Iron Age human subsistence, environment, and climate in the Inner Congo Basin (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

不仅在中非，而且在整个撒哈拉以南非洲，内刚果盆地都是研究最不足的地区之一。对于最近的人类住区以及当今环境、社会文化、族裔和语言分布模式和动态的发展来说，过去两千五百年尤其如此。虽然在20世纪70年代和80年代，DFG资助的一个项目产生了从公元前400年到现在的详细的地区陶器序列，但这个时代的环境和经济史仍然几乎完全不为人所知。虽然陶瓷技术在内刚果盆地被考古证明是铁器时代早期的一项重大创新，但到目前为止，人们只能怀疑它从一开始就伴随着粮食生产和钢铁冶炼。这些文化成果没有一项是在研究区内独立产生的，都是从外部引进的。来自中非西部的数据显示，这些技术最初的传播与公元前1千年后半期的严重气候危机有关。这导致了热带雨林的部分破坏，取而代之的是开拓者的形成，使得喀麦隆南部能够在短暂的间歇期种植稀树草原作物珍珠谷子。最近在内刚果盆地发现的铁器时代早期珍珠小米可能表明那里也有类似的发展。该项目的目标是为下列问题提供答案：1.早期铁器时代的雨林危机是否也影响了刚果盆地？2.这一环境间歇期是否为最初以珍珠谷子为基础的刚果盆地雨林经济创造了自然先决条件？3.过去2500年来植被是如何发展的，与气候波动和人类影响有关？4.刚果盆地的畜牧业是什么时候开始的？5.从公元前400年到欧洲殖民前夕，该地区的人口消耗了哪些蔬菜？6.铁冶炼在刚果盆地开始不比邻近地区更晚的假设是真的吗？也就是说大约在公元前一千年左右？我们提议在三年期间在刚果民主共和国赤道省总共花费40个工作周进行考古发掘，以便系统地检索和分析代表既定文化序列所有主要时期的考古植物学和考古学样本。我们还打算恢复应该覆盖大约2500个历年的相同时间深度的花粉剖面。对植物大型遗骸和花粉的研究以及伴随的植硅体和动物群分析预计将产生对气候和植被变化以及人类土地利用和营养的洞察。新的放射性碳测年将支持现有区域文化序列中迄今为止采样较差的部分。

The Inner Congo Basin counts among the most severely underresearched areas not only within Central Africa, but also in sub-Saharan Africa at large. This is especially true with regard to the last two and a half millennia which have been crucial for recent human settlement and the development of present-day environmental, sociocultural, ethnic, and linguistic distribution patterns and dynamics. Although in the 1970s and 80s, a DFG-funded project yielded a detailed regional pottery sequence from c. 400 cal BC up to the present, the environmental and economic history of this era have remained almost completely obscure. While ceramic technology is archaeologically well attested in the Inner Congo Basin as a major Early Iron Age innovation, it can so far only be suspected to have been accompanied from the start by food production and iron metallurgy. None of these cultural achievements arose independently in the study area, but all were introduced from outside. Data from western Central Africa revealed the initial spread of these technologies to have been related to a severe climatic crisis during the second half of the 1st millennium cal BC. This lead to a partial breakdown of the rainforest and its replacement by pioneer formations, enabling cultivation of the savanna crop pearl millet in southern Cameroon during a brief interlude. Recent finds of Early Iron Age pearl millet in the Inner Congo Basin possibly indicate similar developments there. The project objective is to provide answers to the following questions: 1. Did the Early Iron Age rainforest crisis also affect the Inner Congo Basin? 2. Did this environmental interlude create natural preconditions for an initial Congo Basin rainforest subsistence economy based on pearl millet? 3. How did the vegetation develop during the past 2500 years related to climatic fluctuations and human impact? 4. When and with which species did animal husbandry begin in the Congo Basin? 5. Which vegetable staples did regional human populations consume between c. 400 cal BC and the eve of European colonisation? 6. Is the hypothesis true that iron metallurgy began no later in the Inner Congo Basin than in neighbouring regions, i.e. around the middle of the first millennium cal BC? We propose to spend a total of 40 workweeks over a three-year period in the Equator Province of Democratic Congo to carry out archaeological excavations geared to systematic retrieval and analysis of archaeobotanical and archaeozoological samples representing all major periods of the established cultural sequence. We also intend to retrieve pollen profiles that should cover the same time depth of c. 2500 calendar years. Studies of botanical macroremains and pollen with accompanying phytolith and faunal analysis are expected to produce insights into climate and vegetation change, as well as human land use and nutrition. New radiocarbon dates will back up so far poorly sampled segments of the existing regional culture sequence.