Korounkorokalé revisited: ThePays Mande and the West African microlithic technocomplex

Abstract

In 1992 and 1993, the author reexcavated the rock.shelter of Korounkorokale, located in the heart of the Pays Mande. Evidence from this reinvestigation supports the idea of a long-term recurrent occupation of this 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 Korounkorokald 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 modem 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.