Senegambia Stone Circles
The Stone Circles of Senegambia sites consists of four large groups of stone circles that represent an extraordinary concentration of over 1,000 monuments in a band 100 km wide along some 350 km of the River Gambia. The four groups, Sine Ngayène, Wanar, Wassu and Kerbatch, cover 93 stone circles and numerous tumuli, burial mounds, some of which have been excavated to reveal material that suggest dates between 3rd century BC and 16th century AD. Together the stone circles of laterite pillars and their associated burial mounds present a vast sacred landscape created over more than 1,500 years. In this region, some 29,000 upright stones making up close to 17,000 monuments are known from some 2000 sites.
Africa has not been well served by scholarship on cultural astronomy. Sensational claims of advanced astronomical knowledge for the Dogon people of Mali have given African cultural astronomy an "ancient astronaut" sort of reputation. One well-known megalithic site, Namoratunga II, near Lake Turkana in Kenya may well have aided calendrical observations around 300 BC. But no other Sub-Saharan monuments have been surveyed for their archaeoastronomical potential. Numerous sites merit such investigation: the ruins in the Great Zimbabwe tradition, the Central African Republic's Bouar megaliths, and the Senegambian stone circles.
The megalithic phenomenon in Senegambia belongs to the protohistoric period, early second millennium AD, which is closely linked to the context of emerging states. Megaliths were erected in association with the establishment of state structures in West Africa, first in the area delimited by the Niger and then as far as the Atlantic coast. Even today these monuments signal strong identity values, as the megalithssymbolise an ancient history that is specifically African. It reflects a prosperous, highly organized and lasting society.
Cemeteries with monumental burial features were a key element of the Megaliths builders cultural landscape. They may have signaled the control and “ownership” of a spot or a stretch of land. The Sine-Ngayene site complex in Senegal, which includes an habitation site, and iron-smelting site, and a quarry located at approximately 1 km in the northeast, was in use from 1200-1350 BC to 1500 AD [megalithic construction dates to around the middle of this long period].
The age and origins remain a puzzle but a limited amount of recent excavation work suggests that they date from between the 3rd century BC and 16th century AD. Thus they pre-date the current inhabitants of the area, the Manding people, who only arrived later. Megalithic monuments and burial practices have been shown to vary in time and space, in a time frame known to range from 200 BC to AD 1500. The monuments are partitioned into monoliths circles, stone circles, stone tumuli, and earthen tumuli. Their frequency and patterns of distribution vary from site to site.
These sites, Wassu, and Kerbatch in The Gambia, and Wanar and Sine Ngayene in Senegal, represent an extraordinary concentration of more than 1,000 stone circles and related tumuli spread over a territory of 100 km wide and 350 km in length, along the River Gambia. Together, the four groups comprise 93 circles and associated sites, some of which have been excavated, some of which have revealed archaeological material and human burials, from pottery to iron instruments and ornamentation dating between the 1st and 2nd millennia AD. These four megalithic sites are the most dense concentration in the zone and have Outstanding Universal Value, representing a traditional monumental megalithic construction spread out over a vast area, with more than 1,000 stone circles scattered along one of the major rivers of Africa.
The Sine Ngayene complex (Senegal) is the largest site in the area. It consists of 52 circles of standing stones, including one double circle. In all, there are 1102 carved stones on the site. Around 1km to the east, (outside the inscribed property) is the quarry from which the monoliths were extracted and where the sources of around 150 stones can be traced. The site was excavated around 1970, and more recently by Bocoum and Holl. The work established that the single burials appeared to precede in time the multiple burials associated with the stone circles.
The Wanar complex (Senegal) consists of 21 circles including one double circle. The site contains 9 ‘lyre’ stones or bifed stones, sometimes with a cross piece strung between the two halves. The Wassu complex (Guinea) consists of 11 circles and their associated frontal stones. This site has the highest stones of the area. The most recent excavations conducted on these megalithic circles date to the Anglo-Gambian campaign led by Evans and Ozanne in 1964 and 1965. The finds of burials enabled the dating of the monuments between 927 and 1305 AD. The Kerbatch complex consists of 9 circles, including a double circle. The site possesses a ‘bifid’ stone, the only known one in the area. The stones forming the circles were extracted from nearby laterite quarries using iron tools and skilfully shaped into almost identical pillars, either cylindrical or polygonal, on average around 2 m in height and weighing up to 7 tons. Each circle contains between eight to fourteen standing stones having a diameter of four to six meters.
The regional settlement pattern consisted of small dispersed but close homesteads and hamlets. No evidence for large village sites has been found. These small-scale peasant societies who build impressive megalithic features to bury their deceased, can be expected to have devised a range of socio- cultural mechanisms to cope with access to critical resources, in this case prime agricultural land, the river for water and aquatic resources, and high grade iron ore for iron producers.
In The Gambia, management of the of the two sites (Wassu and Kerbath) fall under the responsibility of the National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC) in accordance with the law promulgated by the National Assembly (NCAC Law of 1989, amended in 2003). The NCAC is the dismantled technical section of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. The daily management of the sites is under the responsibility of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage of the NCAC that employs, on a permanent basis, the caretakers and maintenance staff.
In Senegal, the two sites enjoy legal protection: Law No.71-12 of 25 January 1971, regulating the regime for historical sites and monuments and excavations and finds/ Decree 73-746 of 8 August 1973 promulgating the law.
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