800 to 1399

Early peoples

People have lived on these savannas for many thousands of years. Farming peoples such as the ancestors of today's Bobo, Lobi, Gurunsi and Senufo build village societies without kings. In the south west, the stone walls of Loropéni, at least a thousand years old and now a World Heritage site, are linked to the gold trade that runs north to the Niger bend.