The Tichitt Tradition stone settlements

Record summary

The Tichitt-Walata tradition comprises stone-built settlements, field systems and ceramics associated with agropastoral communities in a region that is now arid. Excavations and survey have documented substantial occupation during the mid-to-late second millennium BCE and later contraction as environmental conditions changed. The sites matter for comparing early food production, sedentism, household organization and the origins of West African complexity. Uncertainty concerns population estimates, the balance between farming and herding, chronological variation among sites and the extent to which climate change alone explains settlement relocation.