Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
First Footprints on the Sahel
West Africa's earliest history is shrouded in mystery, its archaeological evidence either
residing in the belly of a termite or consumed by tropical climates and the shifting sands of
the Sahara.
The first meaningful signposts to West Africa's past appeared around 10,000 years ago
in the Sahara, especially the Aïr Mountains of northern Niger and the Adrar des Ifôghas in
Mali, where nomads roamed across a very different West Africa from the one you see
today. Rivers, forests, vast lakes and savannah occupied much of what is now the Sahara,
the human population was small and widely dispersed, and animals such as elephants, gir-
affes and the great cats were plentiful.
Around 5000 BC, domesticated cattle replaced elephants and giraffes in the carvings and
finely rendered rock paintings left by hunter- gatherer peoples. This rock art, which serves
as the Sahara's history books of the time, marks the moment when West Africans began to
build sedentary settlements as water became scarcer.
The earliest signs of organised society in West Africa date from around 1500 BC, in
present-day Mauritania and northern Nigeria, where the remains of stone villages and do-
mestic animals have been found. As settlements spread, two dominant groups emerged, the
first along the Niger River and the second around Lake Chad - both areas where soils were
fertile and well suited to agriculture. These groups built large stone villages and even
towns. The first urban settlement of note was Jenné-Jeno, in present-day Mali, which was
established around 300 BC and is often considered the father of West African cities. By AD
500, towns and villages were dotted across the region.
Wonders of the African World,
by Henry Louis Gates Jr, is an at once scholarly and enthusiastic re-evaluation of
African history before colonialism; its section on Timbuktu is fascinating.
