Merchant diasporas have significantly influenced local and interregional processes in world history, but archaeology is only starting to understand the diversity of political, economic, social and religious contexts within which they developed. Recent research has suggested that the second plague pandemic (Black Death) likely affected West Africa. However, little is known regarding the diversity of local and regional impacts and responses. We argue that documented population losses likely caused by plague resulted in disruptions to commercial networks and stimulated merchant diasporas from neighboring Mali into Burkina Faso and further south. Drawing on an expanded corpus of data and new stratigraphic and Bayesian analyses of AMS dates from the site of Kirikongo (western Burkina Faso), this paper identifies two waves of likely plague-related depopulation in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries AD and explores the resulting social, economic, religious and environmental transformations. Notably, local communities worked cooperatively with recently arrived Mande merchant diasporas from the Empire of Mali to reconstruct regional economies.

商人侨民对世界历史上的地方和区域间进程产生了重大影响，但考古学才刚刚开始了解他们发展的政治、经济、社会和宗教背景的多样性。最近的研究表明，第二次鼠疫大流行（黑死病）可能影响了西非。然而，人们对地方和区域影响和应对措施的多样性知之甚少。我们认为，记录在案的人口损失可能是由瘟疫造成的，导致商业网络中断，并刺激商人从邻国马里流散到布基纳法索和更南部。本文利用扩展的数据集以及对基里孔戈（布基纳法索西部）遗址的 AMS 日期的新地层学和贝叶斯分析，确定了公元十四世纪和十五世纪早期可能与瘟疫相关的两波人口减少浪潮，并探讨了由此产生的结果社会、经济、宗教和环境变革。值得注意的是，当地社区与最近抵达的马里帝国曼德商人侨民合作，重建地区经济。