부산대학교 도서관

Group of geographically and historically related cultures known through a number of chance finds and limited archaeological research in present-day Mali, West Africa. The Middle Niger stretches c. 450 km from San in the south to Timbuktu in the north. The area of the Middle Niger, however, is many times vaster, since the low-lying terrain forms an extensive inundation zone, the Inland Niger Delta, which is flooded by the Niger and its major tributaries and distributaries for several months of the year. North of Lake Debo, this zone is characterized by the presence of numerous large lakes. Throughout the inundation zone, thousands of island-like habitation mounds (often referred to as tells after their better-known counterparts in the Near East) testify to the successful permanent settlement of the floodplain throughout much of the West African Iron Age (c. 500 bc–1000 ad). There is, as yet, no evidence to suggest that permanent settlement in the Inland Delta occurred prior to the introduction of iron to West Africa ...