The spread of the Bantu languages over most of sub-Saharan Africa constitutes
a major topical issue in the continent's culture history. Archaeological
terra incognita until very recently, the Central African rain forest was
doomed to play only minor roles in linguistic and historical reconstructions
of Bantu prehistory. Systematic fieldwork at the heart of the equatorial
forest has changed this situation.
This book documents and synthesizes the results of a long term river reconnaissance
project in the Inner Zaïre Basin, directed by Manfred K.H. Eggert
and financed by "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft". More than
11,000 richly decorated pottery specimens, partly excavated from pit deposits
or other settlement features, and partly surface finds, are attributed
to 35 style groups and seriated into a sequence with radiocarbon dates
from 400 BC to the present day. The ceramics covering this period bear
witness to continuous stylistic change within a series of closely related
regional trajectories, originating from a single 'ancestral' style, labelled
the Imbonga group. Distributional analysis reveals successive stages of
human penetration of the interior, moving upstream along the major eastern
tributaries of the Zaïre river. In an attempt to relate the archaeologically
established settlement sequence to the history of the Bantu expansion,
a critical and up-to-date survey is provided of pertinent linguistic reconstructions
and of both central and west-central African archaeology. The theoretical
and methodological problems inherent in the integration of archaeology
and historical linguistics are considered, together with a hypothesis
on the stylistic and geographical origins of the Imbonga group, to open
up promising lines for historical synthesis.
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