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The international and interdisciplinary research program "Human populations and paleoclimatic evolution in West Africa" began in 1997 at the Ounjougou site complex (Bandiagara Plateau, Dogon Country, Mali). Its primary objective is to study the history of interactions between human populations and climatic and environmental variability from the Pleistocene to the present. Located about ten miles west of the city of Bandiagara, the Ounjougou complex comprises a series of sites of varying size and function, revealing the great archaeological richness of a region until now considered lacking in any prehistoric evidence. In addition to a sequence of human occupations ranging from the Lower Paleolithic to the present, the uniqueness of Ounjougou resides in access to exceptional data concerning evolution of the landscape through time. It is in the view of best taking advantage of this unique opportunity to study the direct relationship between population history and climatic and environmental variability that, over the last ten years, the program has developed many complementary and interrelated axes of research.
