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Within the middle Ogooue´ valley (Gabon), the Lope depression appears as a very particular area with savannas landscape surrounded by rain forest. Such a pattern results from the low annual rainfall and also extensive surface erosion. Several sedimentologic analyses, radiocarbon dates on archaeological levels, δ13C isotopic data of residual organic matter led us to suggest too bad conditions for a forest extension and think that savannas ecosystem has probably always existed in this region during the late Pleistocene and Holocene times and has been seriously influenced by human destabilizations since 9000 years BP and probably for long times before. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article summarizes the results of archaeological research led from 1995 to 1998 in the fauna reserve of Lope´ (Gabon). The excavated sites were dated from the Upper Pleistocene to the Post-colonial period. It is the longest and the most complete archaeological sequence presently known in Central Africa. These results show evidence of human presence in the reserve for over 40 000 years and that this greatly contributed to the preservation of the ecotone landscape of Lope´. In addition, these results offer the first systematic analysis of the sites and the ceramic artefacts produced and used in the centre of Gabon during the last three millennia. Supported by chronological, linguistic and palaeoenvironmental data, these results allow us to refine the ceramic typology and to prove the antiquity of husbandry, agricultural practices and iron production in this part of Africa. Finally, they allow us to clarify the various phases of settlement in the reserve and to reveal an important historic phenomena in connection with the expansion of the bantu languages and/or the bantu speaking peoples, who populate a third of the African continent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]