History of Senegal - Paleolithic

Paleolithic

The earliest evidence of human life is found in the valley of the Faleme in the south-east.

The remains found there are threatened not only by the acidity of the soil in West Africa that destroys the bones, but also by tourists, the machines used for the mining of phosphates in the Thiès Region, and vegetable crops and the increasing urbanization in the peninsula of Cap Vert. However, the presence of man in the Lower Paleolithic is attested by the discovery of stone tools characteristic of Acheulean such as hand axes reported by Théodore Monod at the tip of Fann in the peninsula of Cap-Vert in 1938, or cleavers found in the south-east. There were also found stones shaped by the Levallois technique, characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic. Mousterian Industry is represented mainly by scrapers found in the peninsula of Cap-Vert, as well in the low and middle valleys of the Senegal and the Faleme. Some pieces are explicitly linked to hunting, like those found in Tiémassass, near Mbour, a controversial site that some claim belongs to the Upper Paleolithic, while other argue in favor of the Neolithic.