100th century BCE – 50th century BCE
Senegal
The Tiemassas Later Stone Age industry is a pre-Neolithic microlithic assemblage from an extensive lagoon-side site approximately 80 kilometres south of Dakar. It includes large backed blades, crude crescents, and bifacially flaked foliate projectile points, with additional concave-based and tanged points suggesting possible links to Saharan traditions. The site’s deposits may represent more than one occupation phase, but the phases cannot yet be separated stratigraphically. Its chronology remains undated in the extract.
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The Story
Tiemassas lies about 80 kilometres south of Dakar and preserves extensive exposures of stone industries extending over several kilometres beside a lagoon. The site is one of the clearest examples of the earliest Senegalese Later Stone Age described in the chapter. Because the deposits have not yet yielded separable stratigraphic phases, it remains possible that the exposed material represents more than one occupation.
The absence of pottery and ground stone artifacts, combined with the presence of a mode 5 industry, identifies a pre-Neolithic microlithic horizon. The recorded artifacts include large backed blades and crude crescents, as well as bifacially flaked foliate projectile points. Some of these points have finely denticulated edges that recall examples from the Tshitolian of lower Zaire.
A single concave-based point and one tanged example have stronger similarities to Saharan styles, and an Aterian ancestry has been proposed for the industry. Farther north, around Dakar, later-looking dune assemblages contain smaller and more regular microliths, while the bifacial projectile points characteristic of Tiemassas are virtually absent. The relationship between these assemblages remains unresolved.
100th century BCE – 50th century BCE
Senegal
The Tiemassas Later Stone Age industry is a pre-Neolithic microlithic assemblage from an extensive lagoon-side site approximately 80 kilometres south of Dakar. It includes large backed blades, crude crescents, and bifacially flaked foliate projectile points, with additional concave-based and tanged points suggesting possible links to Saharan traditions. The site’s deposits may represent more than one occupation phase, but the phases cannot yet be separated stratigraphically. Its chronology remains undated in the extract.
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The Story
Tiemassas lies about 80 kilometres south of Dakar and preserves extensive exposures of stone industries extending over several kilometres beside a lagoon. The site is one of the clearest examples of the earliest Senegalese Later Stone Age described in the chapter. Because the deposits have not yet yielded separable stratigraphic phases, it remains possible that the exposed material represents more than one occupation.
The absence of pottery and ground stone artifacts, combined with the presence of a mode 5 industry, identifies a pre-Neolithic microlithic horizon. The recorded artifacts include large backed blades and crude crescents, as well as bifacially flaked foliate projectile points. Some of these points have finely denticulated edges that recall examples from the Tshitolian of lower Zaire.
A single concave-based point and one tanged example have stronger similarities to Saharan styles, and an Aterian ancestry has been proposed for the industry. Farther north, around Dakar, later-looking dune assemblages contain smaller and more regular microliths, while the bifacial projectile points characteristic of Tiemassas are virtually absent. The relationship between these assemblages remains unresolved.
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