Tichitt
Key Points
- Dhar Tichitt, Tichitt Walata, and Dhar Nema are the oldest surviving collection of settlements in West Africa and the oldest of all stone-base settlement south of the Sahara. They were built by the Soninke people and are thought to be the precursors of the Ghana empire.
- The region was settled by agropastoral people around 2000–300 BCE, which makes it almost 1000 years older than previously thought. One finds well-laid-out streets and fortified compounds, all made out of skilled stone masonry. In all, there were 500 settlements.
- The faunal evidence at the Dhar Tichitt area is highly diverse. Cattle, sheep, and goats are the most common faunal remains. Other faunal remains include crocodile, hippopotamus, ostrich, gazelle, fish, and very few representative bones of other animals. Given the amount of faunal remains that are from domesticated animals it is safe to say that this was a pastoralist society.
- In addition to herding livestock, its inhabitants fished and grew millet. The botanical remains at the site reveal that the pastoralists society practiced some cultivation. Pennisetum or bulrush millet is the only domesticate found at this site, and was most commonly cultivated during the rainy season at upland settlements. During the dry season, wild grains and fruits were collected in the lowlands to supplement the otherwise pastoralist diet.
- The Dhar Tichitt site had become a complex culture by 3600 BP and had architectural and material culture elements that seemed to match the site at Koumbi Saleh. Koumbi Saleh, sometimes Kumbi Saleh is the site of a ruined medieval town in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhar_Tichitt
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Walata
Oualata or Walata (Arabic: ولاته) (also Biru in 17th century chronicles) is a small oasis town in southeast Mauritania, located at the eastern end of the Aoukar basin. Oualata was important as a caravan city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the southern terminus of a trans-Saharan trade route and now it is a World Heritage Site.
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References Wikipedia contributors. (2018, December 19). Dhar Tichitt. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:16, February 3, 2019, from Link
Wikipedia contributors. (2018, November 9). Koumbi Saleh. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:16, February 3, 2019, from Link
1. Holl, Augustin F.C. (2009). "Coping with uncertainty: Neolithic life in the Dhar Tichitt-Walata, Mauritania, (ca. 4000–2300 BP)". Comptes Rendus Geoscience. 341 (8–9): 703–712. doi:10.1016/j.crte.2009.04.005
2. Holl, Augustin (1985-12-01). "Subsistence patterns of the Dhar Tichitt Neolithic, Mauritania". African Archaeological Review. 3 (1): 151–162. doi:10.1007/BF01117458. ISSN 0263-0338.