Archaeology Magazine - September 1959 - 29

at the end. It is doubtful if this distinction holds in West
Africa, as in Ghana I have found Hoenderbek cores
apparently in the much later Sangoan contexts.
We may, at any rate, assign the Diarabakoko collection to Chelles-Acheul III-IV, corresponding to the
Early and Middle Acheulian in Europe. Apart from the
human interest, as illustrating how a man of that time
equipped himself, the collection is important from two
points of view. Many tools of Chelles-Acheul III-IV
have been collected from the tin mines around Jos in
northern Nigeria (H. J. Braunholtz in Geological Survey of Nigeria, Occasional Papers, IV ; B. Fagg, Congrès
internationale des Africanistes de l'Ouest, iii, 203) ;
elsewhere in West Africa they are practically unknown,
though tools of an earlier (Chelles-Acheul II) and of a
later stage (Chelles-Acheul V and Sangoan) almost pave
the ground near the coast in parts of Ghana and Togo.
This distribution was conditioned by the equatorial forest. Primitive man would have had difficulty in penetrating the forest through the dense scrub which usually
fringes it; and when he did penetrate, he would find
little to eat. He must have lived largely on game and
carrion, partly on leaves, tubers and insects. As he hunted
by sight and not by smell, he had to keep to fairly open
country; savannah would also yield a better harvest when
he grubbed in the ground. In the high forest anything
edible would be at the tops of the trees, beyond his reach.
A fairly concordant climatic sequence is being established for all parts of tropical Africa. It is agreed that in
the past rainfall has varied, and these variations have
caused the forest to extend or to shrink. We know also
that the Chelles-Acheul III-IV industries belong to a
wetter period, while at the periods of Chelles-Acheul II
and the Sangoan it was much drier. The distribution of
these industries in Guinea reflects the changing climate.
When the rainfall was high, man moved a long way
north. The upper Comoe Valley, with about 1200 mms.
of rain annually, and now open grassland, was visited
rarely ; around Jos, farther north, there are abundant
traces of man. But in dry periods man was able to reach
the coast and occupy much of what is now forest; areas
which now receive more than 1500 mms. of rain may
have had 700 mm. ; what is now forest was open grassland, and what is now grassland may have been desert.
THE AUTHOR studied at Oxford University and, after
three years at the British School of Archaeologyat Athens,
was appointed to the University of Belfast in 1930. He
worked for many years on ancient mining and on the prehistory of Ulster. During part of the war he held a post at
the Universityof Istanbul. From 1948 to 1952 Mr. Davies
was Professor of Classics in Natal, where he was able to
trace the main outlines of the prehistory of the province.
He then was appointed to the UniversityCollege of Ghana,
and is now doingresearchon West Africanarchaeology.

The Diarabakoko pieces are probably the first belonging to the hand-axe culture to have been found in the
territory of Upper Volta. This large area is still archaeologically a blank. But this one find gives hope of more
and is moreover a pointer where and how to look.
Stone Age finds in Africa are frequently made near
rivers- malaria and other diseases which now drive man
from river valleys must be of very recent spread. But in
the gentle relief of West Africa, river deposits are liable
to be buried rather than exposed. The Gulf of Guinea has
receded some fifty meters vertically in the last half million years; a similar lowering of the oceans has been
recorded in most parts of the world. In consequence,
rivers flowing into it have cut their beds down; and for
climatic reasons this dissection took place not continuously but in a series of steps. The rivers meandered in
their valleys, and the remains of old valley floors have
been left as river terraces perched a good many meters
above the present beds. It was in the old valleys that
prehistoric man often lived; so we find his tools deposited according to age on the different terraces (see
the schematic diagram of the Birim Valley, A) .
As one advances inland toward the plateau and the
watershed, the valleys have cut down much less. Near the
coast, the latest terrace is at 8-10 meters above the
present rivers; in the northern Ivory Coast, at Béoumi
and Léraba Bridge, the oldest terrace is at only twelve
meters. The rivers have incised very shallow valleys,
filled them with silt, then eroded the silt again without
further cutting into rock. As a result we do not find a set
of steps on which tools of different ages are neatly deposited. The tin miners at Jos have revealed sections
which show how deposition has proceeded (see diagrammatic section, B). Valleys have silted, eroded,
silted and eroded again, and silted in modern times. Each
silt deposit contains its particular type of tools; but as
they are buried, hardly a single piece would have been
discovered if there had been no tin mining. In Upper
Volta and other parts of West Africa there has not been
a similar economic incentive to digging out the valleys
(see diagram, C) ; and the archaeologist with limited
resources cannot afford to do so. As these territories are
modernized, the construction of massive dams and other
works may section valleys to bedrock. I have little doubt
that in the buried deposits sequences of Palaeolithic occupation will be discovered similar to those at Jos, to
demonstrate the presence of man for as long a time as
we have been able to demonstrate near the coast. Africa
is a very ancient area of human occupation; and though
West Africa may not be able to carry back to the very
beginnings of humanity, it undoubtedly has a respectable
record compared to other continents of the globe.
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Archaeology Magazine - September 1959

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September 1959