West African hunter-gatherers
[8] Amid aridification in MIS 5 and regional change of climate in MIS 4, in the Sahara and the Sahel, Aterians may have migrated southward into West Africa (e.g., Baie du Levrier, Mauritania; Tiemassas, Senegal; Lower Senegal River Valley).
[7] In the 10th millennium BCE, Niger-Congo speakers developed pyrotechnology and employed subsistence strategy at Ounjougou, Mali.
[11] Among two existing cultural areas, earlier residing West Africans in Ounjougou were of a cultural area encompassing the Sahara region (e.g., Tenere, Niger/Chad; Aïr Mountains, Niger; Acacus Mountains, Libya/Algeria;[11] Tagalagal, Niger; Temet, Niger)[12] of Africa and microlith-using West Africans were of a cultural area encompassing the forest region of West Africa.
[13] As desertification was underway, West African hunter-gatherers of the Middle Niger were likely the first to encounter southward migrating Saharan occupants.
[13] Increased interaction may have resulted in the adoption of pottery and polished stone production, which, subsequently, may have led to these cultural practices being further diffused unto other West African hunter-gatherers.
[13] As West African hunter-gatherers of the Middle Niger became increasingly acculturated and eventually admixed into more numerous, surrounding southward migrating Saharan occupants, some West African hunter-gatherers, further south, may have continued their hunting-gathering and/or basic vegetable cultivation cultures.
[1] Consequently, seasonal interaction likely occurred between Saharan pastoralists and agropastoralists and West African hunter-gatherers, who also practiced basic agriculture via vegetable cultivation.
[1] Domesticated crops (e.g., pearl millet, cowpea, large amounts of oil palm) and undomesticated flora were availed in rockshelters (e.g., B-sites, K6), near the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, in the southern region of central Ghana.
[22] West African agriculturalists of Kintampo and West African hunter-gatherers of Punpun were migratory peoples, who settled at the sites seasonally for various reasons (e.g., oil palm production); this is evidenced by the varied way in which flora are situated at the rockshelters.
[22] West African hunter-gatherers may have migrated southward near the forest region or scattered into smaller groups amid arid seasons.
[22] Various activities (e.g., production of local resources) occurred in partially settled areas of the savanna and forest regions.
[22] As a result, subsistence techniques were adapted to the natural environment of the forest region, and local crops (e.g., oil palm, yams), may have been introduced into what was usually farmed.
[21] Prior to initial encounter with migrating populations from further north, West African hunter-gatherers may have already engaged in basic agricultural production of tubers as well as utilizing Elaeis guineensis and Canarium schweinfurthii.
[21] Continued interaction may have resulted in further acculturation (e.g., loss of West African hunter-gatherer languages).
[21] Isolated groups of West African hunter-gatherers may have continually dwelled throughout the region of the Pays Mande mountains after the development of metallurgy.
[21] West African hunter-gatherers may have even adopted, culturally adapted metallurgical practices, while still maintaining their ancient stone industrial traditions.
[23] In 1500 CE, when the Dogon people entered the Bandiagara Cliffs, they encountered West African pygmies known as the Tellem.
[24] Water-based economic (e.g., fishing) peoples (e.g., Bozo, Sorkawa), who are reputed to be one of the Niger River's first settlers, recognized that there were even earlier settled peoples – “red men.”[24] The oral history among numerous modern West Africans is that their ancestors were West African pygmies.
[13] Ancient DNA was able to be obtained from two Shum Laka foragers from the early period of the Stone to Metal Age, in 8000 BP, and two Shum Laka foragers from the late period of the Stone to Metal Age, in 3000 BP.
[2] Two earlier Shum Laka foragers were of haplogroup L0a2a1 – broadly distributed throughout modern African populations – and two later Shum Laka foragers were of haplogroup L1c2a1b – distributed among both modern West and Central African agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers.
