Stone Circles of Senegambia
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How it came to be
Along some 350 km of the River Gambia, in a band 100 km wide, stand more than 1,000 stone circles and burial mounds. The four inscribed groups, Sine Ngayène and Wanar in Senegal and Wassu and Kerbatch in the Gambia, contain 93 stone circles and many tumuli. Material from excavated mounds points to dates between the 3rd century BC and the 16th century AD.
The pillars were cut from laterite with iron tools and average about 2 m in height and 7 tonnes in weight. Wassu has the tallest stone, at 2.59 m, and burials there have been dated to between 927 and 1305. Sine Ngayène, the largest group, has 52 circles and 1,102 carved stones, and work since 2002 has found iron-smelting sites and hundreds of house remains nearby.
Who built the circles is not settled. No living group claims them in its oral history as the work of its own ancestors; the Serer attribute them to the Soos, earlier occupants of the land. Built over more than 1,500 years, the sacred landscape points to a prosperous and well-organised society. It was inscribed in 2006.
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