Abstract
This paper presents new data from the project ‘Vegetation History and Archaeobotany of the West African Savannas’ at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, provided by palynology and the investigation of charcoal, fruits and seeds from archaeological sites. Our evidence from the Sahel in Burkina Faso and from north-east Nigeria indicates that agriculture started simultaneously in both areas around 3000 BP (c. 1200 BC) and that it was probably introduced from outside. The first pastoralists arriving in the Sahel zone of north-east Nigeria around 3700 BP (c. 2000 BC), depended wholly on wild grasses as a source of carbohydrates, and it was at least some hundreds of years before they added domesticated Pennisetum to their diet. Palynological data point to a major change towards drier conditions around 3300 BP which might have stimulated the introduction of agriculture into the Sahel. However, in some areas wild grasses remained the staple food until historical times.
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Neumann, K. (1999). Early Plant Food Production in the West African Sahel. In: van der Veen, M. (eds) The Exploitation of Plant Resources in Ancient Africa. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6730-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6730-8_7
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