The Middle Palaeolithic of West Africa: Lithic techno-typological analyses of the site of Tiemassas, Senegal
Due to its significant position between the Sahara Desert and tropical Africa, Senegal may have played a decisive role in the dispersal of modern humans between North and sub-Saharan Africa. However, our
knowledge about these intra-African dispersals and the character of the demographic connection between
North and sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood and archaeological records in the Sahel are
limited. Between 1940 and 1960, the Senegalese littoral yielded prehistoric sites attributed to the Middle
Stone Age (MSA) or Middle Palaeolithic. This chrono-cultural framework is based on typological considerations
about lithic industries generally found in secondary or disturbed stratigraphic contexts. Of
these sites, Tiemassas has been considered to be the most important. Located about 100 km from Dakar,
the site has been considered Middle Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and even Neolithic, but has not been analysed
in detail. In this paper, the compositions of the lithic assemblages represented at Tiemassas are
discussed and their technological strategies are analyzed. Results indicate that the site is characterized by
the use of diverse strategies of raw material exploitation in relation to the morphology and morphometry
of the exploited pebbles. The assemblage is flake dominated, generally characterized by typical MSA
methods such as Levallois, opportunistic (Systeme par Surface de Debitage Alterne (SSDA)) and discoid
flaking, and more rarely by laminar methods. Finally, retouch is usually applied to transform objects into side-scrapers. These results are indicative of a MSA cultural attribution and represent a first step in the process of definition and description of the Senegalese MSA together with its wider continental context.
Auteur(s) : Matar Ndiaye et Khady Niang
Pages : 4-15
Année de publication : 2016
Revue : Quaternary International
N° de volume : n°408
Type : Article
Mise en ligne par : NDIAYE Matar
