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The Later Pleistocene in the Northeastern Central African Rainforest

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Africa from MIS 6-2

Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

The reconstruction of Late Pleistocene population dynamics in the northeastern Central African rainforest is hampered by the scanty though intriguing environmental, archaeological, and human fossil records. The few well documented and dated sites combined with undated surface finds in museum collections are examined for patterning in their spatial, temporal, and technological distribution. The results are ambiguous and point to both continuity and discontinuity in occupation of forested environments prior to, during, and after MIS 2. Particularly striking is the absence of quartz microlithic industries or any Later Stone Age (LSA) assemblages in the western part of the region. This may be due to lack of suitable raw materials or low visibility of quartz scatters encountered during informal surveys. At the same time the analysis suggests potentially interesting avenues for future research. These include, for example, the role that riverine systems might have played in the patterning of both prehistoric and extant genetic relationships. Utilization of archaeologically perishable bone in lithic poor regions may also account for apparently disjunctive archaeological distributions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    File nr 1421 of the Archives Préhistoire at the Royal Museum for Central Africa contains an exchange of letters dating from 1987 between F. Van Noten of the Museum and J. Huxtable from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University. A preliminary TL result in excess of 80 ka on burnt stone from a depth of −525 cm below surface is mentioned, but there is no formal communication or publication of the result.

  2. 2.

    The author has published as Muya, D. and as wa Bitanko Kamwanga, M. due to political changes in name giving policy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Brian Stewart and Sacha Jones for their invitation to the conference, and especially Brian for his editorial guidance. At the Royal Museum for Central Africa I would like to thank several colleagues; at the Prehistory and Archaeology Department Lien Speleers and Alexander Vral for their efforts in locating a first series of sites and verifying sources in our joint attempt to draw archaeological maps of the Democratic Republic of Congo . Alexandre Livingstone-Smith has been very patient in explaining the use of ArcGIS and graciously shared his data on the Lomami River. The Cartography Department has provided the necessary assistance in GIS and F. Mees of the Mineralogy unit ensured identifications of raw materials.

I am indebted to J. Mercader and two anonymous reviewers for their most useful comments on an earlier draft and to J. Yellen for editing the English.

The final responsibility for all flaws in interpretation and points of view remains, of course, mine alone.

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  1. Heritage Studies, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080, Tervuren, Belgium

    Els Cornelissen

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  1. Els Cornelissen
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Correspondence to Els Cornelissen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cambridge, McDonald Inst. for Archaeological Rsch, United Kingdom

    Sacha C. Jones

  2. University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, ANN ARBOR, Michigan, USA

    Brian A. Stewart

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Cornelissen, E. (2016). The Later Pleistocene in the Northeastern Central African Rainforest. In: Jones, S., Stewart, B. (eds) Africa from MIS 6-2. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7520-5_16

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