1.11 - Holocene Prehistory of West Africa

Summary

Introduction

Geographically, West Africa is understood here as the area south of the Sahara approximately along the latitude of 18° N, bordered by the Atlantic coast in the west and extending as far as the longitude of Lake Chad in the east (Map 1.11.1). In this region, significant social, economic and technological developments occurred during the Holocene Period as shown by archaeological research carried out since its onset around the middle of the 20th century. After the Holocene Period began around 10,000 bce, West Africa witnessed: (1) the unequivocal presence of hunter-gatherers and their cultural advances, as shown by innovations such as pottery or watercraft in Early Holocene times (c. 10,000–6000 bce); (2) the appearance of herders or a pastoral economy in the neighbouring Sahara during the Mid-Holocene Period (c. 6000–2000 bce), as well as the continued existence of scattered groups of hunter-gatherers that survived in environments with abundant natural resources until the Common Era; and (3) the advent of farming resulting in fundamental changes in human life and culture during the subsequent Late Holocene Period (since c. 2000 bce) that constitute the prelude of the emergence of complex societies and states from the end of the 1st millennium ce onwards. After this, written records of Arabic travellers and scholars reported about empires and thus marked the West African version of the transition from prehistory to protohistory. When compared globally, some of these occurrences appeared late, while others were early. But according to the current state of research, in almost all cases the West African evidence is among the earliest in Sub-Saharan Africa and provides the model case for some of Africa’s autonomous Post-Pleistocene cultural adaptations.