In sub-Saharan West Africa, there were only two known source of copper that were commercially viable: Dkra near Nioro, Mali and Takedda in Azelik, Niger. Akjoujt was a significant source of copper, but due to the lack of timber it lost its significance in early historic times. The sources for West Africa's copper came from southern Morocco, northwestern Mauritania, the Byzantine Empire and Central Europe.
In West Africa, there is a great deal of documentation about copper in trade, but the travelers who wrote these documents only visited the major centers of West African polities and there is no information on the people who lived out the polities or from the savanna and forest zones to the south, in terms of their use of copper. Arab and European trader documented that the principal goods that were in demand in West African markets were salt and copper. There has been a lack of research done in the savannah and forest regions of West Africa so the evidence of the diffusion copper there is spotty at best. Despite West Africa's rich gold resources, high status people were most often buried with copper grave goods. The only sites prior to 1500 AD to have gold were Djenné, Tedaoust, and several tumuli in Senegal.