Saloum Delta
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How it came to be
The Saloum Delta in central Senegal covers 5,000 square kilometres formed by the arms of three rivers: brackish channels around more than 200 islands and islets, mangrove forest, an Atlantic marine environment and dry forest. Fishing and shellfish gathering have sustained people here.
The delta holds 218 shell mounds, some several hundred metres long. According to the ICOMOS evaluation, radiocarbon dates put the oldest at up to 400 BC, and large-scale shellfish gathering and mound building went on for about 2,000 years, until around AD 1600. More than 900 burial tumuli, built between the 8th and 16th centuries, stand on 28 of the mounds; the mound at Dioron-Boumak runs 400 to 500 metres and the one at Ndiamon-Badat up to 800 metres.
The first excavations took place in 1939 at Dioron-Boundaw and Dioron-Boumak. From the late 19th century at least twenty mounds were quarried for lime and building fill. The area became a national park in March 1976 and a biosphere reserve in February 1981, and was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2011.
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