Obarè B. Bagodo
Departement d‟histoire et d‟archéologie
Université d‟Abomey-Calavi,
Bénin Republic

Introduction
The dating and sequencing of the human past started before, and continued with the inception
and the development of archaeology as a scientific discipline. This standpoint is important for
a fuller understanding of the dating and sequencing issues in the World Stone Age
Archaeology. It is also important for putting into perspective the use of radiometric dating
techniques as from the 1950s onwards with particular reference to West Africa. The
retrospective and prospective consideration of the West African case study since the 1970s is
emphasised.
After a long period of worldwide antiquarianism till the 19th century, the continuing
quest for dating and sequencing of human past led the Danish archaeologist Christian J.
Thomsen to propose in 1836 a-three-system of Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The same
motivation led the French antiquarian and archaeologist Jacques Boucher de Perthes to
undertake excavations at Abbeville, France, from 1837 to 1847. His publications between
1847 and 1860 established the first evidence associating human artefacts and bones of extinct
animals. In the same vein his “Celtic” and “Antediluvian” Antiquities anticipated the terms
“prehistory”, “palaeolithic” and “neolithic” asproposed by the English naturalist Sir John
Lubbock in 1865. In addition, from 1859 to 1871, the English naturalist Charles Darwin
established the evolutionary origin and development of plants, animals, and humans.
In the first half of the 20th century, new field techniques and global relative chronology
were achieved through: (i) the grid-square method pioneered by the English archaeologist Sir
Mortimer Wheeler; (ii) the criteria for chronological ranking of sites‟ evidence and the
problem-oriented stratigraphic excavation initiated by the American archaeologist Alfred
Kidder; and (iii) the pioneering use of pollen analysis in 1949-51 and the framing of five
evolutionary modes of Stone Age technology in 1969 by the English archaeologist Grahame
Clark. During the first half the 20th century, the South African archaeologist A.J.H. Goodwin
proposed in 1925 an African-centred two-stage subdivision of Earlier and Later Stone Age,
and in 1927 he suggested the term „Middle Stone Age‟. Finally in 1929 he co-authored with
C. Van Riet Lowe a synthesis titled The Stone Age cultures of South Africa.
From the second half of the 20th century and onwards, the breakthrough came with the
advent of the Radiocarbon (i.e. C14) dating technique between 1947 and 1949, followed by
the subsequent development of other radiometric/isotopic dating methods in the 1960s and
1970s. The Radiocarbon and other isotopic dating techniques have all revolutionized the
„absolute‟ dating and sequencing in the Stone Age Archaeology.
Such advances in the worldwide vision and technical skills of dating and sequencing of
Stone Age cultures have notably impacted the whole of Africa since 1947 with the Nairobihosted
1st Pan-African Congress for Prehistory and Quaternary Studies, and especially West
Africa since 1969 with the Ibadan-hosted Interdisciplinary Symposium on the role of
stratigraphy in geology and archaeology.
As a result, the retrospective and prospective emphasis of the African continental
picture as a whole with particular emphasis on the West African situation is herein taken into
account. The African picture is handled as a by-product of the world background challenges
and achievements in the dating and sequencing issues in the Stone Age Archaeology.