A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma: what can Central African Sangoan and Lupemban technologies tell us about the origins of rainforest foraging?

Summary

Despite almost 100 years of scientific research, the archaeological record of Central Africa remains stubbornly peripheral to ongoing debates centering on the origins of rainforest hunting and gathering. Currently available chronological, palaeobiogeographical and technological data converges to indicate that the initial settlement of the central African rainforest belt may have been first undertaken c.300 ka BP by archaic Homo sapiens. The appearance of new tools suitable for hafting as stone tipped spears and heavy-duty axes within the early Middle Stone Age (MSA) Sangoan and Lupemban lithic industries that are found widely across the region has repeatedly been theorized to reflect their deployment as rainforest-adapted toolkits. In this talk I provide an overview of the problems inhibiting a nuanced understanding of the Central African Stone Age record and the current state of research pertaining to the earliest MSA. I focus afresh on the tool types comprising Sangoan and Lupemban lithic assemblages and explore critically the ethnographic, experimental, and archaeological perspectives and data that inform current conceptions of a specific techno-environmental behavioural correlation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Forests of Plenty: Ethnographic and Archaeological Rainforests as Hotspots of Human Activity

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