and the Bono State goldfields. They were noted for their honesty and industry. A Malian source, cited in the Tarikh al-Sudan, distinguishes the Wangara on a socio-professional level from their Malinke kinsmen by claiming the latter to be princes and warriors and the former "traders who carry gold dust from country to country as the courtiers of princes". Located in the Lakes Region at the eastern end of the "country of Wanqara" was Tiraqqa or Tombouze, a predecessor of Timbuktu. It was one of the great commercial centers of the region—a meeting place of caravans from Ghana and Tadmakka in the 10th and 11th centuries—and a dependency of Ghana. Al-Idrisi describes it as "one of the towns of Wanqara"—large, well populated, and unwalled—and relates that it was "subject to the ruler of Ghana, in litigation."It remained an important mart until the 13th century, at which time Timbuktu replaced it. Not only were they gold merchants, they exercised a virtual monopoly of the world-system's gold trade. Al-Idrisi describes their land as having "flourishing towns and famous strongholds. Its inhabitants are rich, for they possess gold in abundance, and many good things are imported to them from the outermost parts of the earth... " They descend from Neolithic Era Bafour people. Black agriculturalist inhabitants of a once fertile Green Sahara. Increased Desertification drove these proto-Soninke, pre-Ghana civilizations southwest where they established stone settlements as early as 3000 B.C.E. (possibly as far back as 4000 B.C.E. or even earlier) at sites Dhar Tichitt/Tichitt; Dhar Walata, and Dhar Néma. Herodotus the Greek tells of silent trade between Carthage and unspecified regions to its south. Pointing to stories of Punic travelers like Hanno the Navigator. If true, trade with Carthage possibly started as early as the 6th century B.C. Well before the known start of Ghana in 300B.C.-300A.D. It is very possible that the decline of Carthage after the Punic Wars left the Soninke clans cut off & tradeless as Carthage kept their source of African gold secret. (A tradition the Wangara would continue). No matter the historical fact eventually the power vacuum created was filled by Ghana-Berber trade. "The Carthaginians also tell us that they trade with a race of men who live in a part of Libya beyond the Pillars of Hercules. On reaching this country, they unload their goods, arrange them tidily along the beach, and then, returning to their boats, raise