Jenne-Jeno (also Djenné-Jéno) is the original site of Djenné, Mali and considered to be among the oldest urbanized centers in sub-Saharan Africa. It has been the subject of archeological excavations by Susan and Roderick McIntosh (and others) and has been dated to the 3rd century BC. There is evidence of iron-production, use of domesticated plants and animals, and complex homoarchical urban development as early as 900 AD.[1]
Radiocarbon dates show that people first settled here permanently in about 250 BC. Between 750 and 1000 AD, after centuries of occupation stood an 82-acre (330,000 m2) near the river Bani consisting of a large tear-shaped mound surrounded by 69 hillocks, created by its people (which may have numbered up to 27,000), who built and rebuilt their houses.[2] During this time period, notable changes are observed as having occurred. Previously, from the fifth to ninth century, houses at Jenne-Jeno were constructed with puddled mud or tauf foundations, later to be replaced by innovative cylindrical-brick architecture. While data on the source of this apparent innovation is scant, it is suggested that the process was indigenous since change is also seen with an accompanied continuity in pottery and the general structural lay-out of the houses; therefore it is unlikely that any change in ethnic composition had occurred.[3] The first verifiable Islamic influence on the town appears in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the form of brass, spindle whorls, and rectilinear houses.
The inhabitants of Jenne-Jeno were an aquatic and largely subsistence based people. They accomplished what is thought to have been among the first examples of rice domestication on the continent and were the first in the Western Sudan region to establish its signature mud-brick architecture; a predecessor to Sudano-Sahelian.[4] They also possessed their own iron technology and developed some of the finest terracotta figures in the region.[5]