Phytoliths from archaeological sites in the tropical forest of Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo

Phytoliths record late Quaternary vegetation at three archaeological sites in the Ituri rain forest. The oldest deposits, dated to ca, 19,000 to 10,00 0 C-14 yr B.P., contain abundant phytoliths of grasses but also enough arbo real forms to show that the landscape was forested. The late-glacial forest s may have had a more open canopy than today's. Younger phytolith assemblag es show that the northeast Congo basin was densely forested throughout the Holocene, Archaeological materials among the phytoliths show that people li ved in this region during the Pleistocene, Therefore, Pleistocene and Holoc ene prehistoric foragers probably inhabited tropical forests of the northea st Congo basin many millennia before farming appeared in the region. (C) 20 00 University of Washington.