Pottery is a privileged medium for studies in anthropology of techniques and ethnoarchaeology, and is still an active craft in many regions of Africa, such as Senegal and The Gambia. There, pottery also constitutes an important chronological marker of megalithic funerary sites (8th-16th century CE) and a major indicator of ancient know-how. For both Past and Present, our knowledge of domestic production remains nevertheless very fragmentary in this region. Our research aims to overcome this lacuna by exploring the diversity of current ceramic traditions in the central regions of Senegal and The Gambia, through surveys among various potting communities (Wolof, Malinke, Sarakole). Related to the socio-economic context of production, this opening to ethnography questions the transmission of knowledge, the variability of chaînes opératoires, the modes of consumption, and the relationships between technical skills and potter’s identities. This contribution will particularly highlight how this approach can lead to historical interpretations that could, in turn, be set in parallel with available archaeological data from the 1st and 2nd millennia CE.