Dhar Tagant (Tagant Plateau & Dhar Valleys)
Tagant Plateau · Dhar Tagant escarpment
Late Neolithic to medieval (1800 BCE–11th c CE)·Tichitt Culture / Sanhaja pastoralists·🇲🇷 Tagant Region, Mauritania
About
About Dhar Tagant (Tagant Plateau & Dhar Valleys)
Southern Mauritanian cuesta 400 km long linking Tichitt to Atlantic, Tagant is intermediate Dhar system with scatters of Neolithic Tichitt-culture hamlets, tumuli (karkur mounds), and later Hodh-era agro-pastoral sites. French AOF surveys located >50 stone hamlets on plateau rim, with copper axe deposits and rock engravings of cattle in Tagant rock shelters (Guelta Matmata). Serves as conceptual bridge between Tichitt–Walata south and Adrar north; hydrologically feeds middle Hodh. Few excavations, but Amblard noted pearl millet impressions on pottery identical to Tichitt. Serves as diffusion corridor hypothesis for Tagant–Dhar complexity spread.
Why it mattersHypothesis of interconnected Dhar cuesta system as West Africa's first regional polity lattice; tests millet domestication spread.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Whether Tagant villages are Tichitt-culture or distinct facies
- 02Copper axe chronology – 1500 BCE vs later
Theories
- 01Amblard continuity thesis Tagant as Dhar Tichitt northward spread (1984)
- 02Karkur tumuli as Berber ancestor linkage
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- Neolithic 1800–500 BCE hamlets; medieval use 11th c caravan tracks
- Period
- Late Neolithic to medieval (1800 BCE–11th c CE)
- Culture
- Tichitt Culture / Sanhaja pastoralists
- Builders
- Tichitt-derived agropastoralists
- Purpose
- Plateau rim agropastoral edge linking two larger Dhar systems
- Excavation
- Unexcavated
Neolithic 1800–500 BCE hamlets; medieval use 11th c caravan tracks
Initial construction
c. 1366 CE
Abandonment
On the ground
Structures & features
18.5500° N · 10.2500° W · 380 m · 3 mapped features
Guelta Matmata Rock Shelters
rock shelterShelters with cattle engravings and hamlet scatter
18.5800° N · 10.2800° WPlateau Rim Hamlet Cluster
hamletTypical cluster of dry-stone compounds 1 ha
18.5450° N · 10.2450° WKarkur Tumuli Field
tumulusCairn tumuli line on plateau edge
18.5480° N · 10.2520° W