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In the inundation area - the basin of the former larger Lake Chad - a special type of sorghum is grown on the clay soils (firgi). This dry-season guinea corn is also called dwarf sorghum or masakwa. In Kanuri, the dominant language in the region, sorghum is called ngawuli. The dry-season types are called ngawuli firgibe (lit. translated: sorghum of the firgi). During the dry season when the natural vegetation becomes dry and yellow, masakwa fields appear in prominent green covering large areas of the clay plains. The most important natural factor for this specialized dry season cropping is the presence of soils with a high clay content. For a better understanding of masakwa and its related issues, a multidisciplinary sub-project (G1) has been established within the SFB 268 (Joint Research Project: History of Culture and Language in the Natural Environment of the West-African Savannah). This project in which all disciplines participate is entitled: "Natural basis for masakwa cultivation and its meaning for the settlement history of the clay plains (firgi) in the Chad basin".
Around 400 BC, pottery- and iron-producing populations immigrated into the Inner Congo Basin (ICB) and subsequently spread upstream some major tributaries of the Congo River. Until recently, their subsistence was almost completely unknown. We present an archaeobotanical study of three sites in the ICB covering parts of the Early Iron Age (ca. 400 BC-AD 650) and of the Late Iron Age (LIA) as well as subrecent times (ca. AD 1300–2000). We studied 82 flotated samples of botanical macroremains, and 68 soil phytolith samples, recovered from the terra firme sites Iyonda and Mbandaka, and the floodplain fishing camp site of Bolondo. The EIA assemblage from Iyonda yielded domesticated Cenchrus americanus (pearl millet), Vigna unguiculata (cowpea), Canarium schweinfurthii, Elaeis guineensis (oil palm), several wild plants, and parenchyma fragments tentatively attributed to Dioscorea sp. (yams). The exploitation of these plants originated in the savannas and forest-savanna ecotones of West Africa. The presence of C. americanus in LIA contexts at Bolondo and Mbandaka, dated to ca. AD 1350–1550, indicates that its cultivation is not dependent on a seasonal climate with a distinct dry season, contrary to previous views. The role of C. americanus as a staple is difficult to assess; it might have been used for special purposes, e.g. beer brewing. In spite of extensive screening, we did not detect any banana phytoliths in the EIA samples. Musa phytoliths were only present in LIA contexts after ca. AD 1400, leaving room for the possibility that the introduction and spread of Musa spp. AAB ‘Plantain’ in the ICB was a late phenomenon.
This paper is concerned with the transition from hunting and gathering to food production in West Africa, based on evidence from the Sahel Zone of Burkina Faso compiled by field research during the last years. Our study intends to enhance the knowledge about the West African versions of this transition, traditionally seen as one of the most fundamental changes in human prehistory. Embedded in an interregional program the Sahel Zone of Burkina Faso has proved to be one of its most unexpected examples.
An overview over 20 years of archaeobotanical studies in West Africa is given. The Holocene vegetation history of the West African savannahs and the development of plant cultivation were major research topics. The existence of climatically induced savannahs throughout the Holocene could be confirmed. Archaeobotanical data indicate the late emergence of agriculture around 2000 BC and the development of a cultural landscape in the course of the last 2000 years.
Honey and other bee products were likely a sought-after foodstuff for much of human history, with direct chemical evidence for beeswax identified in prehistoric ceramic vessels from Europe, the Near East and Mediterranean North Africa, from the 7th millennium BC. Historical and ethnographic literature from across Africa suggests bee products, honey and larvae, had considerable importance both as a food source and in the making of honey-based drinks. Here, to investigate this, we carry out lipid residue analysis of 458 prehistoric pottery vessels from the Nok culture, Nigeria, West Africa, an area where early farmers and foragers co-existed. We report complex lipid distributions, comprising n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids and fatty acyl wax esters, which provide direct chemical evidence of bee product exploitation and processing, likely including honey-collecting, in over one third of lipid-yielding Nok ceramic vessels. These findings highlight the probable importance of honey collecting in an early farming context, around 3500 years ago, in West Africa.