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Deme,
Alioune 2003 Archaeological Investigations of Settlement and Emerging
Complexity in the Middle Senegal Valley. PH.D. Thesis, Rice University
ABSTRACT
This thesis reports on three months of excavation and a month of site
survey undertaken in 1999-2000 in the central sector of the Middle Senegal
Valley that was associated with the historical polity of Takrur. The focus
of the research was two-fold: to investigate the earliest permanent or
semi-permanent settlement along the Middle Senegal Valley floodplain;
and to examine the emergence of larger-scale, more complex settlements
in the region. Excavation of the five hectare site of Walalde, provisionally
dated to the first century A.D., revealed a much earlier occupation by
iron-using cattle herders that began c. 800–550 B.C., and continued
until c. 200 B.C. The sequence appears to document the transition from
stone- to iron-based technology, with the use of iron objects and stone
initially, and evidence for iron production (smelting and forging) from
550–200 B.C. Copper with the distinctive chemical signature of the
Akjoujt mines in Mauritania was also present after 550 B.C., attesting
to trade and interaction over long distances. The iron and copper at Walalde
are among the earliest metals recovered from excavation contexts in West
Africa. Other important aspects of the Walalde sequence include ceramic
materials and a series of red ochre burials.
Excavations at a large cluster of sites at Kaskas revealed a continuation
of the Walalde sequence for the period 150 B.C. – A.D. 100, linking
the settlement history documented by this field work to the existing archaeological
sequence for the region. Iron production was a significant activity at
some of these, and fishing was intensively practiced at others. Kaskas
may represent the spatial integration of specialist economies (herding,
fishing) to achieve greater productivity in a situation of high environmental
stress produced by an extreme drought c. 1900 BP.
The survey found and documented 22 sites on the transitional zone from
floodplain to upland. This adds to our understanding of settlement distributions
formerly known primarily from survey on the floodplain.
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