In Search of Prehistoric Senegal

Photos from the Archaeology Laboratory, Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar.

Dr. Ibrahima Thiaw is an Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Institut d'Afrique Noire (IFAN) at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar.  Dr.  Thiaw is also Director of the Archaeology Lab, and Curator of the IFAN Museum, located in downtown Dakar, which my students visited a few weeks ago.  We met with him this morning, and toured the Archaeology Lab, and its extensive collection of pre-historic artifacts from Senegal and West Africa.

It is with Dr. Thiaw's support and resources that I hope to piece together the pre-history of Senegal, for presentation to a general audience, as the ISD international community of parents and kids.  It is certainly a story unknown, and thus worth telling.

The interest in archaeology here in Senegal is slight to none.  Building projects, which are abundant here on the peninsula, require no prior archaeological survey.  Across the country, key archaeological sites have been obliterated, perceived as culturally irrelevant.  It has been Dr. Thiaw's mission to reverse this trend, thus his welcoming attitude toward schools, classrooms, and children.

I expressed my interest in museum apprenticeships, and a desire to create a link between my class and the Archaeology Lab, perhaps laying the groundwork for digitizing the collection, making it available to schools and teachers.