#1274415 - 11/02/09 07:12 AM
Neolithic Monuments of the Sahara
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World Explorer
Registered: 06/28/06
Posts: 179
Loc: Germany
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For your Saharan archeology enjoyment I present a collection of approximately 400 stone monuments to be found in the general region of the Sahara.
I’m surveying the Sahara, East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula for evidence of human activity in prehistoric times. Round burial mounds as well as remnants of abandoned dwelling sites appear frequently throughout the whole region, so much so that I’ve decided not to include them in my report (see my notes below regarding mounds). I’ve found a number of more notable monuments or structures, and saw that these are distributed within certain parts of this huge region of the world. These structures are not unknown to archaeologists and visitors to the area, and some serious research has been done, but little is known about them. In general it’s possible to say that many are from the days when the Sahara was greener and inhabited by non-nomadic groups of people (8000 – 5000 B.C.). Still, some of the structures catalogued could be newer, as recent as 1000 B.C.
Crescents
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Crescent-shaped objects, some 300 m from tip to tip, are to be found all over the west and center of the Sahara (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Mali, and just over the border into Niger), though not along the coast. It is unknown what the shape was meant to represent, especially considering that there is so much variation in their shape that we may, in fact, be dealing with more than one symbol. The crescent moon, a bow, or horned livestock are some possible answers. Gradual evolution of the shape as its use expanded geographically or even artistic inconsistency are other possible explanations for the variation. Some appear to include a burial mound in the middle. In such cases the stone material appears to be of different colors (the mound darker, the crescent lighter), leading me to wonder if the crescent was added later. Most though not all of these crescents open toward the east. In terms of shape variations, some are slender and curved slightly, others have arms that point straight out from the central area, and others are curved radically. Current count: 287
Burial mounds with scale
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In eastern Mali and then again in central Niger you’ll find burial mounds that are partially encircled on their east side by much smaller mounds (which appear as dots in GE imagery). Note that these smaller mounds are sometimes arranged in a straight line. In either case, I’ve use the term scale simply because they are arranged quite evenly. Current count: 54
Burial mounds with entryway
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In mountainous areas of southern Algeria you'll find mounds surrounded by a ring and enclosed acentrically by an elliptical ring through which runs what appears to be a walkway leading to the mound. Note that this entryway leads from the east, though this is a general statement and the bearing is never exact. Most of these monuments are around 25 m wide, some are over 50 m. Current count: 64
Notes on burial mounds and dwelling sites
Ancient burial mounds are so common in the region I’ve been combing that I’ve decided to take them out of this collection. Circular mounds appear to have been a development common to many ancient societies throughout the world, but are perhaps more plainly visible here due to the lack of covering vegetation. Most here are certainly from the Neolithic era. In a few sub-Saharan locations I found that more modern cemeteries have been started in the same locations; these can be distinguished by the fact that their graves are smaller and long rather circular.
The following KMZ contains roughly 3,250 placemarks, mostly for burial mounds. Note that a placemark labeled “Mounds” (plural) could point to anywhere from 2 to 200 mounds. It also includes abandoned dwelling sites, which in an earlier post I called “irregulars” because of their non-geometric shapes; as structures for living and holding livestock they needed to be functional rather than monumental. Especially in East Africa some of these abandoned dwelling sites might be fairly recent; it appears that some traditional building practices have changed little over the millennia. While trying to learn more about the archaeology of the region I realized that some of the round objects I’ve seen are actually cylinder-shaped menhirs, especially along the outer edges of where I’ve been looking in Morocco and Algeria . Thinking back to everything that my eyes have come across in GE, I now comprehend why some of the mounds I’ve been seeing looked a bit different. But GE imagery is not always at the level where I can tell the different for sure (and there’s no horizontal views), so I’ll have to lump them up with garden-variety mounds.
The following link connects to a KMZ stored at MediaFire. As a result, they will not show up in the GE Community layer of Google Earth. I didn’t want thousands of little blue i’s showing up in Google Earth because I feel that the sheer number of these would obscure the otherwise more interesting things to be found in these regions.
... [Link to mounds is on its way]
You might find these placemarks helpful if you’re an archaeologist. If you merely want to see what they’re about, go ahead and open the file but I don’t recommend saving them when you exit Google Earth; even on my fast PC I find they slow down GE considerably.
Attachments
Neolithic Monuments of the Sahara.kmz (40 downloads)Preview this file with the Google Earth Plugin (learn more)
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#1274510 - 11/02/09 11:35 AM
Re: Neolithic Monuments of the Sahara
[Re: KenGrok]
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World Explorer
Registered: 12/28/05
Posts: 900
Loc: Central California
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You're an amazing guy, Ken. I sure like your collections, they make me wonder what would it would be like to talk to the people who created those rock piles. What do they all mean? What were they thinking?
Neat stuff, thanks.
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