THE recent debate about Iron Age Gao between John Hunwick and Dierk Lange within the pages of The Journal of African History has prompted the writing of this paper. Hunwick lamented the lack of archaeological research in the region, and hoped that the historical hypotheses which had been proposed would, one day, either be supported or refuted by archaeological work in conjunction with linguistic analysis. The limits of interpretation of the historical sources would appear to have been reached, and, as this author has recently conducted excavations and surveys at Gao, a contribution is offered to the debate based upon both the archaeological evidence recovered from these excavations, and from previous archaeological research which has been conducted in the Gao region.