Niger - Archaeological site of Bura

Bura belongs to a set of sites in this part of the Middle Niger Valley that cross the western Republic of Niger for 450 km; on a course of 250km long and about 150 km wide between the Malian border and the meanders of the "W". The site of Bura is in a circus of about 1 km in diameter, open to the southeast and dominated by hillocks-witnesses of the continental high terminal of 10 to 20 m. The bura necropolis site was discovered incidentally in 1975 150 km northwest of Niamey. The excavated section is 25 m long from north to south and 20 m from east to west. Bura includes 3 types of sites that are not always easy to distinguish from each other: ¨ Necropolis sites properly so called characterized by a particular kind of coffins-coffins or anthropomorphous funerary urns composed of pottery surmounted by heads of statuettes, placed upside down on the ground and containing human skeletons in Asinda-sikka. These sites include two distinct archaeological levels. ¨ Sites of religious altars and ritual ceremonies characterized by piles of large blocks of stones form a kind of flat tumulus or esplanades as in Asinda-Sikka, Karey-Tondi, Jajé-Tondi or Mebera-Tondi . There are fragments of feet of tripod vases and fragments of pottery in the form of small painted cylinders. ¨ Housing sites difficult to identify. But the discovery of fragments of tripod vases and sometimes some small piles and rows of large blocks of stone testify to a human presence. Also, on the site, quartzite or flint wastes are encountered representing the kerosene-gorizo ​​thin-walled and spherical-shaped site located west of the necropolis, behind a hill.