Project Details
Projekt
FOR 510: Ecological and Cultural Changes in West and Central Africa
Subject Area
Humanities
Biology
Geosciences
Biology
Geosciences
Term
from 2003 to 2009
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5470296
The intended Research Unit aims to investigate significant cultural transformations within Africa during the final two millennia BC, looking at whether and how these transformations are related to environmental changes. Through close cooperation between disciplines of natural sciences and humanities, sub-projects in Nigeria and Cameroon will collect and connect data from the fields of archaeology, archaeobotany and physical geography.
Of central interest is the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to pastoral communities with a producing economy. In contrast to other continents this process took a different course within Africa. Our starting point for the designated area of investigation in the Sahel is a three-phase model of development that was generated during the 15 years of research undertaken by the scientists of the Research Centre 268 in cooperation with African colleagues. This model is to be tested and extended by the work of this Research Unit.
Parallel to the changes in the Sahel during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, larger population groups began to immigrate into the rain forest. The temporal coincidence between the cultural and the environmental changes during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC is apparent. From our current knowledge, dry phases led to the disappearance of most of the perennial waters of the Sahara and the Sahel and to the partial collapse of the rainforest ecosystem. Climatic changes and the resulting transformations of the landscape, which must have had serious effects on human communities, will be reconstructed in as much detail as possible by means of sedimentological, geomorphological, pedological and palynological methods and data. The chosen areas of research are situated in ecologically marginal zones - between the Sahara and the Sahel on the one hand, and between the rain forest and the savannah on the other - which react very sensitively to climatic variations and are therefore well suited to small-scale investigations of environmental change.
The main questions of the project are: whether, with high resolution, temporal correlations between historical landscape and settlement transformations are still to be seen and what connections exist between climatic changes, different strategies of land use and cultural innovations. We should also pose the question, whether links existed between the developments in the Sahel and the tropical rainforest, and if yes, what was the nature of these links.
Of central interest is the transition from hunter-gatherer communities to pastoral communities with a producing economy. In contrast to other continents this process took a different course within Africa. Our starting point for the designated area of investigation in the Sahel is a three-phase model of development that was generated during the 15 years of research undertaken by the scientists of the Research Centre 268 in cooperation with African colleagues. This model is to be tested and extended by the work of this Research Unit.
Parallel to the changes in the Sahel during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, larger population groups began to immigrate into the rain forest. The temporal coincidence between the cultural and the environmental changes during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC is apparent. From our current knowledge, dry phases led to the disappearance of most of the perennial waters of the Sahara and the Sahel and to the partial collapse of the rainforest ecosystem. Climatic changes and the resulting transformations of the landscape, which must have had serious effects on human communities, will be reconstructed in as much detail as possible by means of sedimentological, geomorphological, pedological and palynological methods and data. The chosen areas of research are situated in ecologically marginal zones - between the Sahara and the Sahel on the one hand, and between the rain forest and the savannah on the other - which react very sensitively to climatic variations and are therefore well suited to small-scale investigations of environmental change.
The main questions of the project are: whether, with high resolution, temporal correlations between historical landscape and settlement transformations are still to be seen and what connections exist between climatic changes, different strategies of land use and cultural innovations. We should also pose the question, whether links existed between the developments in the Sahel and the tropical rainforest, and if yes, what was the nature of these links.
DFG Programme
Research Units
International Connection
Cameroon
Projects
- Cultural changes in the first millennia BC and AD in Central and Northeast Nigeria (Applicant Breunig, Peter )
- Environmental and Cultural Change in West and Central Africa (Applicant Breunig, Peter )
- Environmental and cultural change: Savanna, rainforerst and culture in southern and eastern Cameroun (Applicant Eggert, Manfred K.H. )
- Late Holocene vegetation history and the development of agriculture in West and Central Africa (Applicant Neumann, Katharina )
- Präparation von Eisenobjekten: Ausgrabungen in Rahmen der Forschungsgruppe 510. Fundplatz: Campo in Südkamerun, an der Grenze zu Äquatorialguinea (Applicant Eggert, Manfred K.H. )
- Rain forest-Savanna-Contact (ReSaKo) - Late Pleistocene, Holocene and recent landscape sensitivity of the rain forest-savanna boundary in equatorial Africa and its influence on human and cultural changes. (Applicant Runge, Jürgen )
Spokesperson
Professor Dr. Peter Breunig
