The eastern periphery of the Yoruba cultural sphere - Ceramics from the lowland rain forests of south-western Cameroon

摘要

Numerous societies throughout sub-Saharan Africa supported strong political systems prior to European colonization. Seldom, however, are the boundaries of large, dominant polities sharply delineated, making it difficult to identify the extent of their influence on neighbouring, peripheral communities. In this report, we present ceramic evidence from the lowland rain forest of southwest Cameroon suggesting macro-regional interactions that, during the last millennium, connected later Iron Age polities of Central Africa with Nigeria and Burkina Faso, West Africa. We propose that these rain-forest communities were engaging in long-distance regional interaction networks with societies much farther west than previously expected and thus formed the eastern periphery of the Yoruba culture sphere.