Mali - Ounjougou

Exploration theme

Even though the African origin of modern Man is rarely disputed now and debates currently focus on the time when these populations of modern Man left the African continent, between 100 000 and 50 000, we can see that the Palaeolithic Period is very unevenly documented on the African continent. And, in West Africa, beyond isolated sites which have often neither been dated nor undergone any stratigraphic study, the Sahara is the only area to have been explored extensively. In addition to the exceptional potential of the Ounjougou sites complex in the Dogon region (Mali), we are refreshing our knowledge of the Sub-Saharan West Africa Palaeolithic, placing it at the heart of the more general question of the origin of modern Man and the emerging conditions for his innovative technical practices during the Upper Pleistocene (130 000 - 10 000). Short presentation of the site and excavation objectives Leaving Bandiagara for Sanga in the Dogon region (a scene enshrined in an image by Marcel Griaule), after less than an hour on the road visitors cannot ignore an almost moon-type landscape on the right where the rain has shaped the edges of glacis-terraces, ravines and mounds of thick sediment deposits: this is Ounjougou.

He could still not imagine that in this place explorations conducted since 1999 would enable us to document the longest and most complete sequence of Palaeolithic occupation in Sub-Saharan West Africa. Covering about 10 km2 along the Yame, a small river which meanders along the southern edge of the sandstone Bandiagara plateau, the thick covering of quaternary sediment has preserved the remains of numerous occupations out in the open from the Middle Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic. The work conducted by a small French team, as part of a vast international research programme called Palaeoenvironment and human population in Sub-Saharan West Africa is committed to reconstructing the chronological and cultural sequence of Palaeolithic occupations in the region. Absolute dating puts most of the occupations at the Upper Pleistocene between 80 000 and 20 000. The diversity of carved stone tools, reflecting the cultural traditions of Man from the Palaeolithic, leads us to believe that the changes in regional population were frequent throughout the Upper Pleistocene.