If one disregards the influence of visitors and settlers on the coasts of Africa. Arabs, Portuguese and those from the North Mediterranean; then the only boats found in Africa were rafts (of wood or reed) or dugouts. Certainly some of these dugouts will have an added plank or two to increase freeboard but they are essentially still dugouts.

This boat on the other-hand, from Gao on the River Niger in Mali is something entirely different - a fully planked indigenous boat, and as such probably unique in the entire continent.

The boatman carried a small knife with him which he was constantly cramming (one could hardly call it caulking) the cracks with grass or any other handy vegetation. The very crude workmanship clearly illustrates that even towards the end of the 20th century there are still people building boats as they or others built them 10,000 years ago.

This boat was found by Mr Timothy Insoll of the Department of Archaeology at Cambridge and we are very grateful to him and Dr Tereba Togola (who took the boat 1,000 miles to Bamako on the top of his Land-Rover) for their great efforts on our behalf.

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Unknown

Fishing & Transport

Sewn Pirogue

1980's

Mali

Gao

Length
22 ft 3 in