Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Korounkorokalé revisited: the 'Pays mande' and the West African microlithic technocomplex |
Author: | MacDonald, Kevin C. |
Year: | 1997 |
Periodical: | African Archaeological Review |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | 3 |
Pages: | 161-200 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Mali Guinea |
Subjects: | Manding archaeology prehistory |
External link: | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02968406 |
Abstract: | In 1992 and 1993, the author reexcavated the rockshelter of Korounkorokalé, located in the heart of the 'Pays mande'. The importance of Korounkorokalé lies in the fact that it possesses the only known long-term Holocene occupational sequence from the Upper Nile Valley region of Mali and Guinea. Evidence from the reinvestigation supports the idea of a long-term recurrent occupation of the site by peoples possessing a conservative quartz microlithic tradition for at least 5000 years. Seemingly aberrant 'recent' first millennium AD dates from similar sites in the region are reexamined in the light of the Korounkorokalé sequence. It is argued that some isolated groups of sub-Saharan peoples maintained a hunting-gathering lifestyle as recently as the mid to late first millennium AD. Oral traditions among modern Savanna groups, which refer to the presence of 'little peoples' at their first colonization of the region, are used to support this argument. A new model for the peopling of West Africa is presented based upon a long-term autochthonous presence south of the Sahara. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French. |