Ivory Coast inaugurates first archaeological museum

Ahouati: Ivory Coast on Monday inaugurated a new extension of its first archaeological museum after Stone Age relics surfaced when a dam was being built in the south of the country.

The Paleolithic and Neolithic relics were uncovered during the construction of a hydraulic dam in the Ahouati region, leading to a decision to create an annex of the main museum, located in the economic capital Abidjan.

"An environmental constraint has become a historic opportunity," said Culture Minister Francoise Remarck, speaking at the annexe in Ahouati, which lies between Abidjan and Ivory Coast's political capital Yamoussoukro.

Health Minister Pierre Dimba, said the goal was to make Ivory Coast a "pioneering nation in terms of preservation and archaeological research".

The wing inaugurated on Monday displays the first treasures of Ivorian archaeology: metallurgical tools, bones which were "kept in a scattered and sometimes precarious manner," Remarck said.

Homo sapiens emerged in Africa 300,000 years ago but were once thought to have colonised tropical forests only 70,000 years back at the most.

After dating the findings from Anyama, north of Abidjan, researchers from Ivory Coast and several other countries concluded in a study that humans were living in such an environment at that spot 150 millennia ago.

Among the study's authors was retired Ivorian archaeologist Francois Guede Yiode -- considered by colleagues to be the only qualified prehistory specialist in the country.

"At last We have an appropriate place to display these finds which were kept in university laboratories," said Desire Dangi Kouame Kra, a young doctoral student in archaeology.