ABSTRACT
In April 2004 the authors visited Mauritania to photograph and make records of rock paintings for the Trust for African Rock Art (TARA) and the Andrew Mellon Foundation website ArtSTOR. 1 Upon arrival, we found that rock art was by no means the chief archaeological element of the site: stone walls and what seemed to be funerary monuments of massive construction proliferate along the length of the ridge, indicating that at some point – not necessarily at the same time as the execution of the paintings – this site had been extensively inhabited by a reasonably large population, and one that could sustain organised and repeat-patterned dry-stone building. Evidence of a large iron smelting site at the foot of the ridge, and the profusion of stone tools, grindstones and pottery of all kinds indicate that this site was occupied at many points in time and sometimes by many people. It should be emphasised that due to time restrictions, this was a cursory expedition and was chiefly concerned with the photographic documentation of rock art. Archaeological observations made here are preliminary, and are an attempt to correlate with established and current research, or show variance where necessary.
