A small lake located about twenty-five miles northeast of Nampala, on the road leading to Niafounke, is associated with traces of an old town. The remains may indicate a settlement of considerable importance, although the source does not establish its exact identity with certainty. Fulbe groups who frequent the area call the place Gallou, while Soninke memory preserves the name Mema.

The wider country between Timbuktu and Nampala contains many mounds. These were probably royal burial places comparable to those excavated at El-Oualadji and are said to resemble al-Bakri’s description of burial customs in Ghana. Their form and context suggest that they were very probably pre-Islamic and dated from before the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Settlement traces extend across the surrounding country as far south as Dia. The density of remains suggests that the area was more heavily populated by sedentary communities in the past than it was when inhabited mainly by Fulbe and Moorish pastoralists. Wars and the gradual desiccation of a branch of the Niger, called ‘le fala de Molodo’, are given as causes of later depopulation.