Hunter-Gatherer Settlement of the African lowland rain forest of equatorial Guinea The colonization of lowland tropical rain forests could be part of the global expansion undertaken by the human species during the Pleistocene. Although it is believed that this was accomplished by hunter-gatherer peoples, the age of the initial settlement, the type of landscape involved, the nature of human adaptation to a closed forest environment, and the extent to which environmental manipulation took place are subject to much academic debate. Previous research in the eastern lowland tropical Africa suggested that in the Ituri region, often considered a forest refuge, close to the savanna environments of the Western Rift, human colonization could be 15,000 to 20,000 years old. In addition environmental evidence indicates that, although continuously forested, this region experienced dramatic changes in forest composition and structure from the Late Pleistocene to the present This Small Grant for Exploratory Research extends the research to the evergreen forests of the western Congo Basin, in continental Equatorial Guinea. Six months of exploratory survey and test excavation will occur in four districts of Equatorial Guinea. These are essentially unknown archaeologically, except for brief surface surveys in the late 1950's and 1980's. These districts were chosen because they include the second major forest refuge in Africa, as well as comparable geomorphologic, sedimentary and taphonomic environments to those of the Ituri, where fauna remains and phytoliths provided evidence on past environments. The main research will contribute towards reconstruct environmental structure and changes through time, and will document the history of human occupation of this important region of the world.
