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This article is devoted to an analysis of plant remains from the Early Iron Age site of Boso-Njafo on the Lulonga River (Democratic Republic of the Congo). They were excavated in the context of archaeological research in 1985 but—due to unfavorable circumstances—could not be analyzed at that time. The site belongs to the Imbonga group, the earliest ceramic style group to date in the Inner Congo Basin. The archaeological context of the botanical remains is dated to the first millennium cal bc. The most salient fact concerning the plant remains is the evidence of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum). A correlation between cultivation of this crop, that is primarily adapted to semi-arid environments, with the climatic changes taking place in the second and first millennium cal bc is discussed. However, regional palaeoecological proxy data for the Inner Congo Basin are still missing. Further plant species present in Boso-Njafo include trees with edible fruits like Musanga cecropioides, Raphia, and Elaeis guineensis, Afromomum sp., and some grasses and herbs exploitable as leafy vegetables. They indicate a forest environment including swamps and secondary Guineo-Congolian forests as well as disturbed ruderal vegetation.

Agriculture was introduced into the Central African rainforest from the drier West African savanna, in concert with a major climatic change that amplified seasonality just after 2500 BP. The savanna crop pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), dated to 2400–2200 BP, could only be cultivated due to the development of a distinct dry season. Increasing seasonality and the replacement of mature forests by pioneer formations is indicated by Trema orientalis in the pollen diagram of Nyabessan after 2400 BP. However, charcoal data do not point to the existence of savannas in South Cameroon during this period, but rather to a mosaic of mature and pioneer forests. The early rainforest farmers combined the cultivation of pearl millet with the exploitation of wild oil-containing tree fruits, such as oil palm and Canarium. The existence of pioneer formations that can be easily cut favoured the establishment of shifting cultivation. The archaeobotanical finds fit into a linguistic scenario of West-Bantu speakers making the cultivation of pearl millet one of their food production strategies before expanding further to the South. The reconstructed inherited pearl millet vocabulary for the early phases of Bantu language history provides strong circumstantial evidence for an overlap of the major stages of the Bantu expansion with the dispersal of food production.

The Bantu expansion, a major topic in African archaeology and history, is widely assumed to correlate with the spread of farming, but archaeological data on the subsistence of these putative early Bantu speakers are very sparse. However, finds of domesticated pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) in southern Cameroonian archaeological sites, dated between 400 and 200 BC, open new perspectives on the history of agriculture in the Central African rain forest.Linguistic evidence suggests that pearl millet was part of early agricultural traditions of Bantu speakers, and has to a great extent been distributed during the course of their expansion over large parts of western Bantu-speaking Africa, possibly even originally from their homeland in the Nigerian-Cameroonian borderland.In combining archaeobotanical, palaeoenvironmental and linguistic data, we put forward the hypothesis that an agricultural system with pearl millet was brought into the rain forest during the first millennium BC, and that its spread across Central Africa coincided with the dispersal of certain Bantu language subgroups.

This paper primarily presents analyses from geophysical data and archaeological remains collected at one of a few known sites to the west of Lake Chad associated with fired-brick structures. It reports on previous fieldwork at the location, considers its alleged relationship with the early history of the Borno kingdom and then turns to present new data that provide fresh insights into the physical appearance, dating, material remains, economy and environment of the site. A brief discussion of the historical purpose of the fired-brick structures and the site itself concludes the paper. Cet article presente les dates geophysiques et trouvailles archeologiques recoltees dans un des rares sites a l'ouest du Lac Chad associe avec des structures en briques. Il contient tout d’abord un rapport court sur les travaux antecedents sur l'endroit, ensuite des considerations sur sa relation avec l'histoire du jeune royaume de Bornou et tourne enfin a la presentation et l’interpretation des nouvelles dates qui permettent une premiere approche a la physionomie du site, son datation, la culture materielle, l'economie et l’environnement. Nous concluons avec une discussion breve de la signification des structures en briques et du site Garu Kime lui-meme.

Since 2003, a joint research project of the universities of Frankfurt and Tubingen (Germany) has explored the changing interrelationship of environment and culture in the forest-savanna regions of West and Central Africa. This paper provides the first archaeological and archaeobotanical results of three field seasons in the rainforest of southern Cameroun. Excavations were carried out at Bwambe Hill in the vicinity of Kribi at the Atlantic coast as well as at Akonetye, Minyin and Abang Minko’o, all located in the hinterland near Ambam. At all sites a number of pit structures, which contained mostly ceramics, were excavated. In addition, at Akonetye two graves with rich ceramic and iron offerings were unearthed. They seem to be the oldest graves with iron objects yet known in Central Africa.A large body of archaeobotanical material was retrieved from the structures excavated (charcoal fragments, charred fruits and seeds, phytolith and starch samples). Of high importance is the presence of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) at Bwambe Hill and Abang Minko’o in archaeological contexts dated to about 2200 bp. Charcoal and pollen data indicate that the ancient settlements were situated in a closed rainforest which was, however, massively disturbed and partly substituted by pioneer plant formations.

Charcoal, fruits and seeds of woody plants have been studied from a settlement mound in the Sahel of Burkina Faso. The archaeobotanical results provide information on economy and environmental conditions at the periphery of the medieval kingdom of Songhai at around 1000 A.D. Millet (Penniselum americanum) was the basic crop, cultivated in fields in which also grew useful trees (park savannas). Besides millet, fruits of the park savanna trees and other wild woody plants were an important part of the diet. Stratigraphical changes in the charcoal diagram indicate that millet production was intensified and the park savanna system established in the course of mound formation. The charcoal results show that the vegetation around 1000 A.D. was more diverse than today, containing many Sahelo-Sudanian elements which cannot be found in the area any more. This indicates slightly higher precipitation than today but also less severe human impact.

Archaeobotanical remains of a settlement mound in the Sahel zone of Burkina Faso have been investigated. The remains are charred, date to c. 1000 BP. and have provided information on the subsistence strategy of the medieval population and their impact on the environment. Apart from cultivated crops, such as Pennisetum americanum, the main staple, and pulses, the seeds and fruits of woody plants were gathered and used on a large scale. The results are interpreted as evidence for agroforestry and demonstrate the antiquity of this type of sustainable land management system.