From 60th century BCE
Southern Mali
The Kourounkorokale pre-Neolithic industry is a mode 5 archaeological assemblage from the lower levels of a rock-shelter south of Bamako. It combines quartz crescents, trapeziform microliths, backed blades, side-scrapers, crude choppers, and chipped unground axes with bone tools, including barbed harpoon-heads. Pottery is absent from the lower horizon. The extract provides no direct absolute date for the site, but compares its harpoon-heads with southern Saharan examples dated as early as the sixth millennium BC.
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The Story
Kourounkorokale is a rock-shelter south of Bamako whose lower levels preserve one of the better-defined pre-Neolithic mode 5 assemblages discussed for the western Sudanese zone. Two principal horizons were recognized, although the extract focuses on the lower one. The assemblage illustrates the coexistence of microlithic forms with heavier and less specialized stone tools.
The lower horizon contains crude choppers, chipped unground axes made from shale and dolerite, quartz crescents, trapeziform microliths, backed blades, and side-scrapers. The quartz forms are described as fundamentally comparable to examples from Ghanaian and Nigerian sites, while the addition of Tiemassas-like bifacial points gives the assemblage a distinctive northern-western connection. Pottery was not present in this lower level.
Bone tools are also significant at Kourounkorokale. Simple points and several uniserially barbed bone harpoon-heads, perforated for attachment of a line, were recovered from the lower level. Comparable harpoon-heads from the southern Sahara have dates as early as the sixth millennium BC, which the author presents as a reasonable tentative estimate for the initial occupation of Kourounkorokale, not as a direct date for the site.
From 60th century BCE
Southern Mali
The Kourounkorokale pre-Neolithic industry is a mode 5 archaeological assemblage from the lower levels of a rock-shelter south of Bamako. It combines quartz crescents, trapeziform microliths, backed blades, side-scrapers, crude choppers, and chipped unground axes with bone tools, including barbed harpoon-heads. Pottery is absent from the lower horizon. The extract provides no direct absolute date for the site, but compares its harpoon-heads with southern Saharan examples dated as early as the sixth millennium BC.
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The Story
Kourounkorokale is a rock-shelter south of Bamako whose lower levels preserve one of the better-defined pre-Neolithic mode 5 assemblages discussed for the western Sudanese zone. Two principal horizons were recognized, although the extract focuses on the lower one. The assemblage illustrates the coexistence of microlithic forms with heavier and less specialized stone tools.
The lower horizon contains crude choppers, chipped unground axes made from shale and dolerite, quartz crescents, trapeziform microliths, backed blades, and side-scrapers. The quartz forms are described as fundamentally comparable to examples from Ghanaian and Nigerian sites, while the addition of Tiemassas-like bifacial points gives the assemblage a distinctive northern-western connection. Pottery was not present in this lower level.
Bone tools are also significant at Kourounkorokale. Simple points and several uniserially barbed bone harpoon-heads, perforated for attachment of a line, were recovered from the lower level. Comparable harpoon-heads from the southern Sahara have dates as early as the sixth millennium BC, which the author presents as a reasonable tentative estimate for the initial occupation of Kourounkorokale, not as a direct date for the site.
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