ABSTRACT
Camel caravans and slave coffles plied the trade routes across the Sahara which served to link the trade centres of the Western Sahel, the name given to the semi-desertic fringe of the Sahara, with the major towns and cities of North Africa, Spain, and Egypt. The Sahel is a transitional zone between the Sahara and the more thickly wooded Sudanic savannah, and in the Sahel, rainfall, though still sparse, is more plentiful than in the Saharan zone. Trans-Saharan trade was in operation here from c.750 as attested by Islamic vessel glass and three grains of wheat, the latter of great significance as possibly attesting commerce in staple cereals, with wheat of potential importance 'to an Islamic diet' and as a luxury foodstuff. Gao Ancien was ringed with Muslim cemeteries, and the inscriptions recovered from these have also provided information on Islamisation processes within the region between the early twelfth and fourteenth centuries.
