The Mandé peoples are ethnic groups who are speakers of Mande languages. Various Mandé speaking ethnic groups are found particularly toward the west of West Africa. The Mandé Speaking languages are divided into two primary groups: East Mandé and West Mandé. The Mandinka or Manding (Malinke, Bambara and Dioula), a western branch of the Mandé, are credited with the founding of the largest ancient West African empires. Other large Mandé speaking ethnicities include the Soninke and Susu as well as smaller ethnic groups such as the Ligbi, Vai, and Bissa. Mandé speaking people inhabit the sparse Sahel. They have a wide range of cuisines, cultures, and beliefs, and are organized mainly by their language group. Today they are predominantly Muslim and follow a caste system. Islam has played a central role in identifying the Mandé speaking people who originate and live in the Sahel regions the Mandinka and Soninke who have been described as transcending individual tribal affiliations. influences from Mandé speaking people have historically spread far beyond immediate areas to other neighboring Muslim West Africans groups who inhabited the sahel and savanna. The Mandé speaking people conducted increased trade down the River Niger or overland, and achieved military conquest with the expansion of the Ghana Empire, Mali Empire, and Kaabu and Wassoulou states. The non-Mande-speaking Fula, Songhai, Wolof, Hausa, and Voltaic peoples maintain varying degrees of close alignment with the Mandé speaking peoples worldview, clothing and other cultural artefacts (a shared written script, architecture, cuisine, and social norms). History Prehistory Descended from ancient central Saharan people, the Mandé speaking peoples constitute an identifiable language family, with associated peoples spread throughout West Africa. The Mande speaking peoples are known as having been early producers of woven textiles, by a process known as strip-weaving. The Mandé speaking people have been credited with the independent development of agriculture by about 4,000–3,000 BC. This agricultural base stimulated the development of some of the earliest and most complex civilizations of Western Africa. Mande Speaking peoples founded the Ghana (Soninke) and Mali (Mandinka) empires. Archaeological evidence shows that the Mandé Speaking people were early producers of stone settlement civilizations. These were initially built on the rocky promontories of Tichitt-Walata and Dhar Néma in the Tagant cliffs of Southern Mauritania beginning between around 2,000 BC and 1,500 BC by ancient Mande speaking people, likely early Soninke, peoples. Hundreds of stone masonry settlements, with clear street layouts,