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Kirikongo is an Iron Age village located in Burkina Faso near the Mouhoun River and is characterized by numerous mounds (Dueppen 2012). These mounds are remnants of house mounds, with the majority of them having been the village center (Dueppen 2012). Occupation at the site, based on AMS dating of charcoal, was from AD 100 to around AD 1700. Although the site started with a few households, it grew over time and more mounds were constructed. By AD 700, social differentiation is present at Kirikongo, demonstrated by differences in settlement organization. The importance of Kirikongo and investigations of other sites in the Mouhoun River drainage system is that the system remains relatively unexplored and the history of the area is crucial to understanding later developments (Holl and Kote 2000; Kuba and Lentz 2002).

Architectural features of note at Kirikongo include ritualized architecture indicative of an ancestor house. Here, goods were collected and stored and ritual animal sacrifice occurred--evidenced by faunal remains (Dueppen 2012). Another unique aspect of Kirikongo is evidence for a shift in the production of ceramics. Around AD 1100, ceramic production seems to have shifted from an unspecialized to a specialized sequence based on a loss of high localized variability (Dueppen 2012). Subsistence remains demonstrate an economy that emphasized localized opportunistic hunting, presence of certain domesticates, and cultivation of plants.

From a greater scale in archaeology of Western Africa, Kirikongo has little evidence for long-distance trade (Dueppen 2012). This conflicts with northern Burkina Faso and the known trade interactions with Saharan and coastal populations. Additionally, ceramic assemblages at Kirikongo are indicative of the potential for regional interaction and cultural development out of pre-existing populations (Dueppen 2012). Cattle adoption at Kirikongo is argued to have occurred relatively early and perhaps demonstrates a trend of adoption across sub-Saharan Western Africa around the same time (Dueppen 2012b).