Wassu

At Wassu, circles of tall laterite pillars stand near the Gambia River among burial mounds. The stones were quarried and carefully shaped with iron tools, then set upright in rings. Excavations have dated burials at Wassu to between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. The site belongs to a much wider Senegambian tradition of stone circles, whose monuments testify to communities capable of organising skilled work and enduring burial practices over many generations.