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Archaeologists have long valued historical connections as a means of establishing the relevance of ethnography for inte1preting archaeological sites. While the direct historical approach has most often been used to support continuities between archaeological and ethnographic contexts, recent historical anthropological literature stresses the tremendous changes that occurred as a result of European contact, and suggests an expanded role for the direct historical approach as a means of studying change. This paper presents preliminary results of investigations at a 19th-century West African village site abandoned early in the colonial period, and explores patterns of change and continuity in the lives of rural villagers during the 19th and early 20th centuries.