The Central African rain forest: Historical speculation and archaeological facts

Abstract

Abstract This paper takes up the current debate of whether hunter‐gatherers were able to survive in dense evergreen forests prior to the advent of agriculture and, consequently, the establishment of exchange ties with sedentary, agricultural groups. Three main aspects are examined: (1) the evolution of the Central African rain forest; (2) current reasoning regarding pygmy hunter‐gatherers in the equatorial forest; (3) lithic evidence of the presence of hunter‐gatherers in what once may have been dense forest environments. It is concluded that, first, the Ituri forest case is overstated and, second, archaeological evidence partly attests to the presence of hunter‐gatherers in the forest prior to the penetration of agriculturalists. In the second part of the paper current views on the settlement of the Central African forest developed on the basis of comparative Bantu linguistics are summarized and confronted with the archaeological data base of the inner Congo‐Zaïre Basin. It is evident that any attempt to link directly the findings of historical linguistics and archaeology is premature on both factual and theoretical grounds.