Natural region in Mauritania
Aoukar
عوكر
Location of the Aoukar basin in Mauritania
Country
Mauritania Elevation
240 m (790 ft)
Aoukar or Erg Aoukar
[1] (
Arabic : عوكر ) is a
geological depression area of south eastern
Mauritania . It is located between
Kiffa and
Néma , south of the
Tagant Plateau . The region is also referred to as Hodh or El Hodh
[5] (
Arabic : الحوض ,
lit. 'the
Basin ').
[3]
The Aoukar basin is a dry
natural region of
sand dunes and
salt pans fringed by
escarpments on its northern and eastern sides.
History
There was once vast
reed -covered
endorheic lake in the area, but it no longer exists. The former lake of Aoukar extended towards the area of
Tichit , bordering the southern edge of the
Tagant Plateau . Below the cliffs (dhars) facing the extinct lake remains of about 400 villages have been found.
[6]
[7]
An 1861 German map displaying the unoccupied Hodh amid the
Toucouleur Empire of
Umar Tall .
From east to west, Dhar
Néma , Dhar
Walata , Dhar
Tichitt , and Dhar
Tagant form a semicircular shape around the Hodh/Aoukar Depression, which, prior to 4000 BCE, was an area with lakes of considerable size, and, after 1000 BCE, was an area that had become increasingly dried.
[8] During the emergence of the Tichitt Tradition, it was an oasis area.
[8] The
Tichitt Tradition of eastern Mauritania dates from 2200 BCE
[9]
[10] to 200 BCE.
[11]
[12]
Previously administered as part of
French Sudan (present-day
Mali ), the area was transferred to
French Mauritania in 1944, apparently on a whim of the colonial governor
Laigret .
[13] The transfer was still resented upon Mali's independence.
[14] Formerly more fertile, it is now largely a barren waste.
[15]
Aoukar/Hodh gave its name to the modern
Mauritanian
regions of
Hodh Ech Chargui and
Hodh El Gharbi .
Ecology
The Aoukar is one of the few natural refuges for the
addax , a
critically endangered kind of antelope which lives in the region.
[16]
See also
References
^ Marco Stoppato, Alfredo Bini (2003), Deserts , p. 156
^ Fāsī, Muḥammad & al.
General History of Africa , Vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century , p. 130 . UNESCO (Paris), 1988. Accessed 18 Apr 2014.
^
a
b
Barth, Henry .
Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, being a Journal of an Expedition undertaken under the Auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the Years 1849–1855 , Vol. 3, pp. 712 ff. Harper & Bros. (New York), 1859. Accessed 18 Apr 2014.
^ Ould-Mey, Mohameden.
Global Restructuring and Peripheral States: The Carrot and the Stick in Mauritania , p. 66. Rowman & Littlefield (
Lanham ), 1996. Accessed 18 Apr 2014.
^ Also encountered as Hōdh , Ḥawḍ ,
[2] Hódh ,
[3] and al-Hodh .
[4]
^
"Tichit - The living ghost of yesterday's glory" . Archived from
the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-08-13 .
^ G. Marcus and B. de Valicourt (2000). Mauritanie, p. 10
^
a
b MacDonald, Kevin C.; Vernet, Robert; Martinon-Torres, Marcos; Fuller, Dorian Q.
"Dhar Néma: From early agriculture to metallurgy in southeastern Mauritania" . ResearchGate . Azania Archaeological Research in Africa.
^ McDougall, E. Ann (2019). "Saharan Peoples and Societies".
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History .
doi :
10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.285 .
ISBN
978-0-19-027773-4 .
^ Holl, Augustin F.C.
"Coping with uncertainty: Neolithic life in the Dhar Tichitt-Walata, Mauritania, (ca. 4000–2300 BP)" . ScienceDirect . Comptes Rendus Geoscience.
^ MacDonald, K.; Vernet, R. (2007).
Early domesticated pearl millet in Dhar Nema (Mauritania): evidence of crop processing waste as ceramic temper . Netherlands: Barkhuis. pp. 71–76.
ISBN
9789077922309 .
^ Kay, Andrea U. (2019).
"Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500" . Journal of World Prehistory . 32 (2): 179–228.
doi :
10.1007/s10963-019-09131-2 .
hdl :
10230/44475 .
S2CID
134223231 .
^ Lalonde, Suzanne.
Determining Boundaries in a Conflicted World: The Role of Uti Possidetis, p. 109. McGill-Queen's University Press (Montreal), 2002. Accessed 18 Apr 2014.
^ Touval, Saadia.
The Boundary Politics of Independent Africa , p. 247 . iUniverse, 1999.
ISBN
1583484221 . Accessed 18 Apr 2014.
^ Morgan, William & al. West Africa , pp. 254 ff. Methuen, 1973.
^
Richard Trillo, The Rough Guide to West Africa
External links
18°00′N 9°30′W / 18.000°N 9.500°W / 18.000; -9.500