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Presented here are some aspects of an archaeological investigation conducted in eastern Mauritania in the region of Dhar Nema, a south-eastern extension of the Oualata and Tichitt cliffs (Dhar). This evidence is presented with a focus on its environmental context. The escarpment of the Dhar, a specific geomorphological environment, provided a refuge geoecosystem that continued to supply water during the second part of the Holocene. During the period leading to the current aridity in the southern Sahara, the neolithic populations came there to seek refuge. Amongst more than 70 sites studied, six were chosen that each illustrate a different topographic and ecological context and the interactions of the populations with these. Their location corresponds to varied geological “accidents” oriented perpendicular to the escarpment and in direction of the Baten. In order to survive in this fragile environment during this warming period, the populations developed essential social and technical innovations. These sites have evidenced the characteristics of the evolution of a culture that existed from the 3rd millennium before our era, with notably a social organisation in villages as well as agricultural practices and animal husbandry, which developed from the commencement of their sedentarisation.

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During the second half of the Holocene, the Dhar (cliffs) Tichitt and Walata (southeastern Mauritania) constituted a refuge area for human populations in the increasingly arid southern Sahara, essentially between the third and first millennium bce . Besides open‐air sites in the Baten , more than 400 villages with thick dry‐stone walls were built on the edge of the Dhar . Sedentary populations practiced breeding (bovines, ovi‐caprines) and agriculture (pearl millet), which was possible thanks to the hydrological system linked to the cliff. The lithic artifacts, made with local rocks, include small and heavier tools, arrows, and an abundance of grinding equipment. Bone tools are varied but rare. Adornment is present. In the decorated round‐bottomed pottery items, the abundant vegetable temper included in the clay left impressions of domesticated Pennisetum (pearl millet). Terracotta figurines represent ovi‐caprines and bovines. On the plateau, fields enclosed by walls have soils resulting from an anthropogenic transport of sediments from the Baten to the Dhar for growing; small turriform gardens, surrounded by stones, with a filling of same nature, are reminiscent of those of the present Dogon of Mali. In this refuge area, these village communities were able to adapt, from the earliest stage of occupation, to manage resources, produce others, and store them (in jars and granaries). When anthropogenic pressure on the environment became too strong and water sources dried up, human groups left the region following the Baten toward the Dhar Tagant and Nema, west and south‐southwest extensions of these cliffs, where evidence attests to this.