Social ties in the Congo Basin: insights into tropical forest adaptation from BaYaka and their neighbours

Boyette, Adam H.; Lew‐Levy, Sheina; Jang, Haneul; Kandza, Vidrige

doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0490

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…Tropical forests were simply considered too hostile. In this view, the dense vegetation, cryptic fauna and sparsely distributed carbohydrates and fats in rainforests made these ecosystems too resource-poor for humans without recourse to sophisticated technologies, external support and exchange systems ([ 30 , 31 ]; see [ 32 ]). These views have markedly shaped palaeoanthropological research, particularly in Africa, by focusing fieldwork away from vast swathes of dense forest.…”

Section: The Tropics: a Frontier For The Deep Human Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical forests in the deep human past

Scerri

Roberts

Maezumi

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Since Darwin, studies of human evolution have tended to give primacy to open ‘savannah’ environments as the ecological cradle of our lineage, with dense tropical forests cast as hostile, unfavourable frontiers. These perceptions continue to shape both the geographical context of fieldwork as well as dominant narratives concerning hominin evolution. This paradigm persists despite new, ground-breaking research highlighting the role of tropical forests in the human story. For example, novel research in Africa's rainforests has uncovered archaeological sites dating back into the Pleistocene; genetic studies have revealed very deep human roots in Central and West Africa and in the tropics of Asia and the Pacific; an unprecedented number of coexistent hominin species have now been documented, including Homo erectus , the ‘Hobbit’ ( Homo floresiensis ), Homo luzonensis , Denisovans, and Homo sapiens . Some of the earliest members of our own species to reach South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania and the tropical Americas have shown an unexpected rapidity in their adaptation to even some of the more ‘extreme’ tropical settings. This includes the early human manipulation of species and even habitats. This volume builds on these currently disparate threads and, for the first time, draws together a group of interdisciplinary, agenda-setting papers that firmly places a broader spectrum of tropical environments at the heart of the deep human past. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Tropical forests in the deep human past’.

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Section: The Tropics: a Frontier For The Deep Human Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical forests in the deep human past

Scerri

Roberts

Maezumi

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Long-term adaptation to local forests has also been demonstrated through the identification of genes under selective pressure 22,23,24 . Finally, ethnographic studies have also raised doubts about CAHGs being isolated from each other, highlighting their widespread trips throughout the Congo Basin 25,26 to participate in rituals or search for spouses 27,28,26 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Evolution of Central African hunter-gatherers reflects a deep history of interconnectivity

Padilla‐Iglesias

Blanco-Portillo

Ioannidis

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Central African hunter-gatherers (CAHGs) are widely seen as isolated populations displaced into the forest by the expansion of Bantu-speaking farmers. By contrast, recent studies revealed various genetic signs of long-term adaptation of CAHGs to forest environments and independence from Bantu demography. It remains unclear whether cultural diversity among CAHGs is better explained by long-term cultural evolution preceding agriculture, or by recent borrowing from neighbouring farmers. We compiled cultural data on musical instruments, foraging tools, and specialised vocabulary as well as genome-wide SNP data from 10 CAHG populations. Our analyses revealed evidence of genetic and cultural large-scale interconnectivity among CAHGs, both before and after the Bantu expansion. By decomposing genomic segments into sets with distinct ancestry depths, we demonstrate that the distribution of hunter-gatherer musical instruments correlates with the oldest genomic segments in our sample. Music-related words are also widely shared between Western and Eastern groups and most likely precede the recent borrowing of Bantu languages. Subsistence tools result from long-term adaptation to locally differentiated ecologies and are less frequently exchanged over long distances. Our results provide evidence that CAHG culture is the outcome of a deep history of long-range interconnectivity and occupation of forest environments in the Congo Basin. We conclude that CAHGs should no longer be seen as encapsulated groups recently marginalised into the forest, but as populations with a central role in our understanding of modern human origins.

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“…Their results are in agreement with archaeological evidence 20 , the deep genetic coalescence of CAHGs with other human lineages 21,3 , and identi cation of genes under selective pressure 21,22,23,24,25 . Finally, ethnographic studies have also questioned the isolation of CAHGs from one another, highlighting their widespread trips throughout the Congo Basin 26,27 to participate in rituals or search for spouses 28,29,27 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep history of cultural and linguistic evolution among Central African hunter-gatherers

Padilla-Iglesias,

Blanco-Portillo,

Pricop

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Human evolutionary history in Central Africa reflects a deep history of population connectivity. However, Central African hunter-gatherers (CAHGs) currently speak languages acquired from their neighbouring farmers. Hence it remains unclear which aspects of CAHG cultural diversity results from long-term evolution preceding agriculture, and which reflect borrowing from farmers. Based on musical instruments, foraging tools, specialised vocabulary, and genome-wide data from 10 CAHG populations, we revealed evidence of large-scale cultural interconnectivity among CAHGs before and after the Bantu expansion. We also show that the distribution of hunter-gatherer musical instruments correlates with the oldest genomic segments in our sample predating farming. Music-related words are widely shared between Western and Eastern groups and likely precede the borrowing of Bantu languages. By contrast, subsistence tools are less frequently exchanged and may result from adaptation to local ecologies. We conclude that CAHG material culture and specialised lexicon reflect a long evolutionary history in Central Africa.

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Social ties in the Congo Basin: insights into tropical forest adaptation from BaYaka and their neighbours

Cited by 17 publications

References 106 publications

Tropical forests in the deep human past

Tropical forests in the deep human past

Cultural Evolution of Central African hunter-gatherers reflects a deep history of interconnectivity

Deep history of cultural and linguistic evolution among Central African hunter-gatherers

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