page_title: Archaeology of Central Africa
section_title: Early habitation
hierarchical_section_title: Archaeology of Central Africa / Early habitation
caption_attribution_description: Español: Versión coloreada de File:Kongo 1648.tif,
context_page_description: Central Africa is generally considered to encompass ten countries which amounts to more than six million square kilometers or roughly the size of the United States west of the Mississippi River. Despite its large size, very little archaeological research has been done in the region.
context_section_description: Archaeologists questioned if humans could survive only on forest resources before the emergence of agriculture. Research done by Els Cornelissen et al suggests that occupation was possible before agriculture and may have actually been very hospitable. Because of the ecodiversity of the area, the people inhabiting the area would have had access to a variety of resources, making it a more stable environment to live in.
  Evidence of some of the earliest inhabitants was found in 1982 and 1983 by J. Preuss at Bikoro in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Preuss found a number of stone artifacts including projectile points, “segments, cores, flakes, and unmodified waste”. These artifacts would have been used by hunter-gatherers and are estimated to have been made during the Late Stone Age between 12,000-3,000 years BP.
  More research in the 1980s found picks, choppers and, hand-axes representative of the Middle Stone Age. Clist argues that these tools could be 40,000 years old, meaning humans have been occupying the area for at least 40,000 years.
  More recently, James Denbow excavated and dated sites on the Loango Coast between Gabon and Cabinda. He dated sites only as early as approximately 3250 BP- 2050 BP. These 10 sites "produced only lithic debris... were very small and contained concentrations of chert flakes and fragments."
caption: The area colored in light purple is the general area where Denbow researched.
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