coalition and Denkyira.
EVENT: Asante victory breaks Denkyira’s hegemony and opens a phase of expansion; 1701 is the conventional anchor, while campaign detail and precise chronology vary across sources.
DOMAIN: WAR; STATE_FORMATION; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: conventional date | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S062.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G077 coalition victory -> route/gold redistribution -> expanding union.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000078 — [BEGHO-003] BEGHO’S CONTRACTION AND NETWORK DISPERSAL
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: URBAN_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: seventeenth–eighteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BEGHO_DECLINE | PLACE: Begho and Bono–Akan corridors
ENTITY: Begho’s neighbourhoods, merchants and craft communities.
EVENT: The cosmopolitan town contracts and is eventually abandoned as trade routes, warfare and political centres shift; commercial and craft capacities disperse into successor networks rather than simply vanishing.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; TRADE; MIGRATION; FISSION.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: broad sequence secure | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S061; WAFZ.S062.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G078 urban decline -> people/skills/routes redistributed to successor nodes.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000079 — [ASANTE-004] ASANTE TERRITORIAL AND COMMERCIAL EXPANSION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1701–mid-eighteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_EXPANSION | PLACE: forest Ghana and northern/coastal corridors
ENTITY: Asantehene, metropolitan councils, provincial authorities, traders and subject states.
EVENT: Asante expands through campaigns, treaties, tribute, roads and administrative appointments, securing goldfields and northern and coastal access while incorporating polities under differentiated arrangements.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; WAR; GOLD; TRADE; INFRASTRUCTURE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: strong at regional scale | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S066.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G079 Kumasi -> roads/officials/tribute -> differentiated imperial provinces.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000080 — [BONO-003] ASANTE CONQUEST OF BONO
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: CONVENTIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: WAR | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: conventionally 1722–1723 | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_EXPANSION | PLACE: Bono Manso/Techiman region
ENTITY: Asante and Bono states.
EVENT: Asante defeats Bono, gaining people, gold routes, institutions and court knowledge; Bono political and ritual continuities persist around Techiman and in dispersed communities.
DOMAIN: WAR; KNOWLEDGE_TRANSFER; GOLD; FISSION.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: conventional chronology | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S060; WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S064.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G080 conquest -> compelled transfer/dispersal + Bono continuity.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000081 — [DAHOMEY-002] CONQUEST OF ALLADA
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: CONVENTIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: WAR | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1724 | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DANXOME_EXPANSION | PLACE: Allada
ENTITY: Danxomè under Agaja and Allada.
EVENT: Danxomè conquers Allada, redirecting dynastic and commercial routes and intensifying its contact with Atlantic markets; surviving Allada lineages and diaspora claims continue.
DOMAIN: WAR; TRADE; DYNASTIC_MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: event secure, motives debated | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S070; WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S072.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G081 inland palace -> conquered corridor -> coastward expansion.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000082 — [DAHOMEY-003] CONQUEST OF HUEDA AND OUIDAH
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: CONVENTIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: WAR | SCALE: COASTAL_TO_REGIONAL
TIME: 1727 | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DANXOME_ATLANTIC | PLACE: Hueda/Whydah and Ouidah coast
ENTITY: Danxomè, Hueda authorities, coastal merchants and European forts.
EVENT: Danxomè takes the Hueda kingdom and gains direct leverage over Ouidah’s Atlantic trade; the conquest subjects communities and makes the court a major participant in slave trading.
DOMAIN: WAR; ENSLAVEMENT; TRADE; GOVERNANCE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: well documented, archive actor-biased | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S072; WAFZ.S073.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G082 conquest -> port access -> intensified coerced export.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000083 — [OYO-006] OYO–DAHOMEY WARS AND TRIBUTE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: INTERSTATE_RELATION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1720s–1748; tributary relation continues with interruptions into the nineteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_DANXOME_SYSTEM | PLACE: Yoruba–Gbe corridor
ENTITY: Oyo and Danxomè.
EVENT: Oyo campaigns constrain Danxomè and establish tribute after repeated conflict; tribute, trade and intermittent resistance create a negotiated hierarchy rather than direct Oyo administration of Abomey.
DOMAIN: WAR; DIPLOMACY; TRIBUTE; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: sequence documented, terms variable | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G083 war -> tribute edge; political autonomy persists under asymmetric relation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000084 — [ATLANTIC-005] EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FORCED-MIGRATION PEAKS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: COERCIVE_FLOW | SCALE: OCEANIC
TIME: eighteenth century, with region-specific peaks | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ATLANTIC_SLAVE_TRADE_PEAKS | PLACE: Gold Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra and Upper Guinea
ENTITY: deported Africans and the political-commercial systems that captured, sold, transported and exploited them.
EVENT: Embarkations grow on several forest-zone coasts; Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra routes connect Yoruba, Gbe, Igbo, Ibibio, Efik and many other captives to the Americas. Aggregate estimates cannot replace individual lives or local variation.
DOMAIN: ENSLAVEMENT; DEMOGRAPHY; DIASPORA; RESISTANCE.
EVIDENCE: VOYAGE_DATABASE; SHIPPING_RECORDS; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: statistical reconstruction | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S090; WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S094; WAFZ.S095.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G084 embarkation-region statistics -> constrained inference, never ethnic headcounts without evidence.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000085 — [DAHOMEY-004] PALACE, ARMY AND WOMEN’S MILITARY CORPS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: INSTITUTIONAL_SYSTEM | SCALE: POLITY
TIME: eighteenth–nineteenth centuries; corps develops over time | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DANXOME_STATE_SYSTEM | PLACE: Abomey and campaigns
ENTITY: monarch, palace offices, male regiments and women soldiers often called Agojie.
EVENT: Danxomè coordinates taxation, ritual, military labour and royal production through palace institutions; women’s regiments become a major standing force, but their origin and changing functions should not be collapsed into one founding date.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; GENDER; LABOUR.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; PALACE_MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: strong for nineteenth century, earlier phases debated | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S070; WAFZ.S072; WAFZ.S074.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G085 palace -> offices/regiments/ritual economy; gendered military capacity changes by reign.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000086 — [ASANTE-005] ROADS, GOLD, WEIGHTS AND STATE FINANCE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: INFRASTRUCTURE_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: eighteenth–nineteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_IMPERIAL | PLACE: Asante and connected market corridors
ENTITY: roads, messengers, markets, gold dust, brass weights, treasuries and officials.
EVENT: Standardised weighing practices and road-and-messenger systems support taxation, diplomacy and commerce; gold weights also encode social knowledge, proverbs and aesthetic authority.
DOMAIN: INFRASTRUCTURE; FINANCE; TRADE; INFORMATION; ART.
EVIDENCE: MATERIAL; TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S063; WAFZ.S066; WAFZ.S067.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G086 gold/weight/road/message -> fiscal and informational control geometry.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000087 — [OYO-007] OYO CONSTITUTIONAL COUNTERWEIGHTS
CLASS: INSTITUTION | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: GOVERNANCE_SYSTEM | SCALE: POLITY
TIME: mature form documented in eighteenth–early nineteenth centuries; roots earlier | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_IMPERIAL | PLACE: Oyo metropolis and provinces
ENTITY: Alaafin, Oyo Mesi, Bashorun, Ogboni, Eso, Ajele and provincial authorities.
EVENT: Interlocking offices distribute military, ritual, judicial and provincial power; remembered checks on the Alaafin demonstrate a constitution of negotiated authority, though descriptions partly reflect later reconstruction.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; LAW; RITUAL; MILITARY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: institution secure, exact historical form variable | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S048; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G087 ruler <-> councils/offices; counterweight failure becomes a pressure signal.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000088 — [FANTE-001] FANTE COALITION POLITICS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: CONFEDERATED_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: eighteenth–nineteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FANTE_COASTAL_POWER | PLACE: central Gold Coast coast and hinterland
ENTITY: Fante states, omanhenes, asafo companies and merchant towns.
EVENT: Flexible coalitions defend routes and coastal autonomy amid Asante expansion and European rivalries; cohesion rises under pressure but town and state sovereignty remains significant.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; TRADE; COLLECTIVE_ACTION.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: documented with colonial-source bias | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S069; WAFZ.S091.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G088 autonomous towns + shared threat -> variable confederal capacity.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000089 — [AKAN-WEST-001] BAOULÉ, ANYI AND WESTWARD AKAN WORLDS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: MIGRATION_AND_POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: seventeenth–eighteenth centuries; traditions and local sequences differ | WORLD_BAND: W042–W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: WESTERN_AKAN_FORMATIONS | PLACE: present-day Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana borderlands
ENTITY: Baoulé, Anyi/Agni, Abron and related Akan-speaking communities.
EVENT: Migration, marriage, warfare and trade produce new courts and settlements west of the central Akan heartland; traditions associated with figures such as Aura Poku encode rupture and legitimacy but are not exact travel logs.
DOMAIN: MIGRATION; STATE_FORMATION; MEMORY; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; LINGUISTIC; TEXTUAL; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: layered | CONFIDENCE: B/C.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S088.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G089 political fission + movement + local incorporation -> new Akan polities.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000090 — [GYAMAN-001] GYAMAN/ABRON BORDERLAND STATE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: eighteenth–nineteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: AKAN_BORDERLAND_STATES | PLACE: north-eastern Côte d’Ivoire and western Ghana
ENTITY: Gyaman/Abron and neighbouring communities.
EVENT: A gold- and kola-linked borderland polity operates between Asante, Kong and western Akan worlds; shifting tributary and commercial relations show that later colonial borders cut through older systems.
DOMAIN: TRADE; GOLD; GOVERNANCE; BORDERLAND.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: regional reconstruction | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S080; WAFZ.S088.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G090 borderland court <-> Asante/Kong/coastal networks; sovereignty changes by relation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000091 — [CALABAR-001] ANTERA DUKE’S DIARY
CLASS: SOURCE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: INDIGENOUS_WRITTEN_ARCHIVE | SCALE: URBAN_TO_ATLANTIC
TIME: 1785–1788 | WORLD_BAND: W043 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LATE_ATLANTIC_SLAVE_TRADE | PLACE: Old Calabar and Cross River estuary
ENTITY: Antera Duke, Efik merchant-political networks and Atlantic traders.
EVENT: Antera Duke records daily commerce, diplomacy, ritual and violence in a locally authored diary written in trade English; it reveals African calculations and constraints inside an economy deeply implicated in enslavement.
DOMAIN: INFORMATION; TRADE; ENSLAVEMENT; GOVERNANCE.
EVIDENCE: CONTEMPORARY_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: direct but situated | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S094; WAFZ.S095.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G091 indigenous author -> high-resolution local archive; viewpoint remains elite and partial.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000092 — [DELTA-002] BONNY, OLD CALABAR AND DELTA BROKER STATES
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: CITY_STATE_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_OCEANIC
TIME: seventeenth–nineteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W042–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DELTA_ATLANTIC_BROKERAGE | PLACE: Niger Delta and Cross River
ENTITY: Bonny, Elem Kalabari, Nembe, Old Calabar and other estuarine states.
EVENT: Canoe transport, trading houses, kinship incorporation and river knowledge enable coastal states to broker hinterland–Atlantic exchange first dominated by captive exports and later increasingly by palm produce.
DOMAIN: TRADE; GOVERNANCE; ENSLAVEMENT; SHIPPING.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: strong but merchant-source weighted | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S094; WAFZ.S095; WAFZ.S096.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G092 house/canoe/river-port <-> hinterland suppliers <-> ocean carriers.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000093 — [ARO-001] AROCHUKWU AND ARO COMMERCIAL–ORACULAR NETWORK
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: DIASPORA_NETWORK | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: approximately eighteenth–nineteenth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ARO_NETWORK | PLACE: south-eastern Nigeria and Cross River hinterlands
ENTITY: Arochukwu, Aro settlements, Ibini Ukpabi oracle, merchants and host communities.
EVENT: Dispersed Aro communities combine commerce, ritual authority, credit, kinship and local alliances across the hinterland; the network also participates in systems that channel captives toward Atlantic ports.
DOMAIN: TRADE; RITUAL; MIGRATION; ENSLAVEMENT.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: network scale reconstructed | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S032; WAFZ.S095; WAFZ.S099.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G093 sacred centre -> dispersed colonies/brokers -> host-network power.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000094 — [DIASPORA-001] FOREST-ZONE DIASPORAS IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: FORCED_AND_ADAPTIVE_DIASPORA | SCALE: OCEANIC
TIME: sixteenth–nineteenth centuries and continuing | WORLD_BAND: W041–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: AFRICAN_ATLANTIC | PLACE: West Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas
ENTITY: Yoruba/Lucumí/Nagô, Gbe/Arará/Fon, Akan/Coromantee, Igbo and many other displaced and self-reconstituting communities.
EVENT: Enslaved people carry and remake languages, ritual forms, music, foodways, healing and political memory under violent constraint; Atlantic labels are shifting port, colonial or diasporic categories rather than perfect maps of homeland identity.
DOMAIN: DIASPORA; RELIGION; CULTURE; RESISTANCE; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; LINGUISTIC; ORAL_HISTORY; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: connection-specific | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S090; WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G094 forced displacement -> recombination/continuity -> transatlantic feedback.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000095 — [SIERRA-LEONE-001] FREETOWN AND THE SIERRA LEONE COLONY
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: SETTLEMENT_AND_COLONY | SCALE: COASTAL_TO_ATLANTIC
TIME: first settlement 1787; renewed settlement 1792; Crown Colony 1808 | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FREETOWN_FOUNDATION | PLACE: Sierra Leone Peninsula
ENTITY: Temne landholders, Black Poor settlers, Nova Scotian settlers, Jamaican Maroons, liberated Africans and British authorities.
EVENT: Repeated settlement projects create Freetown through disputed land arrangements and heterogeneous Black Atlantic migrations; after 1808 it becomes a base for British anti-slave-trade interception and a new Krio society.
DOMAIN: MIGRATION; COLONIALISM; ABOLITION; URBANISM.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_HISTORY; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: well documented, perspectives unequal | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S081; WAFZ.S098; WAFZ.S099.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G095 local land rights + multiple Atlantic migrations + colonial office -> Freetown/Krio formation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000096 — [ABOLITION-001] BRITISH ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE
CLASS: LEGAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: LEGAL_REGIME | SCALE: IMPERIAL_TO_OCEANIC
TIME: 1807 act; effective 1 January 1808 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ABOLITION_AND_ILLEGAL_TRADE | PLACE: British Atlantic and West African coast
ENTITY: British Parliament, Royal Navy, traders, African polities and captive people.
EVENT: Britain prohibits its subjects’ slave trading and begins maritime suppression, but illegal trafficking and non-British trades continue for decades; abolition changes incentives without instantly ending capture or enslavement.
DOMAIN: LAW; ENSLAVEMENT; NAVAL_POWER; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; SHIPPING_RECORDS | EPISTEMIC: exact law, uneven enforcement | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S090; WAFZ.S099.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G096 legal prohibition -> enforcement/interception/avoidance edges -> partial system transition.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000097 — [PALM-001] PALM OIL, “LEGITIMATE COMMERCE” AND CONTINUING COERCION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COMMODITY_SYSTEM | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: principally early–late nineteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: PALM_OIL_TRANSITION | PLACE: Bight of Benin, Niger Delta and Bight of Biafra
ENTITY: oil-palm producers, women processors, merchants, trading houses, enslaved labourers and European firms.
EVENT: Industrial demand drives palm-oil and kernel exports. The new trade overlaps for decades with slave exports and frequently uses pawnship, domestic slavery, debt and gendered labour; “legitimate” is an abolitionist commercial label, not a moral description.
DOMAIN: LABOUR; TRADE; INDUSTRY; ENSLAVEMENT; GENDER.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ECONOMIC_SERIES; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: strong regional pattern | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S076; WAFZ.S095; WAFZ.S099.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G097 commodity substitution + labour continuity -> non-linear post-slave-trade economy.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000098 — [OYO-008] CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS, AFONJA AND ILORIN
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITICAL_CRISIS | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: late eighteenth century–c.1820s | WORLD_BAND: W043–W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OYO_CRISIS | PLACE: Oyo, Ilorin and northern Yoruba country
ENTITY: Alaafins, Oyo Mesi, Bashorun Gaa memory, Afonja, provincial forces, Muslim allies and Fulani networks.
EVENT: Court conflict, provincial autonomy, trade shifts and military fragmentation erode metropolitan control; Afonja’s Ilorin revolt and its changing alliances become a major break in Oyo’s northern system.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; WAR; RELIGION; FISSION.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: causal weights debated | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S047; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G098 counterweight failure + provincial military autonomy -> cascading fission.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000099 — [ASANTE-006] ANGLO–ASANTE WAR SYSTEM
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: INTERSTATE_WAR | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: major wars 1823–1831, 1863–1864, 1873–1874 and 1895–1896 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_COLONIAL_CONFRONTATION | PLACE: Asante, Fante coast and British Gold Coast
ENTITY: Asante, allied or subject polities, Fante states and British imperial forces.
EVENT: Repeated wars concern coastal access, sovereignty, trade and alliances; changing weapons, logistics and disease environments produce neither a simple linear conquest nor an unchanging African–European binary.
DOMAIN: WAR; DIPLOMACY; COLONIALISM; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: well documented, belligerent bias | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S062; WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S100.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G099 Asante/coastal alliances/British forts -> repeated war and treaty cycles.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000100 — [DAHOMEY-005] END OF OYO TRIBUTE AND GEZO’S REORIENTATION
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: POLITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c.1818–1823 and after | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: INDEPENDENT_DANXOME | PLACE: Danxomè and Yoruba–Gbe frontier
ENTITY: King Gezo’s government, Oyo and regional merchants.
EVENT: Danxomè ends Oyo tribute during Oyo’s crisis and expands military-fiscal autonomy; Gezo’s reign combines continued slave trading, palm-oil promotion, court reform and resistance to British abolition pressure.
DOMAIN: WAR; GOVERNANCE; ENSLAVEMENT; TRADE.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: sequence secure, policy motives debated | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S071; WAFZ.S072; WAFZ.S076.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G100 overlord decline -> tributary exit -> autonomous commodity strategy.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000101 — [OYO-009] ABANDONMENT OF OLD OYO
CLASS: COLLAPSE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: CONVENTIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: CAPITAL_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c.1835–1837 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: OLD_OYO_COLLAPSE | PLACE: Old Oyo
ENTITY: Oyo metropolis and displaced populations.
EVENT: Military pressure and accumulated internal fracture lead to final abandonment of the capital; Oyo civilisation does not disappear, but its people, offices and political projects relocate and recombine.
DOMAIN: WAR; MIGRATION; URBAN_COLLAPSE; CONTINUITY.
EVIDENCE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL; ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL | EPISTEMIC: conventional range | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S047; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G101 capital failure -> population/institution dispersal -> successor Yoruba states.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000102 — [YORUBA-008] NINETEENTH-CENTURY YORUBA WARS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: REGIONAL_WAR_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: c.1820s–1893 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: YORUBA_WARS | PLACE: Yoruba country and adjacent regions
ENTITY: Oyo successor groups, Ijebu, Egba, Ibadan, Ijesa, Ekiti, Ilorin and other polities and refugees.
EVENT: Oyo fission, commercial competition, enslavement, refugee movement and new military organisations drive overlapping wars; no single conflict or ethnic binary explains the century.
DOMAIN: WAR; MIGRATION; ENSLAVEMENT; STATE_FORMATION.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; ARCHAEOLOGICAL | EPISTEMIC: strong broad chronology | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S097; WAFZ.S098.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G102 imperial fission -> refugee camps/war towns -> new political landscape.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000103 — [IBADAN-001] IBADAN WAR-CAMP URBANISM
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: CITY_STATE | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: founded/reconstituted c.1829–1830; ascendancy mid–late nineteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IBADAN_ASCENDANCY | PLACE: Ibadan
ENTITY: refugee-warriors, chiefs, compounds, markets and subject towns.
EVENT: Ibadan develops from a war camp into a large military city governed through achievement-based chieftaincy, compounds and command networks, becoming a major Oyo-successor power.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; MILITARY; GOVERNANCE; MIGRATION.
EVIDENCE: TEXTUAL; ORAL_TRADITION; URBAN_MORPHOLOGY | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S097.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G103 displaced fighters + compound organisation -> scalable war city.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000104 — [ABEOKUTA-001] ABEOKUTA REFUGE AND EGBA POLITY
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: CONVENTIONAL | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: REFUGE_CITY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1830 and after | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EGBA_REFOUNDATION | PLACE: Abeokuta
ENTITY: Egba refugees, earlier residents, town sections and councils.
EVENT: Communities displaced by war consolidate around Olumo Rock, forming a federated refuge-city that later becomes a mission, trade and political centre; protection and autonomy coexist with internal hierarchy.
DOMAIN: MIGRATION; URBANISM; GOVERNANCE; SECURITY.
EVIDENCE: ORAL_TRADITION; TEXTUAL; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: conventional foundation | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S040; WAFZ.S097; WAFZ.S098.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G104 refugee aggregation + defensible habitat -> federated city.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000105 — [LITERACY-001] AFRICAN-LANGUAGE PRINT, CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND NEW PUBLICS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: INFORMATION_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: nineteenth century | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: MISSION_PRINT_PUBLICS | PLACE: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gold Coast, Yoruba country and Niger corridors
ENTITY: African clergy and teachers, Muslim scholars, mission presses, schools, translators and readers.
EVENT: Older Arabic, Ajami and indigenous information systems meet expanding Roman-script schooling and print; figures including Samuel Ajayi Crowther translate, teach and build institutions inside unequal missionary and colonial structures.
DOMAIN: INFORMATION; RELIGION; EDUCATION; LANGUAGE.
EVIDENCE: PRINTED_TEXT; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: well documented | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S084; WAFZ.S097; WAFZ.S098.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G105 translation/print/school -> new publics and administrative capacities.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000106 — [LIBERIA-001] LIBERIAN SETTLEMENT AND INDEPENDENCE
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: SETTLER_REPUBLIC | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_ATLANTIC
TIME: first American Colonization Society settlement 1822; independence 26 July 1847 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_LIBERIA | PLACE: Liberian coast and hinterland
ENTITY: Americo-Liberian settlers, recaptured Africans, Kru, Grebo, Vai, Bassa, Kpelle and other indigenous societies.
EVENT: A Black settler republic forms through Atlantic migration, land treaties and coercive expansion; sovereignty protects the republic from formal European colonisation but political citizenship and power remain sharply unequal.
DOMAIN: MIGRATION; STATE_FORMATION; COLONIALITY; LAW.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: well documented, perspectives contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S085; WAFZ.S104.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G106 settler institutions + indigenous territories -> unequal republic and long integration conflict.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000107 — [VAI-001] VAI SCRIPT
CLASS: INNOVATION | DATE_STATUS: APPROXIMATE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: WRITING_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: developed c.1830s; documented by 1840s | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: INDIGENOUS_LITERACY | PLACE: Liberia–Sierra Leone borderlands
ENTITY: Momolu Duwalu Bukele tradition, Vai speakers and manuscript users.
EVENT: A locally devised syllabary supports correspondence, records and learning; its history demonstrates independent graphic innovation amid Arabic and Roman-script contact.
DOMAIN: INFORMATION; LANGUAGE; EDUCATION; INNOVATION.
EVIDENCE: MANUSCRIPT; ORAL_TRADITION; LINGUISTIC | EPISTEMIC: invention narrative partly traditional | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S084; WAFZ.S085.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G107 language + graphic invention -> portable indigenous information system.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000108 — [LAGOS-001] BRITISH ANNEXATION OF LAGOS
CLASS: COLONIAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: ANNEXATION | SCALE: URBAN_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: treaty signed 6 August 1861 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COLONIAL_LAGOS | PLACE: Lagos
ENTITY: Oba Dosunmu, Lagos political communities, merchants and British officials.
EVENT: Britain compels the cession of Lagos after intervention in dynastic and anti-slave-trade politics; annexation secures a port and base for later expansion into Yoruba and Nigerian territories.
DOMAIN: COLONIALISM; LAW; TRADE; SOVEREIGNTY.
EVIDENCE: TREATY; ARCHIVAL | EPISTEMIC: exact event, coercive context essential | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S101.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G108 naval leverage -> coerced treaty -> colonial port/state expansion.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000109 — [FANTE-002] FANTE CONFEDERATION
CLASS: FORMATION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z4 | TYPE: CONSTITUTIONAL_CONFEDERATION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1868–1873/1874 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FANTE_CONFEDERATION | PLACE: central Gold Coast
ENTITY: Fante states, chiefs, educated elites and asafo institutions.
EVENT: A written constitution and common institutions seek to protect autonomy, coordinate defence and modernise administration; British colonial intervention and internal strains end the experiment.
DOMAIN: CONSTITUTION; GOVERNANCE; ANTI_COLONIALISM; EDUCATION.
EVIDENCE: CONTEMPORARY_TEXT; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_TRADITION | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S069; WAFZ.S100.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G109 indigenous confederal genome + written constitution -> curtailed state experiment.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000110 — [GOLD-COAST-001] 1874 WAR AND GOLD COAST CROWN COLONY
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COLONIAL_REGIME | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: Kumasi expedition and Treaty of Fomena, 1874; Crown Colony constituted 1874 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FORMAL_GOLD_COAST_COLONIALISM | PLACE: southern Gold Coast and Kumasi
ENTITY: Asante, Fante and other coastal polities, British forces and colonial government.
EVENT: British forces sack Kumasi and impose terms; the coastal colony is formalised, converting fort-based influence into expanding territorial government while Asante remains independent for two further decades.
DOMAIN: WAR; COLONIALISM; LAW; SOVEREIGNTY.
EVIDENCE: TREATY; ARCHIVAL; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S068; WAFZ.S100.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G110 military expedition -> treaty/colony; Asante sovereignty persists but is weakened.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000111 — [COLONIAL-001] SCRAMBLE FOR THE FOREST COAST
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: IMPERIAL_PARTITION | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: c.1880s–1914 | WORLD_BAND: W044–W045 | LOCAL_PERIOD: HIGH_COLONIAL_CONQUEST | PLACE: Upper and Lower Guinea forest zones
ENTITY: British, French and German empires; Liberian republic; African polities and communities.
EVENT: Treaties, military campaigns and diplomatic boundary-making partition most of the region; lines cut through Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Gbe, Kru, Mande and other systems, while Liberia’s formal independence persists under severe external pressure.
DOMAIN: COLONIALISM; WAR; BORDER; LAW.
EVIDENCE: TREATY; CARTOGRAPHIC; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: exact boundaries, contested legitimacy | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S102; WAFZ.S103; WAFZ.S104.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G111 imperial negotiation/war -> borders -> cross-border civilisation continuities.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000112 — [COTE-DIVOIRE-001] FRENCH CÔTE D’IVOIRE AND INTERIOR CONQUEST
CLASS: COLONIAL_PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COLONIAL_TERRITORY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: colony proclaimed 10 March 1893; conquest and boundary consolidation continue into the early twentieth century | WORLD_BAND: W044–W045 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FRENCH_COTE_DIVOIRE | PLACE: present-day Côte d’Ivoire
ENTITY: French administration, coastal treaty partners, Baoulé, Anyi, Senufo, Dyula, Samori’s state and many other communities.
EVENT: France converts coastal claims into territorial rule through war, treaties and forced administration; resistance is plural and persists well beyond the colony’s formal proclamation.
DOMAIN: COLONIALISM; WAR; LABOUR; BORDER.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY; LEGAL_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: broad sequence strong | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S088; WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S103.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G112 coastal claim -> military corridors -> territorial colony/forced labour.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000113 — [DAHOMEY-006] FRANCO–DAHOMEAN WARS
CLASS: WAR_SERIES | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COLONIAL_CONQUEST | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: first war 1890; second war 1892–1894 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DANXOME_CONQUEST | PLACE: Porto-Novo, Cotonou, Abomey and central Benin
ENTITY: Danxomè under Behanzin, French forces, Porto-Novo and regional communities.
EVENT: Disputes over coastal sovereignty and French expansion lead to war; technologically advantaged French forces occupy Abomey, Behanzin continues resistance and is later exiled, and the kingdom is incorporated into colonial Dahomey.
DOMAIN: WAR; COLONIALISM; SOVEREIGNTY; RESISTANCE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY; PALACE_MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: well documented, colonial narratives biased | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S070; WAFZ.S074; WAFZ.S077; WAFZ.S102.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G113 coastal encroachment -> war -> palace occupation/exile -> colonial regime.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000114 — [ASANTE-007] OCCUPATION OF KUMASI AND ASANTEHENE’S EXILE
CLASS: COLONIAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: OCCUPATION | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: 1896 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_OCCUPATION | PLACE: Kumasi
ENTITY: Asantehene Prempeh I, Asante authorities and British forces.
EVENT: A British expedition occupies Kumasi and deports Prempeh I and senior figures without a major battle, attempting to dismantle independent Asante authority while stools and local institutions endure.
DOMAIN: COLONIALISM; EXILE; GOVERNANCE; RESISTANCE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S067; WAFZ.S100.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G114 ruler removal -> institutional stress; sovereignty objects and local offices preserve continuity.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000115 — [BENIN-010] 1897 BRITISH PUNITIVE EXPEDITION AND LOOTING
CLASS: COLONIAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: CONQUEST_AND_LOOTING | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: January–February 1897 and aftermath | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_CONQUEST | PLACE: Benin City and global museum/market network
ENTITY: Oba Ovonramwen’s kingdom, British forces, Benin residents, palace guild archives and looted objects.
EVENT: After the killing of an unauthorised British expedition, a larger force burns and occupies Benin City, deposes Ovonramwen and removes thousands of royal and sacred works. “Benin Bronzes” is a broad category including brass, bronze, ivory and other materials.
DOMAIN: WAR; COLONIALISM; LOOTING; HERITAGE; DIASPORA_OBJECTS.
EVIDENCE: CONTEMPORARY_TEXT; PHOTOGRAPHIC; MATERIAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: event secure, object counts/provenance vary | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S051; WAFZ.S054; WAFZ.S055; WAFZ.S056.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G115 conquest -> palace archive extraction -> institution/market dispersion -> restitution claims.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000116 — [SIERRA-LEONE-002] HUT TAX WAR
CLASS: WAR | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: ANTI_COLONIAL_RESISTANCE | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1898 | WORLD_BAND: W044 | LOCAL_PERIOD: SIERRA_LEONE_PROTECTORATE_RESISTANCE | PLACE: Sierra Leone Protectorate
ENTITY: Temne forces associated with Bai Bureh, Mende resistance and British colonial government.
EVENT: Resistance to the hut tax and expanding colonial authority erupts in northern and southern theatres; local causes and leadership differ, and violence includes attacks on colonial personnel and African intermediaries.
DOMAIN: TAXATION; WAR; COLONIALISM; RESISTANCE.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: well documented, labels source-dependent | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S081; WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S105.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G116 imposed tax/authority -> regional resistance -> coercive protectorate consolidation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000117 — [ASANTE-008] YAA ASANTEWAA WAR AND ANNEXATION
CLASS: WAR_AND_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: ANTI_COLONIAL_RESISTANCE | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_IMPERIAL
TIME: 1900 war; Asante annexed as Crown Colony 1 January 1902 | WORLD_BAND: W045 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_COLONIAL_INCORPORATION | PLACE: Kumasi and Asante
ENTITY: Asante resistance associated with Yaa Asantewaa, British forces and Golden Stool sovereignty.
EVENT: A British demand concerning the Golden Stool helps trigger armed resistance; the uprising is defeated and Asante annexed, but the Stool remains uncaptured and continues as a constitutional-spiritual centre.
DOMAIN: WAR; GENDER; SOVEREIGNTY; COLONIALISM.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: exact broad sequence | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S064; WAFZ.S065; WAFZ.S067; WAFZ.S100.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G117 attack on sovereignty symbol -> mobilisation -> annexation without cultural erasure.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000118 — [TOGOLAND-001] GERMAN TOGOLAND
CLASS: COLONIAL_PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COLONY | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: protectorate claims from 1884; German rule ends 1914 | WORLD_BAND: W044–W045 | LOCAL_PERIOD: GERMAN_TOGOLAND | PLACE: present-day Togo and eastern Ghana
ENTITY: German administration, Ewe and other communities, merchants and forced labourers.
EVENT: Germany builds a narrow corridor colony through treaties, conquest, taxation, plantations and infrastructure; World War I occupation later divides the territory between British and French mandates.
DOMAIN: COLONIALISM; LABOUR; INFRASTRUCTURE; BORDER.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; CARTOGRAPHIC; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: well documented | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S102.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G118 imperial corridor -> infrastructure/extraction -> later mandate partition.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000119 — [COLONIAL-002] COCOA REVOLUTION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COMMODITY_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: late nineteenth–twentieth centuries | WORLD_BAND: W044–W046 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COCOA_FRONTIER | PLACE: Gold Coast/Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, south-western Nigeria and neighbouring zones
ENTITY: African farmers, migrant labourers, brokers, chiefs, states and global chocolate industries.
EVENT: Smallholders and migrant farmers drive expanding cocoa frontiers; export income transforms households, towns and states while land tenure conflict, labour coercion, price dependency, child-labour risk and forest conversion accumulate.
DOMAIN: AGRICULTURE; LABOUR; TRADE; ECOLOGY; FINANCE.
EVIDENCE: ECONOMIC_SERIES; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY; REMOTE_SENSING | EPISTEMIC: strong, local variation high | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S103; WAFZ.S111; WAFZ.S114.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G119 forest/land/labour -> cocoa export -> revenue/dependency/ecological debt.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000120 — [NIGERIA-001] AMALGAMATION OF NIGERIA
CLASS: COLONIAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COLONIAL_STATE | SCALE: MACROREGIONAL
TIME: 1 January 1914 | WORLD_BAND: W045 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COLONIAL_NIGERIA | PLACE: British Nigeria
ENTITY: Northern and Southern Protectorates, Colony of Lagos and diverse societies.
EVENT: Britain administratively amalgamates territories acquired through different wars and treaties; fiscal and transport logics join many pre-existing civilisations within one colonial state without making them culturally uniform.
DOMAIN: COLONIALISM; GOVERNANCE; FINANCE; BORDER.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ARCHIVAL | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S101.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G120 colonial administrative merge -> inherited postcolonial state container.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000121 — [TOGOLAND-002] WAR, MANDATES AND TOGOLAND PARTITION
CLASS: TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: COLONIAL_PARTITION | SCALE: INTERREGIONAL
TIME: Allied occupation 1914; League of Nations mandates formalised 1922; UN trust territories after 1946 | WORLD_BAND: W045–W046 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DIVIDED_TOGOLANDS | PLACE: British and French Togoland
ENTITY: Ewe and other borderland communities, British and French administrations.
EVENT: German rule collapses in World War I and its colony is divided; the new boundary separates families, markets and language communities and later feeds competing unification and statehood projects.
DOMAIN: WAR; BORDER; COLONIALISM; SELF_DETERMINATION.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; CARTOGRAPHIC; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: exact administrative sequence | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S102.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G121 imperial war -> mandate boundary -> cross-border civilisation network.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000122 — [COLONIAL-003] INDIRECT RULE AND INVENTED ADMINISTRATIVE TRADITIONS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: GOVERNANCE_SYSTEM | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: principally early–mid-twentieth century | WORLD_BAND: W045–W046 | LOCAL_PERIOD: HIGH_COLONIAL_ADMINISTRATION | PLACE: British forest-zone colonies, with different French systems alongside
ENTITY: colonial officers, recognised chiefs, warrant chiefs, councils, courts and excluded publics.
EVENT: Colonial regimes govern through selected or newly created authorities, codifying flexible custom and altering gender, lineage and town power; “traditional authority” can therefore contain both older legitimacy and colonial redesign.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; LAW; TAXATION; GENDER.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY; LEGAL_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: strong, locality-specific | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S105.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G122 colonial office -> selected intermediary -> recoded custom/accountability gap.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000123 — [COLONIAL-004] RAILWAYS, PORTS, TAX AND FORCED LABOUR
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: EXTRACTIVE_INFRASTRUCTURE | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: c.1890s–1950s | WORLD_BAND: W044–W046 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COLONIAL_EXTRACTION | PLACE: forest-zone colonies
ENTITY: rail and road corridors, ports, mines, farms, colonial states and conscripted or wage labourers.
EVENT: Infrastructure links gold, cocoa, timber, palm produce and minerals to ocean ports. It also supports mobility and towns, but routing privileges export and military control, and construction often depends on taxation, compulsion or discriminatory labour regimes.
DOMAIN: INFRASTRUCTURE; LABOUR; EXTRACTION; URBANISM.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; CARTOGRAPHIC; ECONOMIC_SERIES; MATERIAL | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S103.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G123 mine/farm -> rail/road -> port -> imperial market; benefits and coercion typed separately.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000124 — [POLITICS-001] ASSOCIATIONS, PRESS, UNIONS AND NATIONALISM
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: PUBLIC_SPHERE | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_PAN_AFRICAN
TIME: late nineteenth century–1950s | WORLD_BAND: W044–W046 | LOCAL_PERIOD: NATIONALIST_PUBLICS | PLACE: Freetown, Monrovia, Accra, Lagos, Abidjan, Porto-Novo, Lomé and connected towns
ENTITY: newspapers, lawyers, clergy, market associations, unions, students, veterans and political parties.
EVENT: Educated and working publics use print, petition, strike, election and Pan-African networks to challenge racial rule; elite constitutionalism and mass mobilisation overlap but are not identical.
DOMAIN: INFORMATION; LABOUR; POLITICS; ANTI_COLONIALISM.
EVIDENCE: NEWSPAPER; ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S098; WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G124 school/press/union/market -> public coordination -> decolonisation pressure.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000125 — [NIGERIA-002] WOMEN’S WAR
CLASS: EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: MASS_PROTEST | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: November–December 1929 | WORLD_BAND: W045 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COLONIAL_NIGERIA | PLACE: south-eastern Nigeria
ENTITY: Igbo and Ibibio women, warrant chiefs and colonial authorities.
EVENT: Tens of thousands mobilise through assembly, song, “sitting on” officials and attacks on administrative sites against taxation fears and warrant-chief abuses; colonial gunfire kills protesters and forces administrative revision.
DOMAIN: GENDER; PROTEST; TAXATION; COLONIALISM.
EVIDENCE: ARCHIVAL; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: event strong, naming/perspective contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S101.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G125 women’s communication institutions -> distributed protest -> colonial reform/repression.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000126 — [WAR-001] SECOND WORLD WAR MOBILISATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: GLOBAL_WAR_INTERFACE | SCALE: GLOBAL
TIME: 1939–1945 | WORLD_BAND: W046 | LOCAL_PERIOD: WARTIME_COLONIES | PLACE: West African colonies and overseas theatres
ENTITY: African soldiers, farmers, workers, colonial governments and families.
EVENT: Troops, food, minerals and labour support Allied war systems; inflation, requisition and veterans’ experience sharpen postwar demands for welfare, wages and self-government.
DOMAIN: WAR; LABOUR; ECONOMY; POLITICS.
EVIDENCE: MILITARY_ARCHIVE; ECONOMIC_SERIES; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S099; WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S105.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G126 colonial mobilisation -> social cost/veteran networks -> decolonisation acceleration.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000127 — [GHANA-001] GOLD COAST INDEPENDENCE AS GHANA
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: SOVEREIGN_STATE | SCALE: NATIONAL_TO_PAN_AFRICAN
TIME: 6 March 1957; republic 1 July 1960 | WORLD_BAND: W047 | LOCAL_PERIOD: INDEPENDENT_GHANA | PLACE: Ghana
ENTITY: Convention People’s Party, Kwame Nkrumah, opposition movements, chiefs and electorate.
EVENT: The Gold Coast and British Togoland become independent Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African colony to achieve independence from European rule in this decolonisation wave; Pan-African projects become central to state identity.
DOMAIN: DECOLONISATION; STATE_FORMATION; PAN_AFRICANISM.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ELECTION_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S107.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G127 colonial territory + plebiscite/political mobilisation -> sovereign republic.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000128 — [GUINEA-001] GUINEAN INDEPENDENCE
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: SOVEREIGN_STATE | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: referendum 28 September 1958; independence 2 October 1958 | WORLD_BAND: W047 | LOCAL_PERIOD: INDEPENDENT_GUINEA | PLACE: Guinea
ENTITY: Ahmed Sékou Touré, Democratic Party of Guinea, electorate and French government.
EVENT: Guinea rejects membership in Charles de Gaulle’s proposed French Community and becomes independent, followed by abrupt French withdrawal and a one-party socialist state.
DOMAIN: DECOLONISATION; STATE_FORMATION; ECONOMY; IDEOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: REFERENDUM_RECORD; LEGAL_TEXT; ARCHIVAL | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S106.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G128 referendum exit -> rapid sovereignty + administrative/economic rupture.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000129 — [INDEPENDENCE-001] 1960 SOVEREIGNTY WAVE
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: MULTI_STATE_DECOLONISATION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: Togo 27 April 1960; Dahomey 1 August; Côte d’Ivoire 7 August; Nigeria 1 October | WORLD_BAND: W047 | LOCAL_PERIOD: INDEPENDENCE_WAVE | PLACE: Togo, Dahomey/Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria
ENTITY: newly sovereign governments and diverse colonial successor populations.
EVENT: Four forest-zone states achieve formal independence in 1960 under distinct constitutional settlements; inherited borders and administrations become national containers while older civilisational systems remain transboundary.
DOMAIN: DECOLONISATION; STATE_FORMATION; BORDER.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; CONTEMPORARY_RECORD | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S102; WAFZ.S103.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G129 colonial containers -> sovereign states; civilisation networks cross all four.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000130 — [SIERRA-LEONE-003] SIERRA LEONE INDEPENDENCE
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: SOVEREIGN_STATE | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: 27 April 1961; republic 19 April 1971 | WORLD_BAND: W047 | LOCAL_PERIOD: INDEPENDENT_SIERRA_LEONE | PLACE: Sierra Leone
ENTITY: Sierra Leonean electorate, parties, paramount chiefs and state institutions.
EVENT: The colony and protectorate become one sovereign state, carrying forward a structural divide between Freetown’s older colony and protectorate governance while building a national political field.
DOMAIN: DECOLONISATION; GOVERNANCE; INTEGRATION.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ELECTION_RECORD; ARCHIVAL | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S105.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G130 colony + protectorate -> sovereign state with inherited governance asymmetry.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000131 — [DEVELOPMENT-001] POSTCOLONIAL COMMODITY STATES AND PUBLIC WORKS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: DEVELOPMENT_MODEL | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1950s–1970s | WORLD_BAND: W047–W048 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EARLY_POSTCOLONIAL_DEVELOPMENT | PLACE: forest-zone states
ENTITY: governments, marketing boards, farmers, mines, schools, dams and public enterprises.
EVENT: Governments channel cocoa, coffee, palm, rubber, timber, bauxite, iron ore, diamonds and oil revenue into infrastructure and education; world-price exposure, regional inequality and centralised patronage create fragility alongside real capability gains.
DOMAIN: ECONOMY; INFRASTRUCTURE; EDUCATION; EXTRACTION.
EVIDENCE: ECONOMIC_SERIES; POLICY_TEXT; ORAL_HISTORY | EPISTEMIC: strong at macro scale | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S103; WAFZ.S104; WAFZ.S105; WAFZ.S106.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G131 commodity revenue -> public capacity/patronage -> price-shock exposure.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000132 — [COUP-001] MILITARY COUPS AND ONE-PARTY CENTRALISATION
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: REGIME_TRANSITION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: principally 1960s–1980s | WORLD_BAND: W047–W049 | LOCAL_PERIOD: AUTHORITARIAN_CYCLES | PLACE: Ghana, Nigeria, Dahomey/Benin, Togo, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone
ENTITY: armed forces, ruling parties, civilian governments and publics.
EVENT: Coups, counter-coups and one-party regimes recur under pressures including weak succession rules, fiscal crisis, regional competition and Cold War alignment; trajectories differ and must not be treated as a single African pattern.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; IDEOLOGY; ECONOMY.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_TEXT; ARCHIVAL | EPISTEMIC: event dates exact, causal comparison interpretive | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S102; WAFZ.S104; WAFZ.S105; WAFZ.S106.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G132 institutional stress -> military seizure -> renewed legitimacy/succession problem.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000133 — [BIAFRA-001] NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR
CLASS: WAR | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: CIVIL_WAR | SCALE: NATIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: 6 July 1967–15 January 1970 | WORLD_BAND: W048 | LOCAL_PERIOD: NIGERIAN_CIVIL_WAR | PLACE: Nigeria, especially south-eastern region/Biafra
ENTITY: Federal Nigeria, Republic of Biafra, civilians and international relief networks.
EVENT: Secession follows coups, massacres and political breakdown; federal blockade and war cause mass civilian death, especially through starvation and disease, before Biafran surrender and formal reintegration.
DOMAIN: WAR; FAMINE; SECESSION; HUMANITARIAN_SYSTEM.
EVIDENCE: MILITARY_RECORD; PHOTOGRAPHIC; TESTIMONY; DEMOGRAPHIC_ESTIMATE | EPISTEMIC: chronology exact, death totals disputed | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S108.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G133 state crisis/persecution -> secession -> blockade/war -> traumatic reintegration.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000134 — [TOGO-001] EYADEMA REGIME
CLASS: REGIME | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: AUTHORITARIAN_STATE | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: coup 13 January 1967; Gnassingbé Eyadéma president 1967–5 February 2005 | WORLD_BAND: W048–W052 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EYADEMA_TOGO | PLACE: Togo
ENTITY: military, Rally of the Togolese People, state institutions and opposition.
EVENT: One of Africa’s longest personalist regimes combines military control, party rule, regional patronage and periodic liberalisation; its succession architecture continues to shape Togo after 2005.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; PARTY_STATE; SUCCESSION.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_RECORD; ELECTION_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S102; WAFZ.S123; WAFZ.S124.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G134 coup -> personalist party-state -> dynastic succession pressure.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000135 — [BENIN-STATE-001] KÉRÉKOU, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC AND THE BENIN NAME
CLASS: REGIME_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: STATE_IDENTITY | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: Mathieu Kérékou coup 26 October 1972; renamed People’s Republic of Benin 30 November 1975 | WORLD_BAND: W048 | LOCAL_PERIOD: REVOLUTIONARY_BENIN | PLACE: Republic of Dahomey/Benin
ENTITY: Kérékou regime and citizens of the multi-regional state.
EVENT: Military rule adopts Marxism-Leninism and replaces the region-specific state name “Dahomey” with “Benin,” borrowed from the Bight/older kingdom name but not implying identity with the historic Benin Kingdom in Nigeria.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; IDEOLOGY; NAMING; IDENTITY.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; CONTEMPORARY_RECORD | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S102.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G135 state rename -> inclusive national strategy + persistent category-confusion risk.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000136 — [GHANA-002] COUP CYCLES, RAWLINGS AND FOURTH REPUBLIC
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: REGIME_TRANSITION | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: coups 1966, 1972, 1979 and 1981; Fourth Republic from 7 January 1993 | WORLD_BAND: W047–W050 | LOCAL_PERIOD: GHANA_REGIME_CYCLES | PLACE: Ghana
ENTITY: civilian governments, armed forces, Jerry Rawlings, parties and electorate.
EVENT: Repeated military interventions culminate in Rawlings’s 1981 seizure, economic restructuring and eventual constitutional transition; alternation under the Fourth Republic later becomes a key resilience mechanism.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; ECONOMY; DEMOCRATISATION.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ELECTION_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S120.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G136 coup cycle -> fiscal reform/authoritarian rule -> constitutional alternation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000137 — [LIBERIA-002] 1980 COUP AND COLLAPSE OF SETTLER-PARTY DOMINANCE
CLASS: REGIME_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: COUP | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: 12 April 1980 | WORLD_BAND: W049 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LIBERIAN_RUPTURE | PLACE: Liberia
ENTITY: Samuel Doe and Armed Forces of Liberia, William Tolbert government and national communities.
EVENT: A military coup kills President Tolbert and ends more than a century of True Whig Party dominance; it breaks Americo-Liberian elite monopoly but deepens militarisation and ethno-political exclusion.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; MILITARY; INEQUALITY; RUPTURE.
EVIDENCE: CONTEMPORARY_TEXT; TESTIMONY | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S087; WAFZ.S104.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G137 elite closure -> violent coup -> wider but militarised competition.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000138 — [ECONOMY-001] STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: ECONOMIC_REGIME | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: principally 1980s–1990s | WORLD_BAND: W049–W050 | LOCAL_PERIOD: STRUCTURAL_ADJUSTMENT | PLACE: forest-zone states
ENTITY: national governments, IMF, World Bank, public workers, farmers and consumers.
EVENT: Currency devaluation, privatisation, trade reform and spending restraint address debt and macroeconomic breakdown in different combinations; some exports recover while social protection, employment and state capacity often absorb heavy costs.
DOMAIN: FINANCE; GOVERNANCE; LABOUR; PUBLIC_SERVICES.
EVIDENCE: ECONOMIC_SERIES; POLICY_TEXT; SOCIAL_RESEARCH | EPISTEMIC: strong, impact contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S103; WAFZ.S104; WAFZ.S105.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G138 debt/price shock -> external conditionality -> fiscal stabilisation/capability erosion.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000139 — [DEMOCRACY-001] NATIONAL CONFERENCES AND MULTIPARTY TRANSITIONS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: REGIME_TRANSITION | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 1990s | WORLD_BAND: W050 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DEMOCRATISATION_WAVE | PLACE: Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone
ENTITY: civic coalitions, parties, militaries, incumbents, constitutional courts and voters.
EVENT: Economic crisis and domestic/international pressure open multiparty systems; Benin’s 1990 National Conference becomes a landmark peaceful transition, while outcomes elsewhere range from durable alternation to controlled pluralism or renewed war.
DOMAIN: CONSTITUTION; ELECTION; CIVIL_SOCIETY; GOVERNANCE.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ELECTION_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: country-specific | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S100; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S102; WAFZ.S103; WAFZ.S104; WAFZ.S105; WAFZ.S106.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G139 economic/legitimacy pressure -> constitutional opening -> divergent institutional paths.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000140 — [LIBERIA-003] LIBERIAN CIVIL WARS
CLASS: WAR_SERIES | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: CIVIL_WAR | SCALE: NATIONAL_TO_REGIONAL
TIME: 1989–1997 and 1999–2003 | WORLD_BAND: W050–W051 | LOCAL_PERIOD: LIBERIAN_CIVIL_WARS | PLACE: Liberia and neighbouring states
ENTITY: governments, armed factions, civilians, ECOWAS/ECOMOG, refugees and international missions.
EVENT: State collapse, factional violence and regional war economies kill and displace large populations; the 2003 Accra agreement ends major fighting and begins a UN-supported transition.
DOMAIN: WAR; DISPLACEMENT; REGIONAL_SECURITY; PEACEBUILDING.
EVIDENCE: CONTEMPORARY_RECORD; TESTIMONY; HUMANITARIAN_DATA | EPISTEMIC: chronology strong, casualty totals estimated | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S087; WAFZ.S104; WAFZ.S107.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G140 state fracture -> regionalised war economy -> negotiated/international transition.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000141 — [SIERRA-LEONE-004] SIERRA LEONE CIVIL WAR
CLASS: WAR | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: CIVIL_WAR | SCALE: NATIONAL_TO_REGIONAL
TIME: 23 March 1991–18 January 2002 | WORLD_BAND: W050–W051 | LOCAL_PERIOD: SIERRA_LEONE_CIVIL_WAR | PLACE: Sierra Leone
ENTITY: Revolutionary United Front, governments and militias, civilians, ECOWAS/ECOMOG, UN and British forces.
EVENT: A regionalised insurgency and war economy produce mass killing, mutilation, abduction and displacement; military intervention, the Lomé process and disarmament eventually end the war.
DOMAIN: WAR; EXTRACTION; CHILD_SOLDIERS; PEACEBUILDING.
EVIDENCE: CONTEMPORARY_RECORD; TESTIMONY; TRUTH_COMMISSION | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S086; WAFZ.S105; WAFZ.S107.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G141 grievance/war economy/regional spillover -> atrocity cycle -> disarmament/reconstruction.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000142 — [NIGERIA-003] FOURTH REPUBLIC
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: DEMOCRATIC_REGIME | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: 29 May 1999 onward | WORLD_BAND: W050–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: NIGERIAN_FOURTH_REPUBLIC | PLACE: Nigeria
ENTITY: federal constitution, presidency, National Assembly, states, courts, parties and electorate.
EVENT: Civilian constitutional rule resumes after prolonged military government; repeated elections and transfers build durability, while federal bargaining, corruption, insecurity and disputed electoral trust remain structural pressures.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; ELECTION; FEDERALISM; SECURITY.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; ELECTION_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_TEXT | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S121.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G142 federal constitution/elections -> regime continuity under security and legitimacy load.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000143 — [COTE-DIVOIRE-002] IVORIAN POLITICAL–MILITARY CRISES
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z5 | TYPE: STATE_CRISIS | SCALE: NATIONAL_TO_REGIONAL
TIME: coup 24 December 1999; rebellion/civil war from 19 September 2002; post-election war 2010–2011 | WORLD_BAND: W050–W053 | LOCAL_PERIOD: IVORIAN_CRISIS | PLACE: Côte d’Ivoire
ENTITY: governments, armed movements, parties, civilians, regional and international forces.
EVENT: Succession conflict, exclusionary citizenship politics, land tension and military fragmentation divide the country; the disputed 2010 election triggers renewed war before Alassane Ouattara takes office.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; WAR; IDENTITY; MIGRATION; LAND.
EVIDENCE: ELECTION_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_RECORD; TESTIMONY | EPISTEMIC: strong, responsibility politically contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S088; WAFZ.S103; WAFZ.S107.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G143 succession/citizenship/land stress -> territorial split -> contested reunification.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000144 — [URBAN-001] GULF OF GUINEA MEGACITY AND DIGITAL CORRIDORS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: URBAN_NETWORK | SCALE: MACROREGIONAL
TIME: late twentieth century–2026 | WORLD_BAND: W050–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CONTEMPORARY_URBAN_SYSTEM | PLACE: Abidjan–Accra–Lomé–Cotonou–Lagos and inland/delta cities
ENTITY: metropolitan residents, ports, roads, informal economies, mobile networks, financial technology and creative industries.
EVENT: Rapid urban growth links an extended coastal corridor through migration, trade, media and data. It generates entrepreneurial and cultural capability while housing, transport, flood, waste, energy and inequality systems lag.
DOMAIN: URBANISM; INFORMATION; TRADE; INFRASTRUCTURE; HABITAT.
EVIDENCE: CENSUS; SATELLITE; ECONOMIC_SERIES; NETWORK_DATA | EPISTEMIC: trend strong, comparable city boundaries vary | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S110; WAFZ.S101; WAFZ.S103.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G144 port/city/data corridor -> scale economies + infrastructure/habitat pressure.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000145 — [EBOLA-001] WEST AFRICAN EBOLA EPIDEMIC
CLASS: CRISIS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: EPIDEMIC | SCALE: REGIONAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: outbreak begins December 2013; major epidemic 2014–2016 | WORLD_BAND: W055–W057 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EBOLA_CRISIS | PLACE: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with cases elsewhere
ENTITY: patients, families, health workers, community organisations, governments and international responders.
EVENT: Ebola exploits weak surveillance and health capacity, mobility and distrust after conflict; community adaptation, safe-care protocols, laboratories and international support eventually interrupt transmission, at immense human and social cost.
DOMAIN: HEALTH; GOVERNANCE; INFORMATION; TRUST; RITUAL.
EVIDENCE: EPIDEMIOLOGICAL_DATA; CONTEMPORARY_RECORD; TESTIMONY | EPISTEMIC: strong | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S108; WAFZ.S104; WAFZ.S105; WAFZ.S106.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G145 pathogen + mobility/capability gap -> epidemic; trust/community care -> control.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000146 — [COVID-001] COVID-19 PANDEMIC
CLASS: CRISIS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: PANDEMIC_INTERFACE | SCALE: GLOBAL_TO_LOCAL
TIME: 2020–2023 emergency phase; longer effects continue | WORLD_BAND: W061–W064 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COVID_ERA | PLACE: West African forest-zone states
ENTITY: residents, health systems, governments, border and market networks.
EVENT: SARS-CoV-2 brings closures, schooling loss, income shocks and health risk; earlier Ebola experience supports parts of surveillance and risk communication, while informal livelihoods make prolonged mobility restrictions costly.
DOMAIN: HEALTH; ECONOMY; EDUCATION; GOVERNANCE; INFORMATION.
EVIDENCE: EPIDEMIOLOGICAL_DATA; POLICY_RECORD; SURVEY | EPISTEMIC: strong, undercounting varies | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S109; WAFZ.S108.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G146 global pathogen -> border/city/market networks -> adaptive public-health response and social debt.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000147 — [ABOMEY-001] RETURN OF TWENTY-SIX ROYAL TREASURES
CLASS: HERITAGE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: RESTITUTION | SCALE: INTERSTATE
TIME: transfer ceremony 9 November 2021; arrival in Benin 10 November 2021 | WORLD_BAND: W062 | LOCAL_PERIOD: RESTITUTION_ERA | PLACE: France and Republic of Benin
ENTITY: twenty-six works taken from Abomey, French and Beninese states, source communities and museums.
EVENT: France returns twenty-six royal objects removed during the 1892 conquest; the transfer joins legal ownership, conservation, display and living-community meaning and becomes a major precedent in restitution politics.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; LAW; DIPLOMACY; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; GOVERNMENT_RECORD; OBJECT_PROVENANCE | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S074; WAFZ.S115.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G147 colonial extraction -> state custody -> legal return -> renewed local interpretation.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000148 — [DIGITAL-BENIN-001] DIGITAL BENIN LAUNCH
CLASS: INFRASTRUCTURE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: DIGITAL_PROVENANCE_PLATFORM | SCALE: GLOBAL
TIME: public launch November 2022; continuing updates | WORLD_BAND: W063 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DIGITAL_RECONNECTION | PLACE: online, Benin City and collecting institutions worldwide
ENTITY: Digital Benin, Edo knowledge holders, museums, researchers and dispersed Benin objects.
EVENT: A linked digital catalogue reunites data about thousands of historic Benin objects across institutions and countries; digital visibility repairs information fragmentation but does not itself transfer title or return physical works.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; INFORMATION; PROVENANCE; DIGITAL.
EVIDENCE: DATABASE; INSTITUTIONAL_RECORD | EPISTEMIC: live platform, counts version-sensitive | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S054; WAFZ.S133.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G148 dispersed object records -> shared graph; digital reconnection != physical restitution.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000149 — [BENIN-011] BENIN OBJECT OWNERSHIP AND RETURN WAVE
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: RESTITUTION_SYSTEM | SCALE: GLOBAL_TO_LOCAL
TIME: 2021–29 July 2026, within a longer claims history | WORLD_BAND: W062–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_RESTITUTION_WAVE | PLACE: Nigeria, Europe, North America and other collections
ENTITY: Federal Republic of Nigeria, Oba of Benin, Edo State institutions, museums, universities and source communities.
EVENT: Legal transfers and physical returns accelerate, but title, custody, museum access and the relationship among federal, royal and state institutions remain distinct and sometimes contested. Every object requires provenance- and transfer-specific tracking.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; LAW; GOVERNANCE; DIPLOMACY.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_RECORD; MUSEUM_RECORD; PROVENANCE_DATABASE | EPISTEMIC: object-specific | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S054; WAFZ.S055; WAFZ.S117; WAFZ.S119.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G149 object -> taking event -> successive holders -> title decision -> custody/access outcome.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000150 — [ASANTE-009] RETURN-LOANS OF ASANTE REGALIA
CLASS: HERITAGE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z6 | TYPE: LONG_TERM_LOAN | SCALE: INTERSTATE_AND_ROYAL
TIME: agreements and display from 2024; loans time-limited | WORLD_BAND: W065–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_HERITAGE_NEGOTIATION | PLACE: United Kingdom and Kumasi
ENTITY: Asantehene, Manhyia Palace Museum, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and historic regalia.
EVENT: Objects taken in nineteenth-century wars return to Kumasi under renewable loan arrangements. Physical presence enables public reconnection, while legal ownership and the adequacy of loans versus restitution remain contested.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; LAW; DIPLOMACY; ROYAL_INSTITUTION.
EVIDENCE: MUSEUM_RECORD; AGREEMENT; OBJECT_PROVENANCE | EPISTEMIC: exact terms institution-specific | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S067; WAFZ.S134.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G150 looted regalia -> museum title -> loaned custody -> unresolved restitution claim.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000151 — [ECOWAS-001] SAHEL-STATE WITHDRAWALS RESHAPE THE REGIONAL SYSTEM
CLASS: REGIONAL_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: REGIONAL_ORGANISATION | SCALE: MACROREGIONAL
TIME: withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger effective 29 January 2025 | WORLD_BAND: W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ECOWAS_FRAGMENTATION | PLACE: West Africa
ENTITY: ECOWAS, three withdrawing states and remaining members.
EVENT: The three Alliance of Sahel States members leave ECOWAS, reducing formal regional integration across forest–Sahel corridors while ECOWAS keeps transitional arrangements for people and trade under review.
DOMAIN: REGIONALISM; BORDER; TRADE; SECURITY.
EVIDENCE: ORGANISATION_RECORD; LEGAL_NOTICE | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S107; WAFZ.S130.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G151 institutional exit -> weaker shared rule layer; lived cross-border corridors persist.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000152 — [GHANA-003] 2024 ELECTION AND MAHAMA’S RETURN
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: DEMOCRATIC_SUCCESSION | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: election 7 December 2024; inauguration 7 January 2025 | WORLD_BAND: W066–W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: GHANA_FIFTH_ALTERNATION | PLACE: Ghana
ENTITY: John Dramani Mahama, National Democratic Congress, New Patriotic Party and electorate.
EVENT: Mahama returns to the presidency through election and a peaceful transfer, reinforcing alternation while inheriting debt, energy, employment, cocoa and illegal-mining pressures.
DOMAIN: ELECTION; GOVERNANCE; ECONOMY; ECOLOGY.
EVIDENCE: ELECTION_RECORD; GOVERNMENT_RECORD | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S120; WAFZ.S100.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G152 electoral alternation -> renewed mandate under fiscal/ecological load.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000153 — [TOGO-002] FIFTH REPUBLIC AND DUAL EXECUTIVE
CLASS: CONSTITUTIONAL_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: REGIME_REDESIGN | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: new institutions installed 3 May 2025 and after | WORLD_BAND: W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: TOGO_FIFTH_REPUBLIC | PLACE: Togo
ENTITY: President of the Council Faure Gnassingbé, President of the Republic Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové, parliament and opposition.
EVENT: A parliamentary constitution shifts executive authority to the President of the Council and makes the President of the Republic largely ceremonial; government calls this the Fifth Republic, while opponents characterise the no-fixed-term executive design as a constitutional coup.
DOMAIN: CONSTITUTION; GOVERNANCE; SUCCESSION; CONTESTATION.
EVIDENCE: LEGAL_TEXT; GOVERNMENT_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_REPORTING | EPISTEMIC: offices exact, legitimacy contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S123; WAFZ.S124.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G153 constitutional redesign -> executive continuity + altered accountability geometry.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000154 — [ABOMEY-002] KATAKLÈ RETURNED FROM FINLAND
CLASS: HERITAGE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: RESTITUTION | SCALE: INTERSTATE
TIME: announced/returned May 2025 | WORLD_BAND: W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: RESTITUTION_ERA | PLACE: Finland and Republic of Benin
ENTITY: Kataklè royal stool, National Museum of Finland and Beninese authorities.
EVENT: Finland returns the royal Kataklè associated with the Abomey treasure, extending the restitution sequence beyond the twenty-six works returned by France.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; LAW; DIPLOMACY; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: GOVERNMENT_RECORD; MUSEUM_RECORD; OBJECT_PROVENANCE | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S116; WAFZ.S074.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G154 dispersed royal object -> bilateral provenance decision -> return.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000155 — [BENIN-012] NETHERLANDS RETURNS 119 BENIN OBJECTS
CLASS: HERITAGE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: RESTITUTION | SCALE: INTERSTATE
TIME: handover 21 June 2025 | WORLD_BAND: W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_RESTITUTION_WAVE | PLACE: Netherlands and Nigeria
ENTITY: Dutch state collections, Federal Republic of Nigeria and 119 historic Benin objects.
EVENT: The Netherlands transfers and physically returns 119 objects taken during the 1897 expedition, described by the Dutch government as the country’s largest physical return of Benin objects to that date.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; LAW; DIPLOMACY; PROVENANCE.
EVIDENCE: GOVERNMENT_RECORD; OBJECT_REGISTER | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S117; WAFZ.S054.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G155 1897 extraction -> Dutch custody -> unconditional return to Nigeria.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000156 — [ECOLOGY-001] GOLA–TIWAI COMPLEX INSCRIBED
CLASS: HERITAGE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: NATURAL_WORLD_HERITAGE | SCALE: TRANSBOUNDARY_ECOREGIONAL
TIME: UNESCO World Heritage inscription, July 2025 | WORLD_BAND: W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CONSERVATION_RECOGNITION | PLACE: eastern Sierra Leone
ENTITY: Gola Rainforest National Park, Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary, communities and biodiversity.
EVENT: UNESCO inscribes a four-component, 71,203-hectare property for Upper Guinean forest biodiversity; recognition strengthens conservation visibility but does not by itself resolve livelihood, finance or enforcement pressures.
DOMAIN: ECOLOGY; HERITAGE; GOVERNANCE; LIVELIHOOD.
EVIDENCE: UNESCO_RECORD; CONSERVATION_DATA | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S112; WAFZ.S013.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G156 forest habitat + community/state protection -> global heritage layer.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000157 — [COTE-DIVOIRE-003] 2025 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
CLASS: POLITICAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: ELECTION | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: vote 25 October 2025; final result 4 November 2025 | WORLD_BAND: W067 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FOURTH_OUATTARA_TERM | PLACE: Côte d’Ivoire
ENTITY: Alassane Ouattara, candidates, Constitutional Council and electorate.
EVENT: The Constitutional Council confirms Ouattara’s re-election with 89.77 percent of valid votes for a fourth term; candidate exclusions and opposition criticism remain part of the legitimacy record.
DOMAIN: ELECTION; GOVERNANCE; LEGITIMACY.
EVIDENCE: OFFICIAL_RESULT; CONTEMPORARY_REPORTING | EPISTEMIC: result exact, legitimacy contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S125; WAFZ.S103.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G157 constitutional eligibility + managed competition -> electoral continuity/legitimacy pressure.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000158 — [MOWAA-001] MOWAA OPENING-WEEK DISRUPTION AND HERITAGE-GOVERNANCE DISPUTE
CLASS: HERITAGE_CRISIS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: INSTITUTIONAL_CONFLICT | SCALE: LOCAL_TO_GLOBAL
TIME: planned opening week November 2025; dispute continuing at cutoff | WORLD_BAND: W067–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: BENIN_HERITAGE_INSTITUTION_BUILDING | PLACE: Benin City
ENTITY: Museum of West African Art, Edo State actors, Oba of Benin and supporters, Nigerian authorities, funders and heritage publics.
EVENT: Protest disrupts opening events amid disputes over naming, authority, land, collections and the relationship between a new museum and royal heritage claims. Official statements announce accommodation, but governance and public-trust questions require continuing evidence rather than a declared final resolution.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; GOVERNANCE; PUBLIC_TRUST; INSTITUTION_BUILDING.
EVIDENCE: INSTITUTIONAL_RECORD; GOVERNMENT_STATEMENT; CONTEMPORARY_REPORTING | EPISTEMIC: events documented, settlement status contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S118; WAFZ.S119; WAFZ.S058.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G158 heritage capital/funder/state/royal authority -> ownership and legitimacy conflict.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000159 — [GUINEA-002] DOUMBOUYA ELECTED AND INAUGURATED
CLASS: REGIME_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: ELECTORAL_AUTHORITARIAN_TRANSITION | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: election 28 December 2025; final validation 4–5 January 2026; inauguration 17 January 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W067–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: DOUMBOUYA_PRESIDENCY | PLACE: Guinea
ENTITY: Mamadi Doumbouya, Supreme Court, candidates and electorate.
EVENT: The leader of the 2021 coup wins the presidency with an officially validated 86.72 percent for a seven-year term after a transition that had initially restricted junta candidates; the vote restores elected-form institutions but leaves competition and transition commitments contested.
DOMAIN: ELECTION; MILITARY; GOVERNANCE; LEGITIMACY.
EVIDENCE: COURT_RESULT; GOVERNMENT_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_REPORTING | EPISTEMIC: official outcome exact, openness contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S128; WAFZ.S106.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G159 coup authority -> revised transition rules -> electoral presidency.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000160 — [COCOA-001] COCOA PRICE, SUPPLY AND LIVELIHOOD VOLATILITY
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: COMMODITY_CRISIS | SCALE: GLOBAL_TO_HOUSEHOLD
TIME: 2023–2026; 2024/25 ICCO season estimate published February 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W065–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: COCOA_VOLATILITY | PLACE: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and global cocoa system
ENTITY: farmers, labourers, marketing systems, processors, traders and consumers.
EVENT: Weather, disease, ageing trees, mining/land pressure and past underinvestment contribute to supply shock and extreme prices; ICCO’s February 2026 estimate places 2024/25 world production at 4.728 million tonnes, grindings at 4.606 million and surplus at 75,000 tonnes, all subject to revision.
DOMAIN: AGRICULTURE; FINANCE; CLIMATE; LABOUR; FOOD_INDUSTRY.
EVIDENCE: COMMODITY_STATISTICS; FARM_SURVEY; CLIMATE_DATA | EPISTEMIC: published estimate | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S114; WAFZ.S111.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G160 tree health/climate/land/labour -> supply -> price/revenue/consumer feedback.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000161 — [BENIN-STATE-002] WADAGNI ELECTED PRESIDENT
CLASS: STATE_TRANSITION | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_SERIES | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: DEMOCRATIC_SUCCESSION | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: election 12 April 2026; inauguration 24 May 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: WADAGNI_PRESIDENCY | PLACE: Republic of Benin
ENTITY: Romuald Wadagni, electoral institutions, candidates and citizens.
EVENT: Former finance minister Wadagni wins the official result with 94.27 percent and succeeds Patrice Talon; the transition is constitutionally timed, while opposition exclusion and political-space concerns remain part of the evidence.
DOMAIN: ELECTION; GOVERNANCE; ECONOMY; LEGITIMACY.
EVIDENCE: OFFICIAL_RESULT; GOVERNMENT_RECORD; CONTEMPORARY_REPORTING | EPISTEMIC: official result exact, competitiveness contested | CONFIDENCE: A/B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S122.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G161 incumbent coalition -> electoral succession -> policy continuity and legitimacy test.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000162 — [ASANTE-010] ASANTE EWER PUBLIC DISPLAY
CLASS: HERITAGE_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_RANGE | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: OBJECT_RECONTEXTUALISATION | SCALE: TRANSNATIONAL
TIME: British Museum display opened 15 May 2026, continuing at cutoff | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ASANTE_HERITAGE_NEGOTIATION | PLACE: London, with Asante history centred in Ghana
ENTITY: Asante Ewer, British Museum, Asante heritage authorities and publics.
EVENT: A special display foregrounds the ewer’s Asante court history and the violence and diplomacy through which objects moved; display can improve provenance visibility but is not equivalent to return.
DOMAIN: HERITAGE; PROVENANCE; PUBLIC_HISTORY.
EVIDENCE: MUSEUM_RECORD; OBJECT_PROVENANCE | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S134; WAFZ.S067.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G162 object display -> public provenance knowledge; location/title remain separate coordinates.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000163 — [SECURITY-001] COASTAL STATES FACE SAHEL INSURGENCY SPILLOVER
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: RANGE | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: SECURITY_PRESSURE | SCALE: TRANSBORDER
TIME: late 2010s–29 July 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W059–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: NORTHERN_BORDER_SECURITY | PLACE: northern Benin, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and adjoining Sahel
ENTITY: border communities, national forces, armed Islamist groups, local authorities and regional partners.
EVENT: Armed groups rooted in Sahel conflicts probe or attack northern coastal-state zones, especially Benin and Togo; military responses interact with livelihood, conservation, mobility and trust, and securitisation can itself deepen local grievance.
DOMAIN: SECURITY; BORDER; LIVELIHOOD; GOVERNANCE; DISPLACEMENT.
EVIDENCE: CONFLICT_DATA; GOVERNMENT_RECORD; HUMANITARIAN_REPORT | EPISTEMIC: incident data incomplete | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S107; WAFZ.S130.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G163 Sahel conflict -> border corridors/protected areas -> coastal security and trust stress.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000164 — [EUDR-001] DEFORESTATION-FREE MARKET DEADLINES
CLASS: POLICY_INTERFACE | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_FUTURE_AT_CUTOFF | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: EXTERNAL_REGULATION | SCALE: GLOBAL_TO_FARM
TIME: as known 29 July 2026: application scheduled 30 December 2026 for large/medium operators and 30 June 2027 for most micro/small operators | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: EUDR_PREPARATION | PLACE: EU market and West African cocoa, coffee, rubber, timber and oil-palm supply chains
ENTITY: farmers, cooperatives, traders, governments and European operators.
EVENT: EU deforestation rules create geolocation, legality and due-diligence demands. Traceability can reward forest protection, but cost, land-document and exclusion risks may fall on smallholders unless capability is financed.
DOMAIN: LAW; TRADE; ECOLOGY; INFORMATION; LIVELIHOOD.
EVIDENCE: OFFICIAL_REGULATION_GUIDANCE | EPISTEMIC: scheduled dates at cutoff, future implementation may change | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S113; WAFZ.S111.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G164 buyer rule -> traceability burden -> farm inclusion/exclusion and forest outcomes.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000165 — [ECOWAS-002] 69TH ECOWAS SUMMIT
CLASS: REGIONAL_EVENT | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: REGIONAL_ORGANISATION | SCALE: MACROREGIONAL
TIME: 19 July 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: ECOWAS_REDESIGN | PLACE: Freetown, Sierra Leone
ENTITY: ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government.
EVENT: Leaders elect Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye as Authority chair, select General Birame Diop to lead the Commission from 1 September 2026, and endorse integration measures including a social-protection compact and African Atlantic Gas Pipeline agreements.
DOMAIN: REGIONALISM; GOVERNANCE; ENERGY; SOCIAL_POLICY.
EVIDENCE: ORGANISATION_RECORD | EPISTEMIC: exact decisions | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S129; WAFZ.S107.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G165 regional summit -> leadership/compact/infrastructure commitments -> implementation watch.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000166 — [POLITICS-2026-001] EXECUTIVE MAP AT THE CUT-OFF
CLASS: STATE_VECTOR | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_AT_CUTOFF | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: CURRENT_STATE_REGISTER | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 23:59 Asia/Singapore, 29 July 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CURRENT_STATE | PLACE: core Object 07 sovereign states
ENTITY: Ghana—President John Dramani Mahama; Nigeria—President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Republic of Benin—President Romuald Wadagni; Togo—executive President of the Council Faure Gnassingbé and ceremonial President Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové; Côte d’Ivoire—President Alassane Ouattara; Liberia—President Joseph Nyuma Boakai; Sierra Leone—President Julius Maada Bio; Guinea—President Mamadi Doumbouya.
EVENT: This is a dated office-holder snapshot, not a civilisational identity map. Constitutions distribute real authority differently, and future editions must version every office change.
DOMAIN: GOVERNANCE; CURRENT_STATE; VERSIONING.
EVIDENCE: OFFICIAL_GOVERNMENT_RECORD; OFFICIAL_RESULT | EPISTEMIC: exact at cutoff | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S120; WAFZ.S121; WAFZ.S122; WAFZ.S123; WAFZ.S125; WAFZ.S126; WAFZ.S127; WAFZ.S128.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G166 state -> office -> person -> start date; office and executive power typed separately.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000167 — [FOREST-001] LONG-RUN UPPER GUINEAN FOREST LOSS
CLASS: PROCESS | DATE_STATUS: MODELLED_RANGE | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: HABITAT_CHANGE | SCALE: ECOREGIONAL
TIME: pre-1900 baseline through 2013, with loss continuing to 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W044–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: FOREST_FRAGMENTATION | PLACE: Upper Guinean forests
ENTITY: forests, farms, mines, logging systems, protected areas and communities.
EVENT: USGS reconstruction estimates a conservative pre-1900 forest extent of about 360,650 square kilometres, 84 percent lost before 1975 and a further 28 percent of the 1975 remainder lost by 2013, leaving roughly 70,000 square kilometres of dense forest; baselines and forest definitions matter.
DOMAIN: ECOLOGY; LAND; EXTRACTION; HABITAT.
EVIDENCE: REMOTE_SENSING; HISTORICAL_RECONSTRUCTION | EPISTEMIC: model-dependent | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S012; WAFZ.S013.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G167 land conversion/roads/mines -> fragmentation -> biodiversity and climate-feedback loss.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000168 — [FOREST-002] 2025 GHANA FOREST-LOSS SIGNAL
CLASS: INDICATOR | DATE_STATUS: MODELLED_EXACT_YEAR | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: ENVIRONMENTAL_METRIC | SCALE: NATIONAL
TIME: calendar year 2025, reported in 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W067–W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CURRENT_ECOLOGICAL_PRESSURE | PLACE: Ghana
ENTITY: natural forest cover and disturbance alerts.
EVENT: Global Forest Watch reports approximately 93,000 hectares of natural-forest loss in 2025 under its stated dataset; this is an alerting/measurement signal whose canopy, plantation and causation definitions must be read before equating it with legal deforestation.
DOMAIN: ECOLOGY; MONITORING; LAND.
EVIDENCE: REMOTE_SENSING_DATASET | EPISTEMIC: dataset-specific | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S131.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G168 satellite signal -> ground verification -> policy/enforcement response.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000169 — [CURRENT-001] CIVILISATION CAT SCAN — COMPOSITE PRESSURE VECTOR
CLASS: SYNTHESIS | DATE_STATUS: EXACT_AT_CUTOFF | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: CAT_SCAN_VECTOR | SCALE: REGIONAL
TIME: 29 July 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: CURRENT_STATE | PLACE: West African Forest Zone
ENTITY: living societies, states, cities, ecosystems and diasporas.
EVENT: High adaptive capacity in markets, languages, religious institutions, diasporas, urban creativity and regional mobility coexists with fiscal exposure, youth underemployment, security spillover, ecological depletion, infrastructure gaps, electoral stress and unresolved colonial heritage custody.
DOMAIN: CAPABILITY; PRESSURE; HABITAT; GOVERNANCE; MEMORY.
EVIDENCE: CROSS_RECORD_SYNTHESIS | EPISTEMIC: analytical, not a scalar ranking | CONFIDENCE: B.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S002; WAFZ.S003; WAFZ.S012; WAFZ.S107; WAFZ.S110; WAFZ.S111; WAFZ.S129.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G169 capability vectors and pressure vectors retained separately before scenario modelling.

RECORD CA.WAFZ.000170 — [CURRENT-002] FROZEN ENDPOINT
CLASS: RELEASE_MARKER | DATE_STATUS: EXACT | ZOOM: Z7 | TYPE: VERSION_BOUNDARY | SCALE: OBJECT
TIME: 23:59:59 Asia/Singapore, 29 July 2026 | WORLD_BAND: W068 | LOCAL_PERIOD: RELEASE_CUTOFF | PLACE: Object 07
ENTITY: WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE_CHRONOLOGY_MASTER V1.1.
EVENT: Evidence published or officially effective after this instant is outside the release unless explicitly marked as a future-at-cutoff schedule; later corrections require a new version, never silent overwrite.
DOMAIN: VERSIONING; PROVENANCE; QUALITY_CONTROL.
EVIDENCE: RELEASE_MANIFEST | EPISTEMIC: exact | CONFIDENCE: A.
SOURCE_KEYS: WAFZ.S002; WAFZ.S005.
GRAPH_SEED: WAFZ.G170 release clock -> immutable boundary -> future delta ledger.

===============================================================================
6. LONGITUDINAL SYSTEM TRACKS
===============================================================================

A track links records without claiming that the linked phenomenon is one
unchanged entity. Each track has its own start, discontinuities and present
status. Track membership is many-to-many.

===============================================================================
7. RELATIONSHIP GRAPH CONTRACT
===============================================================================

7.1 NODE FAMILIES

PERSON named individual, never a proxy for a whole people
OFFICE office distinct from current holder
COMMUNITY self-identifying or analytically bounded social formation
POLITY historically situated governance formation
ASSOCIATION guild, asafo, Ekpe, union, party, house or civic body
SETTLEMENT village, town, city, port, refuge or capital
LANDSCAPE forest, grove, farm, river, lagoon, delta, coast or route
INSTITUTION rule-bearing durable organisation
OBJECT identified material object or accession
OBJECT_CLASS analytical class, not a substitute for object-level provenance
TECHNOLOGY method, craft, infrastructure or information system
FLOW people, goods, money, knowledge, pathogens or coercion
EVENT datable occurrence
CLAIM proposition with claimant and evidence status
SOURCE evidence-bearing publication, dataset, testimony or object
STATE_OFFICE constitutional office versioned through time
RELEASE immutable chronology version and cut-off

7.2 EDGE TYPES

“DESCENDS_CLAIMED” is not “DESCENDS_DEMONSTRATED.”
“INFLUENCES” is not “OWNS.”
“TRADES_WITH” is not “CONTROLS.”
“CUSTODIES” is not “OWNS_LEGALLY.”
“DISPLAYS” is not “RETURNS.”
“MODERN_STATE_CONTAINS_SITE” is not “MODERN_STATE_CREATED_CIVILISATION.”

7.3 CORE GRAPH NODES

7.4 REQUIRED EDGE ATTRIBUTES

Every production graph edge SHALL carry:

EDGE_ID; SOURCE_NODE; EDGE_TYPE; TARGET_NODE; START; END_OR_OPEN;
DIRECTION; CARRIER; VOLUNTARY_COERCED_MIXED; EVIDENCE; CONFIDENCE;
SOURCE_KEYS; OBJECT_BOUNDARY; NOTES.

When a relation changes—trade becomes tribute, alliance becomes war, display
becomes return—a new edge is created. Old edges are not overwritten.

===============================================================================
8. CROSS-OBJECT CONNECTOR REGISTER
===============================================================================

===============================================================================
9. CIVILISATION CAT SCAN
===============================================================================

9.1 DIAGNOSTIC DIMENSIONS

CAT01 HABITAT land, water, climate, biodiversity, settlement fit
CAT02 FOOD production diversity, storage, markets, nutrition
CAT03 ENERGY biomass, electricity, fuel, transport and dependency
CAT04 WATER supply, flood, coast, sanitation and river governance
CAT05 MATERIALS iron, gold, brass, timber, earth, oil and waste
CAT06 INFRASTRUCTURE path, road, rail, port, grid, data and maintenance
CAT07 INFORMATION memory, script, archive, school, media, database
CAT08 GOVERNANCE offices, counterweights, legitimacy and succession
CAT09 LAW custom, court, constitution, treaty and enforcement
CAT10 FINANCE gold, tax, tribute, credit, debt, currency and price
CAT11 TRADE corridor diversity, brokerage, dependency and coercion
CAT12 LABOUR skill, gender, age, freedom, coercion and remuneration
CAT13 HEALTH disease load, care, surveillance and trust
CAT14 SECURITY conflict, policing, border, displacement and safety
CAT15 IDENTITY language, lineage, citizenship, religion and plurality
CAT16 MEMORY ritual, heritage, archive, trauma and restitution
CAT17 ADAPTATION redundancy, fission, portability, learning and repair
CAT18 EXTERNALITY extraction, pollution, violence and displaced cost

No CAT dimension is scored as “civilised / uncivilised.” A number without a
date, scale, evidence and comparator is invalid.

9.2 ANCHOR-SYSTEM SCANS

IFE / YORUBA WORLDS
CAPABILITY: sacred legitimacy; high-skill art and glass; urban markets;
plural town-state reproduction; wide diaspora.
PRESSURE: exact early chronology; projection of pan-Yoruba unity backward;
nineteenth-century fission; modern urban/infrastructure load.
PORTABLE GENOME: kingship idioms, town/compound form, shrine/festival,
language, market, craft and diaspora ritual.
FAILURE WARNING: treating Oduduwa tradition as a dated imperial map.

BENIN / EDO
CAPABILITY: durable court offices; guild specialisation; earthwork urbanism;
visual archive; living monarchy and strong provenance network.
PRESSURE: 1897 rupture; dispersed objects; urban destruction of archaeology;
contested heritage-governance geometry.
PORTABLE GENOME: office-title system, guild knowledge, royal ritual, oral and
material archives.
FAILURE WARNING: equating all Lower Niger art with Benin political control.

AKAN / ASANTE
CAPABILITY: flexible stools and amans; gold metrology; roads; councils;
confederal integration; living constitutional-ritual authority.
PRESSURE: commodity dependency, colonial boundaries, mining/forest damage,
title-versus-custody disputes over regalia.
PORTABLE GENOME: stool legitimacy, matrilineal/lineage organisation,
proverb/material codes, market and gold-weight knowledge.
FAILURE WARNING: using “Akan,” “Asante” and “Ashanti” interchangeably.

DANXOMÈ / DAHOMEY
CAPABILITY: palace-regiment coordination; historical annual-cycle memory;
specialised arts; current restitution capacity.
PRESSURE: slave-trade violence; colonial conquest; gendered mythologising;
confusion with the modern Republic of Benin.
PORTABLE GENOME: palace offices, royal histories, Vodun institutions,
regimental and artistic knowledge.
FAILURE WARNING: romanticising women soldiers while deleting conquest,
enslavement or women’s wider labour.

NIGER DELTA / CROSS RIVER / ARO
CAPABILITY: river expertise; distributed house and association systems;
multilingual brokerage; portable Ekpe and nsibidi information.
PRESSURE: slave-trade and oil-economy coercion; ecological damage; archive
bias toward European merchants.
PORTABLE GENOME: canoe/house/credit, association grades, ritual jurisdiction,
market and diaspora networks.
FAILURE WARNING: interpreting decentralised authority as absence of statecraft.

UPPER GUINEA / MANO RIVER
CAPABILITY: diverse farming and forest knowledge; age/association systems;
scripts and Atlantic-return cities; postwar and post-Ebola learning.
PRESSURE: forest loss; mineral dependency; civil-war memory; border and health
system weakness.
PORTABLE GENOME: multilingual trade, secret/initiatory associations, refuge
and diaspora institutions, local literacy.
FAILURE WARNING: reducing the region to war, disease or “stateless tribes.”

CONTEMPORARY GULF CORRIDOR
CAPABILITY: dense cities, ports, markets, youth, culture, mobile finance and
regional mobility.
PRESSURE: congestion, flood, power, debt, inequality, insecurity, ecological
loss and external platform/commodity dependence.
PORTABLE GENOME: informal coordination, linguistic switching, market networks,
diaspora capital and cultural production.
FAILURE WARNING: treating GDP or population alone as civilisation health.

===============================================================================
10. INDEPENDENT COORDINATE FAMILIES
===============================================================================

10.1 CAPABILITY AXIS

C0 LATENT evidence of potential but no reliable coordinated output
C1 LOCAL repeatable household/community capability
C2 NETWORKED capability transmitted among settlements or associations
C3 REGIONAL interoperable institutions across a region
C4 MACROSYSTEM large-scale fiscal, military, commercial or information reach
C5 TRANSOCEANIC sustained multi-continent reach

10.2 LIFECYCLE AXIS

L0 SUBSTRATE
L1 FORMATION
L2 CONSOLIDATION
L3 EXPANSION
L4 HIGH_REPRODUCTION
L5 STRESS
L6 FISSION
L7 RECOMPOSITION
L8 DORMANT_ARCHIVE
L9 LIVING_RENEWAL

10.3 HABITAT-INDEPENDENCE AXIS

H0 SITE_BOUND
H1 LOCAL_ECOSYSTEM
H2 ECOREGIONAL
H3 MULTI_ECOZONE
H4 TRANSREGIONAL
H5 DIASPORIC_DIGITAL

A polity can be C4/L5/H2; a diaspora C3/L9/H5; a ruined city C0/L8/H0. The
axes SHALL NOT be averaged into one civilisational rank.

10.4 PHASE FREQUENCY

Phase Frequency measures how often a system regenerates a recognisable
capability, institution or symbolic form across bounded intervals. It is not
the same as longevity, scale or quality.

PF0 no demonstrated recurrence
PF1 isolated recurrence
PF2 generational recurrence
PF3 frequent institutional recurrence
PF4 continuous or near-continuous reproduction

Required fields:
PHENOMENON; INTERVAL; OBSERVATIONS; GAP_RULE; EVIDENCE_DENSITY;
PRESERVATION_BIAS; PF_VALUE; CONFIDENCE.

===============================================================================
11. BASEFLOOR, “NOBODY,” CONTROL GEOMETRY AND MOTION VECTOR
===============================================================================

11.1 BASEFLOOR

BaseFloor is the minimum capability below which a tracked system cannot
reproduce its identity-bearing functions without outside substitution.

Regional BaseFloor candidates:

— safe water and minimally viable food access;
— household, lineage or civic care;
— language and intergenerational knowledge transfer;
— trusted dispute resolution;
— access to land, market or livelihood;
— physical security from enslavement, war and arbitrary state violence;
— maintained mobility and communication;
— capacity to bury, remember and repair;
— ecological functions sufficient for settlement.

BaseFloor is population-specific. Court splendour cannot compensate for a
collapsed household floor; national GDP cannot compensate for unsafe local
water; digital access cannot compensate for destroyed land rights.

11.2 “NOBODY”

“Nobody” is the protected analytical slot for people rendered statistically or
politically invisible: captives without names, women omitted from title lists,
labourers behind court art, forest communities under blank maps, refugees,
informal settlers, children in commodity chains and owners excluded from
museum metadata.

Every scan asks:

WHOSE CAPABILITY?
WHO PAYS THE COST?
WHO IS MISSING FROM THE SOURCE?
WHO CAN EXIT?
WHO CAN CORRECT THE RECORD?

11.3 CONTROL GEOMETRY

POINT palace, shrine, fort, mine, server or checkpoint
LINE path, road, river, rail, pipeline, cable or shipping lane
SURFACE farm frontier, tax district, colony, protected area or state
NETWORK market, stool, house, association, diaspora or digital platform
STACK household–town–polity–state–region–global rule layers

Control must specify geometry. A fort may control a point and shipping edge
without controlling the inland surface. Oyo or Asante may dominate corridors
and tributary nodes without uniformly occupying a coloured polygon.

11.4 MOTION VECTOR

Every significant transition may be expressed as:

START_STATE -> DRIVER -> CARRIER -> PATH -> END_STATE

COST + RESISTANCE + RESIDUE + CONFIDENCE.

Example:
OLD_OYO_METROPOLIS -> political/military fracture -> offices and refugees
-> southward town networks -> IBADAN/NEW_OYO/OTHER_SUCCESSORS

death/enslavement + local resistance + portable governance residue.

===============================================================================
12. GENOME / PRESSURE / OUROBOROS ROUTER
===============================================================================

12.1 GENOME FAMILIES

G01 ECOLOGICAL_KNOWLEDGE mixed forest/farm/river/lagoon expertise
G02 KINSHIP_AND_HOUSE lineage, compound, matrilineage, house and adoption
G03 OFFICE_AND_COUNTERWEIGHT crown/stool/council/guild/association jurisdiction
G04 MARKET_AND_METROLOGY market cycle, weights, credit, brokerage and trust
G05 CRAFT_AND_GUILD iron, glass, brass, textile, ivory, earth and wood
G06 RITUAL_AND_LEGITIMACY shrine, ancestor, festival, stool, crown and oracle
G07 MEMORY_AND_INFORMATION oral, performative, script, print, archive and data
G08 MOBILITY_AND_DIASPORA corridor, refuge, merchant colony and return
G09 DEFENCE_AND_SECURITY walls, war-camp, regiment, alliance and peacekeeping
G10 REPAIR_AND_REFOUNDATION fission, new city, constitutional reset and restitution

12.2 PRESSURE FAMILIES

P01 HABITAT_CHANGE forest loss, flood, erosion, heat and disease ecology
P02 COERCIVE_LABOUR enslavement, forced labour, debt and exploitative work
P03 EXTRACTION_DEPENDENCY gold, cocoa, oil, minerals, timber and price shocks
P04 SUCCESSION_CONFLICT court, party, military and constitutional crises
P05 EXTERNAL_CONQUEST imperial, colonial and interstate force
P06 BORDER_FRACTURE imposed boundary, exclusion and blocked mobility
P07 ARCHIVE_DAMAGE decay, looting, destruction and inaccessible custody
P08 PUBLIC_TRUST corruption, misinformation, exclusion and coercive rule
P09 INFRASTRUCTURE_DEFICIT energy, transport, health, school, water and maintenance
P10 SECURITY_SPILLOVER civil war, insurgency, trafficking and displacement

12.3 OUROBOROS LOOPS

O01 GOLD_POWER_LOOP
gold revenue -> army/office -> route control -> more gold;
failure mode: conquest, labour coercion or external price capture.

O02 ATLANTIC_ARMS_CAPTIVE_LOOP
arms/credit -> war/capture -> Atlantic sale -> arms/credit;
interruption: resistance, legal abolition, route shift, political restraint.

O03 COCOA_FOREST_LOOP
cocoa revenue -> frontier expansion -> forest/soil loss -> disease and falling
yield -> new frontier/price pressure; repair: agroforestry, tenure security,
farmer income and traceability designed around inclusion.

O04 CENTRALISATION_FISSION_LOOP
military-fiscal growth -> succession/tribute pressure -> provincial exit ->
refugee cities/new polities -> new centralisation.

O05 ARCHIVE_LOOT_LOOP
conquest -> object extraction -> museum prestige/knowledge monopoly -> source
invisibility -> weak local custody capacity claim; repair: provenance, title,
return, shared knowledge and financed local institutions.

O06 URBAN_INFRASTRUCTURE_LOOP
migration -> market scale -> congestion/flood/service deficit -> informality
and adaptation -> further attraction; repair: maintenance, land security and
interoperable metropolitan governance.

O07 SECURITY_TRUST_LOOP
attack -> militarisation -> livelihood restriction/abuse -> distrust ->
weaker intelligence/recruitment risk -> attack; repair: accountable security,
justice and local livelihood capability.

O08 DIASPORA_RENEWAL_LOOP
displacement -> portable language/ritual/association -> diaspora capacity ->
cultural/economic feedback -> renewed homeland and transnational identity.

O09 REGIONAL_INTEGRATION_LOOP
mobility/trade -> shared rules -> lower friction -> more mobility/trade;
failure mode: coups, insecurity, protectionism and institutional exit.

O10 EVIDENCE_BIAS_LOOP
famous site funding -> more finds/publicity -> more funding while blank areas
stay blank; repair: risk-weighted survey and publication of negative evidence.

===============================================================================
13. PORTABLE CIVILISATION, FISSION AND SIMULATION
===============================================================================

13.1 PORTABILITY TEST

A capability is portable only when its reproduction does not require the
original site in full. Test:

MINIMUM PEOPLE
MINIMUM KNOWLEDGE
MINIMUM OBJECTS OR RECORDS
MINIMUM ECOLOGICAL INPUTS
MINIMUM LEGITIMACY
MINIMUM COMMUNICATION
TIME TO RELAUNCH
FAILURE CONDITIONS

Examples:

OYO EXILE
Portable: royal office, lineage memory, alliance practice, military and
settlement knowledge. Non-portable: exact Old Oyo landscape and built fabric.

ASANTE SOVEREIGNTY
Portable: offices, councils, ritual knowledge and Stool-centred legitimacy.
Non-portable: every road, treasury and provincial relation at imperial scale.

YORUBA ATLANTIC DIASPORA
Portable: language fragments, divination corpora, deity relations, music,
association and ritual practice. Transformation under diaspora is expected,
not evidence of falsity.

EKPE
Portable: graded association, signs, performance and jurisdictional knowledge
through initiated carriers; local political powers change by host environment.

BENIN GUILD ARCHIVE
Portable only in part: skill and office can be transmitted, but objects looted
from palace context lose relational information even when physically preserved.

13.2 FISSION TYPES

F1 CAPITAL_FISSION capital fails; offices and people relocate.
F2 DYNASTIC_FISSION legitimacy line branches into autonomous courts.
F3 MERCHANT_FISSION trading communities establish host-linked colonies.
F4 REFUGEE_FISSION displaced groups aggregate into defensible new towns.
F5 DIASPORA_FISSION forced or voluntary migrants recompose abroad.
F6 COLONIAL_FISSION imposed borders split a civilisation network.
F7 INSTITUTIONAL_FISSION office survives while territorial control disappears.
F8 DATA_FISSION objects, records and authority separate across custodians.

Fission is not automatically collapse. It can reduce scale while preserving or
increasing habitat independence and future recombination capacity.

13.3 SIMULATION CONTRACT

Simulation may ask:

— What happens to cocoa livelihoods under alternative price, disease, forest
and traceability conditions?
— Which urban capacities fail first under flood, grid or port interruption?
— How do security and trust change under military-only versus accountable
livelihood-and-justice strategies?
— Which heritage-custody arrangements increase access, legitimacy and care?
— What regional flows reroute after an ECOWAS rule or border change?

Simulation SHALL:

copy observed inputs from an immutable chronology release;
label assumptions, parameter ranges and uncertainty;
keep capability, lifecycle and habitat axes separate;
model distributional effects and “Nobody” populations;
produce scenarios, not predictions disguised as history;
never write simulated events back into the observed chronology.

13.4 CIVILISATION SEED

A seed is the smallest evidence-bearing package capable of supporting a
reproducible institutional pattern:

SEED_ID
GENOME_COMPONENTS
PEOPLE_CARRIERS
KNOWLEDGE_CARRIERS
OBJECT_CARRIERS
HOST_REQUIREMENTS
LEGITIMACY_RULE
BASEFLOOR
RELAUNCH_TIME
MUTATION_RANGE
EVIDENCE

Seeds are descriptive analytical objects, never ethnic essences or biological
genomes.

===============================================================================
14. ZOOM → CONNECT → TRACK OPERATING LOOP
===============================================================================

ZOOM
Move from W-band and regional synthesis to site, object, household, office or
person. Preserve the enclosing time and geography.

CONNECT
Create a typed relationship with carrier, direction, interval, coercion,
evidence and confidence. Do not connect by visual resemblance alone.

TRACK
Follow the relation longitudinally. Split the edge when its meaning changes.

Example:

ZOOM 1897 plaque with accession and palace context
CONNECT LOOTED_FROM Benin Palace; CUSTODIED_BY institution; CLAIMED_BY source
TRACK commission -> 1897 removal -> sale/transfer -> museum display ->
ownership decision -> physical return or continuing custody.

Reader-facing navigation:

Z1 deep-time/world band
Z2 ecoregion
Z3 cultural/political field
Z4 polity/city/network
Z5 event/institution
Z6 community/household
Z7 person/object/day/current-state

===============================================================================
15. CURRENT-STATE REGIONAL VECTORS AT 29 JULY 2026
===============================================================================

These are diagnostic coordinates, not country rankings.

GHANA
CAPABILITY: constitutional alternation, ports, education, diaspora, cocoa/gold
systems and living Akan/Asante/Fante/Ga/Ewe institutions.
PRESSURE: debt and power finance, illegal mining, cocoa disease/price, forest
loss, youth employment and coastal flood.
MOTION: electoral renewal under fiscal and ecological repair demand.

NIGERIA
CAPABILITY: continental-scale population, federal institutions, markets,
universities, cultural industries, ports, digital finance and dense civic life.
PRESSURE: insecurity, inflation/poverty, grid and transport gaps, oil pollution,
corruption, flood and federal legitimacy.
MOTION: Fourth-Republic continuity with high security and livelihood load.

REPUBLIC OF BENIN
CAPABILITY: port/corridor trade, reform capacity, strong Abomey and Vodun
heritage, agriculture and regional position.
PRESSURE: northern insurgency, constrained political competition, inequality,
coastal exposure and dependence on Nigerian/regional trade.
MOTION: constitutionally timed succession to Wadagni with continuity pressure.

TOGO
CAPABILITY: Lomé port/logistics, regional finance, compact corridors and Ewe/
Kabiyè and other civic-cultural networks.
PRESSURE: executive concentration, disputed constitutional change, northern
insecurity, inequality and limited political trust.
MOTION: Fifth-Republic institutional redesign under legitimacy test.

CÔTE D’IVOIRE
CAPABILITY: Abidjan metropolitan/port system, cocoa and diversified agriculture,
infrastructure, finance and regional immigration networks.
PRESSURE: commodity and forest exposure, land/citizenship tension, succession,
inequality and past-war memory.
MOTION: fourth Ouattara term with stability-versus-competition tension.

LIBERIA
CAPABILITY: electoral transfer, English and regional networks, forests, ports,
diaspora and postwar civic institutions.
PRESSURE: fiscal/infrastructure weakness, commodity dependency, land and forest
governance, youth employment and war-memory trauma.
MOTION: Boakai administration pursuing institutional and livelihood repair.

SIERRA LEONE
CAPABILITY: postwar constitutional order, Freetown networks, mineral/agricultural
resources, community health learning and Gola–Tiwai conservation.
PRESSURE: debt, food and energy costs, youth employment, disaster risk, political
polarisation and service deficits.
MOTION: Bio presidency and ECOWAS role amid domestic capability pressure.

GUINEA
CAPABILITY: bauxite, iron ore, hydropower potential, ports, agriculture and
multilingual regional networks.
PRESSURE: extractive enclave risk, infrastructure gaps, centralisation, limited
competition and transition legitimacy.
MOTION: Doumbouya’s coup-to-electoral presidency enters a seven-year term.

TRANSBORDER
CAPABILITY: ECOWAS mobility norms, coastal ports, diaspora capital, shared
languages, trade and cultural systems.
PRESSURE: Sahel rupture, insurgency spillover, commodity rules, maritime risk,
climate migration and unequal digital/financial dependency.
MOTION: integration redesign after membership contraction.

===============================================================================
16. UNCERTAINTY AND DISPUTE REGISTER
===============================================================================

WAFZ.U001 | EARLY_PLEISTOCENE | Sparse evidence is not proof of no occupation.
WAFZ.U002 | IWO_ELERU_DATE | Terminal-Pleistocene range is preferred; older labels in legacy literature are superseded.
WAFZ.U003 | IWO_ELERU_AFFINITY | Morphology informs population history but does not name a modern people.
WAFZ.U004 | BOSUMPRA_PLANTS | Use/deposition does not automatically prove domestication.
WAFZ.U005 | KINTAMPO | Archaeological horizon is not an ethnic label or one bounded state.
WAFZ.U006 | PEARL_MILLET | Context and dating support presence; cultivation scale remains site-specific.
WAFZ.U007 | YAM | Poor preservation makes early chronology inference-heavy.
WAFZ.U008 | EARLY_IRON | Opi/Lejja and related early dates require context-, sample- and calibration-specific citation.
WAFZ.U009 | NOK_INTERFACE | Similar technology or proximity does not prove Nok migration into all southern zones.
WAFZ.U010 | LANGUAGE | Linguistic ancestry is not a dated march of a homogeneous population.
WAFZ.U011 | IGBO_UKWU_DATE | Ninth-century anchor is conventional; calibration and site-phase discussion remains visible.
WAFZ.U012 | IGBO_UKWU_POLITY | Rich burial/ritual archive does not prove a centralised territorial empire.
WAFZ.U013 | NRI | Ritual influence, settlement and direct political command are separate edges.
WAFZ.U014 | IFE_BEGINNING | Urban origins and classic art have ranges, not a single founding year.
WAFZ.U015 | IFE_GLASS | Indigenous primary production is strongly evidenced; raw-material and distribution questions remain active.
WAFZ.U016 | IFE_ART | Naturalism does not imply European origin, “lost race” or photographic portraiture.
WAFZ.U017 | ODUDUWA | Charter tradition is historical evidence but not automatically an eyewitness chronology.
WAFZ.U018 | ORANMIYAN | Ife–Oyo–Benin dynastic traditions must retain local variants and political uses.
WAFZ.U019 | OYO_FOUNDATION | Exact founding and reign dates are not securely fixed.
WAFZ.U020 | OYO_EXILE | Sequence is stronger than precise sixteenth-century year assignments.
WAFZ.U021 | BENIN_OGISO | Dynastic memory and excavated sequence overlap but are not identical datasets.
WAFZ.U022 | EWEKA | Conventional accession chronologies vary.
WAFZ.U023 | BENIN_EARTHWORKS | Total-length superlatives depend on survey, definitions and inclusion of regional systems.
WAFZ.U024 | BENIN_EXTENT | Influence, tribute, alliance and occupation must not share one polygon.
WAFZ.U025 | LOWER_NIGER_ART | Style transfer does not establish political annexation.
WAFZ.U026 | BRONZE_LABEL | Material must be object-specific; many works are brass, while the umbrella term remains searchable.
WAFZ.U027 | AKAN_ORIGINS | Akan is a changing language-cultural field, not one migration event.
WAFZ.U028 | BONO_AND_BEGHO | Site phases, named polities and later traditions must remain separable.
WAFZ.U029 | GOLD_WEIGHTS | Dating individual forms by style alone is hazardous.
WAFZ.U030 | GOLDEN_STOOL | Constitutional charter tradition is not reducible to a literal timestamp.
WAFZ.U031 | FEYIASE | 1701 is conventional; campaign chronology varies.
WAFZ.U032 | BAOULE_MIGRATION | Aura Poku narrative encodes legitimacy and rupture; route/date detail is layered.
WAFZ.U033 | DANXOME_FOUNDATION | Foundation and reign dates vary among dynastic traditions and scholarship.
WAFZ.U034 | AGOJIE | Development is cumulative; no single uncontested origin date.
WAFZ.U035 | FORT_SOVEREIGNTY | European fort tenure is not inland territorial sovereignty.
WAFZ.U036 | SLAVEVOYAGES | Estimates are modelled from surviving records and are minimum/uncertain at person level.
WAFZ.U037 | ATLANTIC_IDENTITIES | Port labels and diaspora ethnonyms do not map perfectly onto homeland identity.
WAFZ.U038 | AFRICAN_AGENCY | Agency does not neutralise coercion or make all participants equally powerful.
WAFZ.U039 | PALM_TRANSITION | Palm exports and slave trading overlapped; “legitimate commerce” is not a clean break.
WAFZ.U040 | OLD_OYO_COLLAPSE | Capital abandonment is not disappearance of Yoruba or Oyo civilisation.
WAFZ.U041 | COLONIAL_CHIEFS | “Traditional” office may combine older authority with colonial selection/redesign.
WAFZ.U042 | 1897_OBJECT_COUNT | “Thousands” is safer than one universal count; provenance is object-specific.
WAFZ.U043 | COLONIAL_BORDERS | Modern states locate sites but do not retroactively own entire civilisational histories.
WAFZ.U044 | WAR_CASUALTIES | Biafra, Liberia and Sierra Leone totals remain estimate ranges.
WAFZ.U045 | FOREST_BASELINE | USGS historical extent is a conservative model, not a surveyed pre-1900 census.
WAFZ.U046 | GFW_2025 | Dataset definitions and tree-cover loss are not identical to legal deforestation.
WAFZ.U047 | DIGITAL_RECONNECTION | Catalogue inclusion does not establish title, authenticity or physical return.
WAFZ.U048 | RESTITUTION | Legal title, custody, display, access and ritual authority can belong to different actors.
WAFZ.U049 | MOWAA | Opening and governance dispute requires dated multi-party evidence; no silent “resolved” flag.
WAFZ.U050 | TOGO_FIFTH_REPUBLIC | Constitutional offices are exact; democratic legitimacy is contested.
WAFZ.U051 | COTE_DIVOIRE_2025 | Official result is exact; competitiveness and exclusion remain analytical fields.
WAFZ.U052 | GUINEA_2025_26 | Official vote is exact; transition-rule legitimacy remains contested.
WAFZ.U053 | BENIN_2026 | Official result is exact; opposition-access concerns remain visible.
WAFZ.U054 | ICCO_2026 | 2024/25 cocoa figures are estimates and may be revised.
WAFZ.U055 | EUDR | Deadlines are future-at-cutoff and must be rechecked in the next release.
WAFZ.U056 | ECOWAS_SUMMIT | Decisions are observed; future implementation is not.
WAFZ.U057 | CURRENT_OFFICES | Valid only at the exact release cut-off.
WAFZ.U058 | CENTRAL_OBJECT_NUMBER | Central Africa file’s “07” header conflicts with controlling World Master; canonical value is 08.
WAFZ.U059 | WORLD_CLOCK | Object 07 extends W068 by one day pending World Master reconciliation.
WAFZ.U060 | PRESENT_ABSENCE | “Not yet documented” remains distinct from “did not exist.”

===============================================================================
17. SOURCE REGISTER
===============================================================================

SOURCE POLICY

— Source keys identify evidence, not truth by authority.
— Primary, archaeological, official and object-level sources are preferred.
— Official current-state sources establish office or declared decision; they
do not settle legitimacy disputes.
— Public web locations were checked through 29 July 2026.
— A URL can move; title, author/institution and date remain identifiers.
— Internal architecture files are versioned dependencies, not historical
evidence for external claims.

WAFZ.S001 | USER_REFERENCE | eduKateSG, “Civilisation Atlas Scaffold Series V1.1.” | https://edukatesg.com/portfolio/civilisation-atlas-scaffold-series-v1-1/
WAFZ.S002 | INTERNAL_CANON | WORLD_CHRONOLOGY_MASTER.txt, CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.WORLD.MASTER.V1.1.
WAFZ.S003 | INTERNAL_INTERFACE | WEST_AFRICA_SAHEL_CHRONOLOGY.txt, Object 06, CA.WASA V1.1.
WAFZ.S004 | INTERNAL_INTERFACE | CENTRAL_AFRICA_CONGO_BASIN_CHRONOLOGY_MASTER.txt; subject canonical Object 08 despite local Object-07 header conflict.
WAFZ.S005 | INTERNAL_ARCHITECTURE | “Civilisation Atlas Architecture” branch decisions: CAT Scan, Genome/Pressure/Ouroboros, Portable Civilisation, simulation, fission, BaseFloor, Nobody, relationship graph and release clock.
WAFZ.S006 | INTERNAL_SCAFFOLD | CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.001.V1.1, Universal Civilisation Atlas Scaffold.
WAFZ.S007 | INTERNAL_SCAFFOLD | CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.002.V1.1, Civilisation CAT Scan.
WAFZ.S008 | INTERNAL_SCAFFOLD | CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.003.V1.1, Genome / Pressure / Ouroboros.
WAFZ.S009 | INTERNAL_SCAFFOLD | CIVATLAS.SCAFFOLD.004.V1.1, Portable Civilisation / Simulation / Fission.

WAFZ.S010 | BOOK | Thomas Schlüter, Geological Atlas of Africa, 2nd ed., Springer, 2008.
WAFZ.S011 | SYNTHESIS | Kevin Burke and Yanni Gunnell, “The African Erosion Surface: A Continental-Scale Synthesis of Geomorphology, Tectonics, and Environmental Change,” Geological Society of America Memoir 201, 2008.
WAFZ.S012 | DATA_SYNTHESIS | USGS EROS, “Deforestation of the Upper Guinean Forest.” | https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/deforestation-upper-guinean-forest
WAFZ.S013 | CONSERVATION_DATA | Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, “Guinean Forests of West Africa—Species.” | https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/guinean-forests-west-africa/species
WAFZ.S014 | JOURNAL | U. Salzmann and P. Hoelzmann, “The Dahomey Gap: an abrupt climatically induced rain forest fragmentation in West Africa during the late Holocene,” The Holocene 15.2 (2005), 190–199. | https://doi.org/10.1191/0959683605hl799rp

WAFZ.S019 | JOURNAL | Isabelle Crevecoeur et al., “The Iwo Eleru Mandible and the Taxonomic Status of the Iwo Eleru Fossils,” PaleoAnthropology (2024). | https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/1052
WAFZ.S020 | JOURNAL | Katerina Harvati et al., “The Later Stone Age Calvaria from Iwo Eleru, Nigeria: Morphology and Chronology,” PLOS ONE 6.9 (2011), e24024. | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024024
WAFZ.S021 | ARCHAEOLOGY | Alexa Höhn and Katharina Neumann / related Bosumpra research, ten-millennia plant-use record, University of Ghana repository. | https://ugspace.ug.edu.gh/items/59c58768-9498-41a0-8563-c819ee4e8ab3
WAFZ.S022 | JOURNAL | Ann B. Stahl and colleagues, long-term land-use and food-production synthesis for central Ghana/Kintampo, African Archaeological Review 37 (2020). | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-019-09131-2
WAFZ.S023 | JOURNAL | A. Catherine D’Andrea and Joanna Casey, “Pearl Millet and Kintampo Subsistence,” African Archaeological Review 19 (2002). | https://doi.org/10.1023/A%3A1016518919072
WAFZ.S024 | JOURNAL | A. Catherine D’Andrea et al., “Early domesticated cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) from Central Ghana,” Antiquity. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/early-domesticated-cowpea-vigna-unguiculata-from-central-ghana/141865EBCB5341EC2120B636874BFD5E
WAFZ.S025 | JOURNAL | “Archaeological Investigations in the Iresi Hills, Southwestern Nigeria,” Yoruba Studies Review / DOAJ record. | https://doaj.org/article/ae7d39f930fc4c46a3d0350eac5fbdb5
WAFZ.S026 | JOURNAL | Augustin F. C. Holl, “Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy,” Journal of World Prehistory 22 (2009), 415–438. | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-009-9030-6
WAFZ.S027 | BOOK | Peter Breunig, ed., Nok: African Sculpture in Archaeological Context, Africa Magna, 2013.
WAFZ.S028 | BOOK | Graham Connah, African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2001.
WAFZ.S029 | JOURNAL | “Dating Problems at Igbo-Ukwu,” Journal of African History. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/dating-problems-at-igoboukwu/2033B9D190CAB0F47E4E0A1F59ADEA81
WAFZ.S030 | MUSEUM_SYNTHESIS | Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Igbo-Ukwu (ca. 9th century).” | https://www.metmuseum.org/de/essays/igbo-ukwu-ca-9th-century
WAFZ.S031 | BOOK | M. Angulu Onwuejeogwu, An Igbo Civilization: Nri Kingdom and Hegemony, Ethnographica, 1981.
WAFZ.S032 | BOOK | Elizabeth Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, Macmillan, 1976.
WAFZ.S033 | BOOK | Ivor L. Miller, Voice of the Leopard: African Secret Societies and Cuba, University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
WAFZ.S034 | OBJECT_RECORDS | British Museum, Cross River/Ekpe/nsibidi collection records. | https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1950-45-691-a-b | https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1911-1215-6-a-b

WAFZ.S040 | BOOK | Akinwumi Ogundiran, The Yoruba: A New History, Indiana University Press, 2020.
WAFZ.S041 | BOOK | Suzanne Preston Blier, Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity, c.1300, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
WAFZ.S042 | BOOK | Frank Willett, Ife in the History of West African Sculpture, Thames & Hudson, 1967.
WAFZ.S043 | JOURNAL | Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, “Ile-Ife and Igbo Olokun in the history of glass in West Africa,” Antiquity 91 (2017). | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/ileife-and-igbo-olokun-in-the-history-of-glass-in-west-africa/271A101DC136996C91364464ED61A258
WAFZ.S044 | JOURNAL | Abidemi Babalola and colleagues, Igbo-Olokun glass-production research, Azania 59 (2024). | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0067270X.2024.2412945
WAFZ.S045 | MUSEUM_SYNTHESIS | Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ife essays: “Ife (from ca. 6th century),” “Pre-Pavement and Pavement Era,” and “Ife Terracottas.” | https://www.metmuseum.org/ja/essays/ife-from-ca-6th-century | https://www.metmuseum.org/fr/essays/ife-pre-pavement-and-pavement-era-800-1000-a-d | https://www.metmuseum.org/ja/essays/ife-terracottas-1000-1400-a-d
WAFZ.S046 | JOURNAL | Akinwumi Ogundiran, archaeological research on settlement cycling and regional interaction in the Yoruba/Lower Niger region; see African Studies Review synthesis (2022). | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/mosaic-of-yoruba-ontology-and-materiality-of-pleasure-since-ad-1000/3B9C6340E2B0286F64F350C58220BA7B
WAFZ.S047 | JOURNAL | Archaeological report on Old Oyo, Journal of Field Archaeology 17.3 (1990). | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/jfa.1990.17.3.367
WAFZ.S048 | JOURNAL | Robert Smith, “The Alafin in Exile: A Study of the Igboho Period in Oyo History,” Journal of African History. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/alafin-in-exile-a-study-of-the-igboho-period-in-oyo-history/FF8C1D783F20DF3B0472FD18EE25518F
WAFZ.S049 | MUSEUM_SYNTHESIS | Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Origins and Empire: The Benin, Owo, and Ijebu Kingdoms.” | https://www.metmuseum.org/fr/essays/origins-and-empire-the-benin-owo-and-ijebu-kingdoms

WAFZ.S050 | CHRONICLE | Jacob U. Egharevba, A Short History of Benin, multiple editions from 1934.
WAFZ.S051 | BOOK | Alan F. C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897, Longman, 1969.
WAFZ.S052 | ETHNOGRAPHIC_SYNTHESIS | R. E. Bradbury, The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-Speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria, International African Institute, 1957.
WAFZ.S053 | PROJECT | British Museum, “MOWAA Archaeology Project, Benin City, Nigeria.” | https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/projects/mowaa-archaeology-project-benin-city-nigeria
WAFZ.S054 | DATABASE | Digital Benin, linked catalogue and knowledge platform. | https://digitalbenin.org/
WAFZ.S055 | MUSEUM_PROVENANCE | British Museum, “Benin Bronzes” contested-objects account. | https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/benin-bronzes
WAFZ.S056 | MUSEUM_SYNTHESIS | Metropolitan Museum of Art, Benin histories and collection essays. | https://www.metmuseum.org/ja/exhibitions/arts-of-africa/inside-the-exhibition
WAFZ.S057 | BOOK | Kristen L. Gunsch, The Benin Plaques: A 16th-Century Imperial Monument, Routledge, 2018.
WAFZ.S058 | JOURNAL | “MOWAA Archaeology Project: enhancing understanding of Benin City’s historic urban development and heritage through pre-construction archaeology,” Antiquity (2025). | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/mowaa-archaeology-project-enhancing-understanding-of-benin-citys-historic-urban-development-and-heritage-through-preconstruction-archaeology/29CDB0E92C192DFA64D724CE892ED2FD

WAFZ.S060 | BOOK | Kwaku Effah-Gyamfi, Bono Manso: An Archaeological Investigation into Early Akan Urbanism, African Occasional Papers, 1985.
WAFZ.S061 | JOURNAL | Merrick Posnansky, archaeological publications on Begho and early West African trade, including World Archaeology 5.2 (1973).
WAFZ.S062 | BOOK | Ivor Wilks, Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante, Ohio University Press, 1993.
WAFZ.S063 | BOOK | Timothy F. Garrard, Akan Weights and the Gold Trade, Longman, 1980.
WAFZ.S064 | JOURNAL_AND_BOOK | T. C. McCaskie, “Denkyira in the Making of Asante, c.1660–1720,” Journal of African History, and State and Society in Pre-Colonial Asante, Cambridge University Press, 1995. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/denkyira-in-the-making-of-asante-c-16601720/4CF764B5A44350A7A352794CA4E5DC68
WAFZ.S065 | UNESCO | “Asante Traditional Buildings.” | https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/35
WAFZ.S066 | MUSEUM_SYNTHESIS | Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Gold in Asante Courtly Arts.” | https://www.metmuseum.org/ko/essays/gold-in-asante-courtly-arts
WAFZ.S067 | MUSEUM_PROVENANCE | British Museum, “Asante Gold Regalia.” | https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/asante-gold-regalia
WAFZ.S068 | BOOK | A. Adu Boahen, Ghana: Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Longman, 1975.
WAFZ.S069 | BOOK | Rebecca Shumway, The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, University of Rochester Press, 2011.

WAFZ.S070 | BOOK | I. A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708–1818, Cambridge University Press, 1967.
WAFZ.S071 | BOOK | Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port,” 1727–1892, Ohio University Press, 2004; related Cambridge research on Allada/Ouidah. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/rituals-runaways-and-the-haitian-revolution/homelands-diaspora-and-slave-society/0EFBA3D2C01A5C42F2727A83CC86F1F8
WAFZ.S072 | BOOK | Edna G. Bay, Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey, University Press of Virginia, 1998.
WAFZ.S073 | BOOK | J. Cameron Monroe, The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
WAFZ.S074 | UNESCO | “Royal Palaces of Abomey.” | https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/323
WAFZ.S076 | BOOK_CHAPTER | Robin Law, “The compatibility of the slave and palm oil trades in Dahomey, 1818–1858,” in From Slave Trade to “Legitimate” Commerce. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/from-slave-trade-to-legitimate-commerce/compatibility-of-the-slave-and-palm-oil-trades-in-dahomey-18181858/D86589B7B65B738303A2182654B8CC1E
WAFZ.S077 | BOOK | Patrick Manning, Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640–1960, Cambridge University Press, 1982.

WAFZ.S080 | BOOK | Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800, Clarendon Press, 1970.
WAFZ.S081 | BOOK | Christopher Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone, Oxford University Press, 1962.
WAFZ.S082 | BOOK | George E. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630, Westview Press, 1993.
WAFZ.S083 | MUSEUM_SYNTHESIS | Metropolitan Museum of Art and associated scholarship on Sapi/Afro-Portuguese ivories.
WAFZ.S084 | JOURNAL | David Dalby, “A Survey of the Indigenous Scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone,” African Language Studies 8 (1967), 1–51.
WAFZ.S085 | BOOK | Amos Sawyer, The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia: Tragedy and Challenge, ICS Press, 1992.
WAFZ.S086 | PRIMARY_REPORT | Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, 2004.
WAFZ.S087 | PRIMARY_REPORT_AND_BOOK | Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, 2009; Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy, 1999.
WAFZ.S088 | BOOK | Timothy C. Weiskel, French Colonial Rule and the Baule Peoples: Resistance and Collaboration, 1889–1911, Clarendon Press, 1980.
WAFZ.S089 | SYNTHESIS | Basil Davidson, West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850, Longman, 1998.

WAFZ.S090 | DATABASE | SlaveVoyages, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade estimates and methodology. | https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates | https://www.slavevoyages.org/about/
WAFZ.S091 | BOOK | Ray A. Kea, Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
WAFZ.S092 | UNESCO | “Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions.” | https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/34/
WAFZ.S093 | HERITAGE_AUTHORITY | Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, “St George’s Castle (Elmina Castle), Elmina, 1482.” | https://gmmb.gov.gh/st-georges-castle-elmina-castle-elmina-1482/
WAFZ.S094 | PRIMARY_SOURCE_EDITION | Stephen D. Behrendt, A. J. H. Latham and David Northrup, eds., The Diary of Antera Duke, an Eighteenth-Century African Slave Trader, Oxford University Press, 2010.
WAFZ.S095 | BOOK | David Northrup, Trade Without Rulers: Pre-Colonial Economic Development in South-Eastern Nigeria, Clarendon Press, 1978.
WAFZ.S096 | JOURNAL | “Indigenous Written Sources for the History of Bonny,” History in Africa. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/indigenous-written-sources-for-the-history-of-bonny/FA2207ADF9BB5DC817E218F3378E6C53
WAFZ.S097 | BOOK | J. F. Ade Ajayi and Robert Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1964.
WAFZ.S098 | BOOK | J. F. Ade Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841–1891: The Making of a New Elite, Longman, 1965.
WAFZ.S099 | BOOK | Michael Crowder, West Africa Under Colonial Rule, Hutchinson, 1968.
WAFZ.S100 | SYNTHESIS | A. Adu Boahen, Ghana: Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; electoral and constitutional records.
WAFZ.S101 | BOOK | Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria, Cambridge University Press, 2008; Nigerian constitutional records.
WAFZ.S102 | REFERENCE | Mathurin C. Houngnikpo and Samuel Decalo, Historical Dictionary of Benin, 4th ed., 2013; Samuel Decalo, Historical Dictionary of Togo, 3rd ed., 1996.
WAFZ.S103 | REFERENCE | Robert J. Mundt and Cyril K. Daddieh, Historical Dictionary of Côte d’Ivoire, 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press, 1995; later official records.
WAFZ.S104 | REFERENCE | D. Elwood Dunn, Amos J. Beyan and Carl Patrick Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Liberia, 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press, 2001.
WAFZ.S105 | REFERENCE | Magbaily C. Fyle, Historical Dictionary of Sierra Leone, Scarecrow Press, 2006.
WAFZ.S106 | REFERENCE | Mohamed Saliou Camara, Thomas O’Toole and Janice E. Baker, Historical Dictionary of Guinea, 5th ed., Scarecrow Press, 2013.
WAFZ.S107 | ORGANISATION | Economic Community of West African States, official records and communiqués. | https://www.ecowas.int/
WAFZ.S108 | PUBLIC_HEALTH | World Health Organization, West African Ebola epidemic situation reports and retrospective datasets. | https://www.who.int/emergencies/situations/ebola-outbreak-2014-2016-West-Africa
WAFZ.S109 | PUBLIC_HEALTH | World Health Organization, WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard and country reporting. | https://covid19.who.int/
WAFZ.S110 | URBAN_SYNTHESIS | Somik Vinay Lall, J. Vernon Henderson and Anthony J. Venables, Africa’s Cities: Opening Doors to the World, World Bank, 2017. | https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25896
WAFZ.S111 | POLICY_AND_RESEARCH | World Bank and partner research on eliminating deforestation from the cocoa supply chain; paired with USGS/GFW land-cover data.
WAFZ.S112 | UNESCO | “Gola–Tiwai Complex,” World Heritage List, inscribed 2025. | https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1746
WAFZ.S113 | OFFICIAL_REGULATION | European Commission, “Regulation on Deforestation-free Products,” implementation timetable current at cutoff. | https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/forests/deforestation/regulation-deforestation-free-products_en
WAFZ.S114 | COMMODITY_STATISTICS | International Cocoa Organization, “February 2026 Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics.” | https://www.icco.org/february-2026-quarterly-bulletin-of-cocoa-statistics/
WAFZ.S115 | GOVERNMENT_RECORD | Élysée, joint statements concerning return of twenty-six Abomey treasures, 9 November 2021. | https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2021/11/09/declaration-du-president-emmanuel-macron-et-du-president-du-benin-patrice-talon
WAFZ.S116 | GOVERNMENT_AND_MUSEUM_RECORD | Government of Benin and National Museum of Finland, announcement of Kataklè restitution, 2025. | https://www.gouv.bj/article/3073/le-ministere-tourisme-culture-arts-benin-musee-national-finlande-annoncent-restitution-katakle-tresor-royal-benin/
WAFZ.S117 | GOVERNMENT_RECORD | Government of the Netherlands, “Benin Bronzes from the Netherlands returning home to Nigeria,” 18 June 2025. | https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2025/06/18/benin-bronzes-from-the-netherlands-returning-home-to-nigeria
WAFZ.S118 | INSTITUTIONAL_RECORD | Museum of West African Art, announced Opening Week programme, November 2025. | https://wearemowaa.org/opening-week
WAFZ.S119 | MULTI_PARTY_CURRENT_SOURCE | Contemporary report on disrupted MOWAA opening and Nigerian official statement on subsequent discussions. | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/10/protesters-disrupt-event-at-nigeria-museum-mowaa-embroiled-in-looted-artefacts-row | https://fmino.gov.ng/obas-visit-ends-mowaa-controversy-okpebholo-declares-restoration-of-benin-royal-museum-project/

WAFZ.S120 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL | Presidency of Ghana, Mahama administration records, current through July 2026. | https://presidency.gov.gh/mahama-meets-independent-power-producers/
WAFZ.S121 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL | State House, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Tinubu administration records, current through July 2026. | https://statehouse.gov.ng/president-tinubu-swears-in-minister-of-power-minister-of-state-for-foreign-affairs/
WAFZ.S122 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL_AND_REPORTING | Presidency of Benin and contemporaneous reporting on Romuald Wadagni’s 2026 election and inauguration. | https://www.presidence.bj/article/411/ | https://english.news.cn/20260417/c982d35c514a420696b04450c2a3cd9e/c.html | https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/benins-wadagni-takes-office-vows-better-living-standards-security-2026-05-24/
WAFZ.S123 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL | Republic of Togo, President Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové and Presidency of the Council records. | https://presidence.gouv.tg/presidents/jean-lucien-kwassi-lanyo-savi-de-tove/ | https://presidenceduconseil.gouv.tg/2026/05/07/conseil-des-ministres-du-6-mai-2026/
WAFZ.S124 | CURRENT_REPORTING | Reuters, opposition response to Togo’s 2025 constitutional reconfiguration. | https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/togo-leader-gets-new-role-without-term-limits-opposition-calls-it-coup-2025-05-05/
WAFZ.S125 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL | Government/Presidency of Côte d’Ivoire, final 2025 presidential result and July 2026 Council of Ministers record. | https://www.gouv.ci/actualite/presidentielle-2025-le-conseil-constitutionnel-confirme-la-reelection-du-president-alassane-ouattara-avec-8977-des-suffrages-exprimes-1858 | https://www.presidence.ci/communiques-ministres/communique-du-conseil-des-ministres-du-mercredi-1er-juillet-2026/
WAFZ.S126 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL | Executive Mansion, Republic of Liberia, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai records, current July 2026. | https://www.emansion.gov.lr/index.php/media/press-release/president-boakai-departs-united-states-receive-peace-leadership-award-and
WAFZ.S127 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL | State House, Republic of Sierra Leone, President Julius Maada Bio records, current July 2026. | https://statehouse.gov.sl/
WAFZ.S128 | CURRENT_OFFICIAL_AND_REPORTING | Presidency of Guinea and contemporaneous reporting on Mamadi Doumbouya’s election validation and inauguration. | https://presidence.gov.gn/investiture-du-president-mamadi-doumbouya-un-banquet-presidentiel-offert-en-hommage-a-lamitie-et-a-la-diplomatie/ | https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/guineas-top-court-validates-doumbouyas-landslide-vote-win-2026-01-05/
WAFZ.S129 | CURRENT_ORGANISATION | ECOWAS, 69th Ordinary Session and summit on regional integration, Freetown, 19 July 2026. | https://www.ecowas.int/ecowas-holds-summit-on-the-future-of-regional-integration-in-west-africa-and-69th-ordinary-session-of-the-authority-of-heads-of-state-and-government-in-sierra-leone/
WAFZ.S130 | CURRENT_ORGANISATION | ECOWAS, statement on withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, effective 29 January 2025. | https://www.ecowas.int/press-statement-2/
WAFZ.S131 | REMOTE_SENSING_DASHBOARD | Global Forest Watch, Ghana dashboard and dataset metadata, 2025 loss signal. | https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/GHA/
WAFZ.S133 | LIVE_DATABASE | Digital Benin public metrics: objects, institutions and countries; values version-sensitive. | https://digitalbenin.org/
WAFZ.S134 | MUSEUM_CURRENT | British Museum, “Asante Ewer” exhibition/display, opened 15 May 2026. | https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/asante-ewer

===============================================================================
18. “CIVILISATION ATLAS ARCHITECTURE” BRANCH DELTA
===============================================================================

The following Object-07 deltas are ready to merge into the architecture branch.
They refine the shared model; they do not replace the four canonical scaffolds.

WAFZ.AD001 — FOREST VISIBILITY VECTOR
Add PRESERVATION_POTENTIAL, SURVEY_EXPOSURE, RESEARCH_DENSITY and ARCHIVE_LOSS
beside evidence confidence. “No record” must never default to “no history.”

WAFZ.AD002 — ASSOCIATED-SYSTEM AUTONOMY
A queue title may name anchor systems, but every associated society retains a
distinct clock, namespace and right not to be modelled as a tributary footnote.

WAFZ.AD003 — CATEGORY NORMALISER
Add ENTITY_SCOPE and NAME_INTERVAL. Enforce:
Benin Kingdom != Republic of Benin
Danxomè/Dahomey != all Gbe peoples
Akan != Asante
Yoruba worlds != one timeless Yoruba state
“Benin Bronzes” != one material.

WAFZ.AD004 — CONTROL GEOMETRY
Add POINT / LINE / SURFACE / NETWORK / STACK to every sovereignty claim.
This prevents fort tenure, trade influence or tributary corridors from
becoming anachronistic territorial polygons.

WAFZ.AD005 — COERCION ATTRIBUTE
Every person and labour flow requires VOLUNTARY / COERCED / MIXED / UNKNOWN.
Enslaved people must not inherit the same ontology as commodity cargo.

WAFZ.AD006 — HERITAGE RIGHTS STACK
Add separate edges for:
MADE_BY; COMMISSIONED_BY; LOOTED_FROM; OWNS_LEGALLY; CUSTODIES; DISPLAYS;
CLAIMS; RETURNS; HAS_RITUAL_AUTHORITY; HAS_PUBLIC_ACCESS.
“Digitally reunited,” “loaned,” “title transferred” and “physically returned”
are four different states.

WAFZ.AD007 — CHARTER-TRADITION TYPE
Oral dynastic narratives require MEMORY_CHARTER as an evidence subtype.
The event encoded, the date narrated and the date of collection remain
separate fields.

WAFZ.AD008 — FISSION AS CAPABILITY
Add FISSION_TYPE and PORTABLE_RESIDUE. A fallen capital can generate new cities,
offices and diasporas; lifecycle decline does not imply cultural extinction.

WAFZ.AD009 — “NOBODY” COVERAGE
CAT Scan output must identify unnamed captives, labourers, women, children,
refugees, informal residents and communities absent from elite archives.

WAFZ.AD010 — EXTERNAL RULE INTERFACE
Add FUTURE_AT_CUTOFF for announced regulations and deadlines such as EUDR.
Future effective dates are not observed outcomes.

WAFZ.AD011 — CURRENT OFFICE VERSIONING
Model STATE -> OFFICE -> HOLDER -> VALID_INTERVAL. A state name or ceremonial
presidency must not be mistaken for the locus of executive power.

WAFZ.AD012 — DATASET DEFINITION LOCK
Every numeric environmental or commodity indicator retains dataset version,
unit, geographic mask and revision status.

WAFZ.AD013 — OBJECT QUEUE NORMALISATION
The controlling World Master fixes West African Forest Zone as Object 07 and
Central Africa / Congo Basin as Object 08. Children cannot renumber parents.

WAFZ.AD014 — CHILD CLOCK DELTA
Allow a child release to extend the most recent W-band while recording an
explicit reconciliation debt to the next World Master version.

WAFZ.AD015 — OUROBOROS ADDITIONS
Register the ten Object-07 loops in Section 12, especially EVIDENCE_BIAS,
ARCHIVE_LOOT, COCOA_FOREST, SECURITY_TRUST and DIASPORA_RENEWAL.

WAFZ.AD016 — DIAGNOSTIC NON-RANKING RULE
CAT Scan dimensions are vectors with evidence and scale, never a civilisation
leaderboard. Capability, lifecycle, habitat independence and Phase Frequency
cannot be averaged without destroying their meaning.

===============================================================================
19. RELEASE VALIDATION MANIFEST
===============================================================================

RELEASE_ID:
CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.REGION.WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE.V1.1

VALIDATED CONTENT:
170 protected chronological records
170 unique sequential record IDs: CA.WAFZ.000001–CA.WAFZ.000170
170 graph seeds
55 longitudinal tracks
40 core graph nodes
24 cross-object connectors
18 CAT Scan dimensions
7 anchor-system scans
3 independent coordinate axes plus Phase Frequency
10 Ouroboros loops
60 uncertainty/dispute rulings
120 registered source entries
115 distinct source keys cited by protected records
16 architecture-branch deltas

FIELD VALIDATION:
Every protected record contains CLASS, DATE_STATUS, ZOOM, TYPE, SCALE,
TIME, WORLD_BAND, LOCAL_PERIOD, PLACE, ENTITY, EVENT, DOMAIN, EVIDENCE,
EPISTEMIC, CONFIDENCE, SOURCE_KEYS and GRAPH_SEED.

SOURCE VALIDATION:
Every source key cited by a protected record resolves in Section 17.
Five additional registered sources are architecture/reference dependencies
used at file level rather than cited by individual protected records.

BOUNDARY VALIDATION:
Object 06 overlaps are explicit.
Object 08 overlap and the inherited numbering conflict are explicit.
Atlantic and diaspora exports are connector-scoped.
Modern borders are locators, not retroactive ownership claims.

CLOCK VALIDATION:
Earliest substrate uses W000.
No record exceeds W068.
Observed endpoint is 23:59:59 Asia/Singapore, 29 July 2026.
Future-at-cutoff policy dates are explicitly typed.
The one-day parent-clock reconciliation debt is explicit.

EPISTEMIC VALIDATION:
Approximate, conventional, range, modelled, traditional, contested and exact
dates remain distinguishable.
Official outcomes and legitimacy assessments remain distinguishable.
Absence of evidence and evidence of absence remain distinguishable.
Person flow, commodity flow and coercive flow remain distinguishable.

MACHINE VALIDATION:
UTF-8 text.
Record IDs contain fixed six-digit suffixes.
Record blocks are separated by one blank line.
Namespaces do not collide with Object 06 or Object 08.
Source and graph references are resolvable.

KNOWN NON-BLOCKING DEBTS:
— reconcile W068 end date in World Master V1.2;
— correct the Object-08 child header in its next version;
— deepen Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Cross River and Niger
Delta site-level coverage in their future dedicated child expansions;
— replace broad source syntheses with object/site datasets as those modules
become available;
— recheck future-at-cutoff EUDR dates and all office-holder nodes at next release.

RELEASE DECISION:
ACCEPTED AS CANONICAL OBJECT-07 V1.1 WORKING RELEASE.

===============================================================================
20. MACHINE EXTRACTION NOTES
===============================================================================

RECORD START:
^RECORD CA.WAFZ.[0-9]{6}

TRACK:
^WAFZ.T[0-9]{3} |

CONNECTOR:
^WAFZ.C[0-9]{3} |

UNCERTAINTY:
^WAFZ.U[0-9]{3} |

SOURCE:
^WAFZ.S[0-9]{3} |

ARCHITECTURE DELTA:
^WAFZ.AD[0-9]{3}

Parser rules:
— preserve Unicode and diacritics;
— treat semicolon-separated SOURCE_KEYS as arrays;
— treat WORLD_BAND ranges as inclusive display ranges, not calculated dates;
— parse dates from TIME only after inspecting DATE_STATUS;
— do not infer ethnicity from PLACE, style or language alone;
— do not convert analytical confidence into moral value;
— do not ingest forecasts as observed records;
— keep all release versions immutable.

===============================================================================
END OF CIVILISATION ATLAS CHRONOLOGY
WEST AFRICAN FOREST ZONE
CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.REGION.WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE.V1.1
CUT-OFF: 29 JULY 2026

CIVILISATION ATLAS CHRONOLOGY WEST AFRICAN FOREST ZON EIFE / YORUBA WORLDS; BENIN; AKAN / ASANTE; DAHOMEY / DANXOMÈ;ATLANTIC, COLONIAL, DIASPORIC AND MODERN TRANSFORMATIONS EARLIEST DEFENSIBLE EVIDENCE TO 29 JULY 2026

5A. SUBSTRATE, DEEP HUMAN TIME AND FOOD-PRODUCTION MOSAICS

5B. FIRST-MILLENNIUM AND EARLY-SECOND-MILLENNIUM COMPLEXES

5C. FIFTEENTH–SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ATLANTIC AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

===============================================================================END OF CIVILISATION ATLAS CHRONOLOGYWEST AFRICAN FOREST ZONECIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.REGION.WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE.V1.1CUT-OFF: 29 JULY 2026

===============================================================================
END OF CIVILISATION ATLAS CHRONOLOGY
WEST AFRICAN FOREST ZONE
CIVATLAS.CHRONOLOGY.REGION.WEST_AFRICAN_FOREST_ZONE.V1.1
CUT-OFF: 29 JULY 2026