Discovery:

After two seasons of field research, it is now clear that Saharan peoples began settling in the region of Timbuktu sometime during the Late Stone Age (perhaps as early as 2000 B.C.). Large cities may have originated sometime around 500 B.C. and subsequently collapsed soon after A.D. 900, just before the historical foundation of Timbuktu by the Tuareg.

First mention of the possibility of large pre-historic urbanism at Timbuktu was made by Roderick J. and Susan Keech McIntosh in the mid 1980’s after an initial survey of the reigon. The Timbuktu Expedition Project is now engaged large-scale excavations aimed at generating a ceramic chronology while also exploring the pre-historic socio-political organization.

Current Project Proposal:

An Islamic tribe of nomadic traders known as the Tuareg  founded Timbuktu during the 11th-12th centuries CE. However, at least as early as the 5th century BC pre-historic peoples had permanently settled in the vicinity with population densities that surpassed the densities experienced during the height of historic Timbuktu (ca. 14th-16th centuries AD). Located at the border between the Saharan Desert and the fertile flood plains of the Niger River, an area known for its climatic high temporal variability, environmental uncertainty helped to shape the social landscape and methods of human interaction during the formalization of early social complexity in this region. The unstable conditions experienced between 3000-300 BC facilitated an interaction with environmental stress leading to rapid transformation in social organization of dispersed ethnic groups both inhabiting this region of fluid frontiers and those migrating to it. A tendency toward greater social complexity can be explained by utilizing “Pulse Theory” that proposes that humans read, anticipate and adapt to climate stress by becoming mutually dependent. Specifically, the interactions between different ethnic or corporate groups possessing great intellectual capacities for specialized crafts and activities ranging from esoteric religious knowledge to subsistence procurement, from iron smelting to transhumance, created complex reciprocal relations as a way to smooth over the stress caused by high temporal variability.

Further Reading:

E. Herbet. “Timbuktu: a case study of the role of legend in history, in B.K. Swarz and R.E. Dumett (eds), West African Cultural Dynamics. Mouton (1980):431-54;

E.N. Saad. Social History of Timbuktu. Cambridge University Press (1983); A. Ould Sidi “Le Patrimoine Culturel de Tombouctou: enjeux et perspectives” (N.D.)

D. Post Park and B. Togala, “Étude Archéologique Préliminaire dans la Proximité de Tombouctou” Sahara (forthcoming);

R.J. McIntosh and S.K. McIntosh’s 1984 “Archaeological Reconnaissance in Timbuktu, Mali”, Final Report to National Geographic (1985)

R.J. McIntosh and J.A. Tainter (eds) “Climates of the Mande” Sepcial edition of Mande Studies (2005) 6:1-85

R.J. McIntosh “Before Timbuktu: cities of the Elder World” in S. Jeppie and S.B. Diagne The Meanings of Timbuktu. HSRC Press (2008)

R. Dunbar, “Climate Variability During the Holocene: An Update” in R. McIntosh, et al, (eds), The Way the Wind Blows: Climate, History, and Human Action, New York: Columbia University Press (2000): 45-88.

R. McIntosh The Peoples of the Middle Niger, Blackwell (1998): 34-87; R,J. McIntosh “Social Memory in Mande” in R. McIntosh et al. (eds) The Way the Wind Blows: Climate, History and Human Action, New York: Columbia Iniversity Press (2000): 152-155

T. Togola. Archaeological Investigations of Iron Age Sites in the Mema Region, Mali (West Africa). BAT International Series 1736 (2008);

K.C. MacDonald Socio-economic Diveristy and the Origin of Cultural Complexity along the Middle Niger (2000 BC to AD 300). Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge (1994);

R.J. McIntosh “Pulse of the Méma: deep time risk strategies” In Geomorphology and human paleoecology of the Méma, Mali. Altera (2005)

R. McIntosh. “Pulse of the Méma: deep time risk strategies” In Geomorphology and human paleoecology of the Méma, Mali,

D. Post Park and B. Togala. “Étude Archéologique Préliminaire dans la Proximité de Tombouctou” Sahara (forthcoming)

S.K. McIntosh. Excavations at Jenne-Jeno, Hambarketotlo, and Kaniana: The 1981 season. University of Califorina Press (1995)

R. McIntosh states that “...reservoirs of symbols and ideologies provide a persistent, often centuries-long trajectory to social action and culture change.” The Peoples of the Middle Niger. Blackwell (1998)

J. Vansina. “Deep-down Time: Political Tradition in Central Africa”. History in Africa (1989):341-362

3D Fly Though!

This theoretical model has already been applied in great detail to the archaeological settlements around Djenne-Djeno, more generally to the site clustering of the Méma region, and preliminarily to the vicinity of Timbuktu. It is highly likely within the vicinity of Timbuktu there were compartmentalized but highly articulated Late Stone Age settlements, which may correlate with the origins of the Méma settlement clusters (ca. 2000-1000 BC). However, it is unclear at this point if rapid urbanism had developed by the Late Stone Age at Timbuktu, as may be the case in the Méma. It is equally likely at this stage in the research that incipient urbanism in the vicinity of Timbuktu may have been contemporaneous with Djenne-Djeno’s rise to urbanism (AD 250-500).The phenomena of site clustering composed of corporate satellite sites that existed as both ephemeral habitations, and long-term settlements with massive cultural material accumulation, can be considered to be an archaeological footprint of early Middle Niger complex societies. This points to a general shared core ideology and organizational mind-frame existent in the major pre-historic settlements in the region. The present work examines the hypothesis that there are similar social trajectories in the form of overarching heterarchical complexity occurring throughout the pre-historic Middle Niger. The greatest share of attention will be directed at exposing the evidence for the origins of early social complexity in the vicinity of Timbuktu along the paleo-channel known as the Wadi el-Ahmar, which is replete with evidence pointing to the “typical” Middle Niger archaeological footprint. Furthermore, the ecological and geomorphological liminality of the region of discussion may be one of the most important forces for emerging theories of social complexity at an early stage in West African history. Therefore this work will also examine the hypothesis that pre-historic humans living in the vicinity of Timbuktu interacted with their environment in dynamic ways that became an important catalyst for overarching heterarchical social complexity. The present study proposes that through the survey, excavation, and analysis of sites located along the Wadi el-Ahmar, major contributions to the on-going discussion of the origin and development of social complexity in the Niger Bend region will be made. Comparisons with similar evidence from the Méma, Djenne-Djeno, Gao, and Dia will attempt to prove the nature of the interaction between neighboring heterarchical systems and sites along the Wadi el-Ahmar.

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