UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
sites. Examples of shelters are Yengema, 30 Kamabai and Yagala, all in
Sierra Leone; 3 ' Kakimbon, Blande and Monkey Caves in Guinea;
Bosumpra in Ghana; and Iwo Eleru and Ukpa in Nigeria. From Iwo Eleru
also comes evidence suggesting that the predecessors as well as the Neolithic
peoples were negroid. The best-known open sites include the valley and
hill slope sites of Rim in north central Upper Volta, and the Senegal coastal
sites of Rarenno, Tiemassas and Cap Manuel.
In many of these 'Guinea Neolithic' areas the people occupied or
exploited rocky terrains containing outcrops of quartz, dolerite and cherty
metavolcanic rocks. Furthermore, at sites such as Rim, the hill slopes were
apparently used for terrace farming. Heavy bifacially flakedpick-like tools,
semi-circular bifaces (Davies' hoes) and other crude biface tools, a large
number and wide variety of polished axes, grindstones, some pestles, small
quartz elements - especially outils esquilles, and roulette decorated pottery
are the commonest features of this complex. The pick-like and semi-circular
bifaces seem to be derived from Sangoan core axes and picks, and it has
been suggested 32 that they were probably used for gathering and
propagating tubers and digging hunting traps. The pestle and mortar
(which probably had its wooden counterpart) was probably for pounding
fibrous tropical tubers in much the same way as is done today. 33
Where this complex meets a more northern type of tradition, such as
in the Paratoumbien of Mali and Mauretania and in Senegal (between Pointe
Sarenne and Tiemassas), the above-mentioned types of artefacts are usually
found in association with foliate points, notched blades and blades with
retouched edges. At sites such as Tiemassas, the local complex (southern
Neolithic), dated by natural stratigraphie means to between —6000 and
—2000, 34 clearly precedes the intrusive northern (Belairien) Neolithic, and
directly follows from local late stone age traditions.
Significantly, this archaeological evidence from the Mali-Mauretania-
Senegal nexus seems to lend support to Portères' thesis that the red-skinned
African rices (Oryza glaberrima and Oryza stapfili) could have been first
domesticated by an indigenous wet cultivation method at least 3500 years
old in the extensive flood plains of the upper Niger between Segu and
Timbuktu in Mali, an area where the Niger divides into several streams
and lakes (the inland Niger delta); and from there such cultivation may
have spread down the Gambia and Casamance rivers to the coastal peoples
of Senegambia. It is worth noting also that the botanical evidence clearly
rules out the idea of rice cultivation having resulted from the introduction
of knowledge of cereal cultivation. Portères 35 has pointed out that whereas
30. C. S. Coon.
31. J. H. Atherton, pp. 39-74.
32. O. Davies, 1968, pp. 479-82.
33. T. Shaw, 1972.
34. C. Deschamps, D. Demoulin and A. Abdallah, pp. 130-2.
35. A. Portères, 1962, pp. 195-210.
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