Dia (Jà[1]) is a small town and seat of the commune of Diaka in the Cercle of Ténenkou in the Mopti Region of southern-central Mali.

[2] It is situated at the western edge of the Inland Delta floodplain, and is watered by the Diaka, one of the Niger River's major distributaries and the only permanent watercourse in the region.

[1] The three-settlement mound complex of Dia, located at the western edge of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali, is known for rich oral and written resources, and predates the much better-known cities of nearby Djenne and Timbuktu.

"[4] This vast site thus offers the possibility of studying the beginning of urbanization in this part of Africa and the structure of an early West African city.

One of them was the large-scale excavations initiated by Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden, within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage program.

They have been discovered in small numbers in deposits of all sites in Dia, but they seem to occur in much larger quantities at Shoma as seven clay beads have been recorded from one unit.

[3] In the Inland Niger Delta of Mali, it has been shown that all the different ethnic groups had their distinctive ceramic traditions, which are characterized by their vessel-shaping techniques and decorative styles.

Also in Dia, potters usually belonged to the blacksmith caste of the Somono, and they generally used a combination of a concave mold with a coiling technique in the initial phase of construction.

[3] Dia's occupational history is characterized by the usurpation of local power by a series of incoming groups; which includes Bozo(Somono), Marka(Soninke), and the Peulh(Fulani).

The region's population groups have mainly been identified by their specialized economies such as the Bozo and Somono fisherfolk, Soninke rice cultivators and traders, and Peulh pastoralists.

Although the language of Bozo and Somono is different, they may have the same family names as both groups today claim Soninke ancestry from ancient Ghana.

"[9] Oral history portrays indigenous Bozo hunters and fishermen as the first inhabitants of Dia, which entered the Middle Niger region around 2000 BC.

Somono has been portrayed as namakalaw, a term that describes occupationally defined artisans who guard their professional secrets through endogamy and esoteric ritual procedures.

Dia's oral and written sources portray conflicting pasts, as the multiethnic communities support multiple versions of its cultural history and the arrival of Islam.

The latter issue is particularly complex, as Dia prides itself on its Islamic traditions, while archaeological excavations have revealed relatively recent evidence for non-Islamic religious practices, diet, and rituals.

It is important to understand that Dia's historical records have been subject to a continual process of change in order to justify present institutions, power structures, and religious authorities.

It has been widely acknowledged that manuscripts written by Muslim chroniclers should be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism as it could lead us to an Orientalist discourse on sub-Saharan Africa, which considers Islamic influence as the driving force for important developments.