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In recent years, both depletion of wild animals and declining food supply have threatened the livelihoods of people inhabiting the forests of the Congo Basin, and rendered the bushmeat trade a national and global concern. Because initial approaches to wildlife management were criticized for lacking consideration of the customary rights of local people, a variety of projects have been proposed to ensure their active participation in management initiatives. However, unfamiliar with the concepts of conservation ecology, local people have found it difficult to contribute effectively. This paper proposes an approach to monitor the status of fauna, based on the ratio of blue duikers (Philantomba monticola) to medium-sized duikers (Cephalophusspp.) for the total number of hunting catches (the catch B/M). Analysis of changes in the composition of hunting catches across multiple sites in southeastern Cameroon revealed the following trends: (1) without substantive human intervention, i.e., hunting pressure and forest disturbance, medium-sized duikers were densely distributed while blue duikers were sparse, so that the catch B/M was low; (2) under moderate human intervention, blue duikers became more densely distributed while the original density of medium-sized duikers was maintained, so that the catch B/M increased; (3) with extensive human intervention in specific areas, medium-sized duikers became sparsely distributed while a relatively high density of blue duikers was maintained, so that the catch B/M increased significantly and a mosaic of different compositions of duikers was formed; and (4) with extensive human intervention extending over the specific extensive area, both medium-sized and blue duikers became sparse. It appears that the catch B/M predicts changes in the status of game animals and of the background wild fauna, and is both a sufficiently reliable variable for ecologists and perceptible for local people. Furthermore, this approach has the potential to cultivate a relationship of trust between ecologists and local people, which is indispensable in establishing effective collaborative wildlife management.

New evidence indicates that Bambata pottery is part of the Kay Ladio Group centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rather than a facies of the KALUNDU TRADITION . This means that Western Bantu speakers produced the style. Other cornerstones of previous interpretations remain the same: Bambata derives from Benfica and it was spread to the southeast along hunter-gatherer trade networks. The distribution of Bambata also roughly marks the spread of Western Bantu-speaking people. In the Mount Buhwa area of Zimbabwe, Benfica people interacted with Eastern Bantu who produced Silver Leaves (Kwale), Ziwa/Gokomere (Nkope)and Happy Rest (KALUNDU) pottery: thus, this was the confluence of four moving frontiers. These frontiers demonstrate the complexity of interaction, which in turn has linguistic ramifications.

New evidence indicates that Bambata pottery is part of the Kay Ladio Group centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rather than a facies of the Kalundu Tradition. This means that Western Bantu speakers produced the style. Other cornerstones of previous interpretations remain the same: Bambata derives from Benfica and it was spread to the southeast along hunter-gatherer trade networks. The distribution of Bambata also roughly marks the spread of Western Bantu-speaking people. In the Mount Buhwa area of Zimbabwe, Benfica people interacted with Eastern Bantu who produced Silver Leaves (Kwale), Ziwa/Gokomere (Nkope) and Happy Rest (Kalundu) pottery: thus, this was the confluence of four moving frontiers. These frontiers demonstrate the complexity of interaction, which in turn has linguistic ramifications. KEY WORDS: Bambata pottery, Bantu-speaking farmers, Buhwa area, southern Africa.

Southern Africa is consistently placed as a potential region for the evolution of Homo sapiens. We present genome sequences, up to 13x coverage, from seven ancient individuals from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The remains of three Stone Age hunter-gatherers (about 2000 years old) were genetically similar to current-day southern San groups, and those of four Iron Age farmers (300 to 500 years old) were genetically similar to present-day Bantu-language speakers. We estimate that all modern-day Khoe-San groups have been influenced by 9 to 30% genetic admixture from East Africans/Eurasians. Using traditional and new approaches, we estimate the first modern human population divergence time to between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago. This estimate increases the deepest divergence among modern humans, coinciding with anatomical developments of archaic humans into modern humans, as represented in the local fossil record.

This essay interprets a classification of Africa's Bantu languages which used statistical tools guided by assumptions about farming and its chronology to analyze fresh vocabulary evidence. It shows a peeling movement from Cameroon's grassfields, into southern Cameroon, then along a savanna corridor through West Central Africa's rainforests, into the Savannahs, then to Southern Africa, the Great Lakes, and Indian Ocean coast. The clear sequence of movement masks methodological and historical factors. Language death, multilingualism, and the limits of vocabulary evidence restrain the classification's authority. ‘Transformations’ from food collecting to food producing or from no metals to full engagement with metals were mutable, unfolded at different speeds, and involved interactions with firstcomers. In Central Africa, Bantu speakers were often the first farmers and metal-users in the region but elsewhere they were commonly neither. Their arrivals did not immediately displace firstcomers. Computational methods can accommodate many of these issues.

The subsistence of Neolithic populations is based on agriculture, whereas that of previous populations was based on hunting and gathering. Neolithic spreads due to dispersal of populations are called demic, and those due to the incorporation of hunter-gatherers are called cultural. It is well-known that, after agriculture appeared in West Africa, it spread across most of subequatorial Africa. It has been proposed that this spread took place alongside with that of Bantu languages. In eastern and southeastern Africa, it is also linked to the Early Iron Age. From the beginning of the last millennium BC, cereal agriculture spread rapidly from the Great Lakes area eastwards to the East African coast, and southwards to northeastern South Africa. Here we show that the southwards spread took place substantially more rapidly (1.50-2.27 km/y) than the eastwards spread (0.59-1.27 km/y). Such a faster southwards spread could be the result of a stronger cultural effect. To assess this possibility, we compare these observed ranges to those obtained from a demic-cultural wave-of-advance model. We find that both spreads were driven by demic diffusion, in agreement with most archaeological, linguistic and genetic results. Nonetheless, the southwards spread seems to have indeed a stronger cultural component, which could lead support to the hypothesis that, at the southern areas, the interaction with pastoralist people may have played a significant role.

Occupation of the humid tropics by Late Holocene food producers depended on the use of vegetative agricultural systems. A small number of vegetative crops from the Americas and Asia have come to dominate tropical agriculture globally in these warm and humid environments, due to their ability to provide reliable food output with low labour inputs, as well as their suitability to these environments. The prehistoric arrival in Africa of Southeast Asian crops, in particular banana, taro and greater yam but also sugar cane and others, is commonly regarded as one of the most important examples of transcontinental exchanges in the tropics. Although chronologies of food-producer expansions in Central Africa are increasingly gaining resolution, we have very little evidence for the agricultural systems used in this region. Researchers have recovered just a handful of examples of archaeobotanical banana, taro and sugar cane remains, and so far none from greater yam. Many of the suggested dispersal routes have not been tested with chronological, ecological and linguistic evidence of food producers. While the impact of Bantu-speaking people has been emphasised, the role of non-Bantu farmers speaking Ubangi and Central Sudanic languages who have expanded from the (north)east has hardly been considered. This article will review the current hypotheses on dispersal routes and suggest that transmissions via Northeast Africa should become a new focus of research on the origins of Asian vegeculture crops in Africa.

Pygmy populations are among the few hunter-gatherers currently living in sub-Saharan Africa and are mainly represented by two groups, Eastern and Western, according to their current geographical distribution. They are scattered across the Central African belt and surrounded by Bantu-speaking farmers, with whom they have complex social and economic interactions. To investigate the demographic history of Pygmy groups, a population approach was applied to the analysis of 205 complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from ten central African populations. No sharing of maternal lineages was observed between the two Pygmy groups, with haplogroup L1c being characteristic of the Western group but most of Eastern Pygmy lineages falling into subclades of L0a, L2a, and L5. Demographic inferences based on Bayesian coalescent simulations point to an early split among the maternal ancestors of Pygmies and those of Bantu-speaking farmers (∼70,000 years ago [ya]). Evidence for population growth in the ancestors of Bantu-speaking farmers has been observed, starting ∼65,000 ya, well before the diffusion of Bantu languages. Subsequently, the effective population size of the ancestors of Pygmies remained constant over time and ∼27,000 ya, coincident with the Last Glacial Maximum, Eastern and Western Pygmies diverged, with evidence of subsequent migration only among the Western group and the Bantu-speaking farmers. Western Pygmies show signs of a recent bottleneck 4,000–650 ya, coincident with the diffusion of Bantu languages, whereas Eastern Pygmies seem to have experienced a more ancient decrease in population size (20,000–4,000 ya). In conclusion, the results of this first attempt at analyzing complete mtDNA sequences at the population level in sub-Saharan Africa not only support previous findings but also offer new insights into the demographic history of Pygmy populations, shedding new light on the ancient peopling of the African continent.

Matrilineal systems in sub-Saharan Africa tend to co-occur with horticulture and are rare among pastoralists, with the causal arrow pointing from the introduction of cattle to the loss of matriliny. However, most work on this topic stems from either phylogenetic analyses or historical data. To better understand the shift from matrilineal to patrilineal inheritance that occurred among Bantu populations after the adoption of pastoralism, data from societies that are currently in transition are needed. Himba pastoralists, who practice ‘double descent’, may represent one such society. Using multi-generational ethnography and structured survey data, we describe current norms and preferences about inheritance, as well as associated norms related to female autonomy. We find that preferences for patrilineal inheritance are strong, despite the current practice of matrilineal cattle inheritance. We also find that a preference for patriliny predicts greater acceptance of norm violating behaviour favouring sons over nephews. Finally, we show that there are important generational differences in how men view women's autonomy, which are probably attributable to both changing norms about inheritance and exposure to majority-culture views on women's roles. Our data shed light on how systemic change like the shifts in descent reckoning that occurred during the Bantu expansion can occur. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals’.

Human evolutionary history in Central Africa reflects a deep history of population connectivity. However, Central African hunter-gatherers (CAHGs) currently speak languages acquired from their neighbouring farmers. Hence it remains unclear which aspects of CAHG cultural diversity results from long-term evolution preceding agriculture and which reflect borrowing from farmers. On the basis of musical instruments, foraging tools, specialized vocabulary and genome-wide data from ten CAHG populations, we reveal evidence of large-scale cultural interconnectivity among CAHGs before and after the Bantu expansion. We also show that the distribution of hunter-gatherer musical instruments correlates with the oldest genomic segments in our sample predating farming. Music-related words are widely shared between western and eastern groups and likely precede the borrowing of Bantu languages. In contrast, subsistence tools are less frequently exchanged and may result from adaptation to local ecologies. We conclude that CAHG material culture and specialized lexicon reflect a long evolutionary history in Central Africa. Genome-wide analyses reveal a deep history of musical instruments and specialized vocabulary among Central African hunter-gatherers and the long-term cultural interconnectivity of these groups before and after the Bantu expansion.