GENEVA, SWITZERLAND—In many parts of the world, such as Europe, Asia, and southern and eastern Africa, archaeologists have been able to document the lives of hunter-gatherer societies that lived thousands of years ago because much of the archaeological evidence has been preserved within well-protected caves. Because of the climatic and geological conditions in West Africa, however, almost no traces of this time period survive there, leaving archaeologists with a sizable gap in knowledge about the region. According to a statement released by the University of Geneva, excavations in Senegal’s Falémé Valley uncovered a site that is now providing unprecedented new information about the nomadic communities who lived there 9,000 years ago. At the site of Ravin Blanc X, a team unearthed the remnants of a quartz knapping workshop and a fireplace. Hardly any finished and whole tools were recovered, since these were carried away from the site. But archaeologists were able to analyze the tiny residual and broken fragments to determine what kind of objects hunter-gatherers had made and the methods that they used. “By patiently piecing together the flakes and cores that had remained in place since then, like a jigsaw puzzle, we were able to reconstruct the techniques used, the criteria for selecting high-quality quartz, and the skill level of the knappers,’’ said lead researcher Charlotte Pruvost. The inhabitants of West Africa favored very small stone tools, or microliths, designed to be hafted and used as hunting weapons. These were likely preferred for their portability and efficiency, and reveal sophisticated craftsmanship aimed at producing highly standardized, identical tools. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS One. For more on stone tools, go to "The First Toolkit."
