Lost Civilization in the Congo Basin by Mike Fay and Richard
Sept 2, 2020 3:44:30 GMT -5
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Post by anansi on Sept 2, 2020 3:44:30 GMT -5
Lost Civilization in the Congo Basin by Mike Fay and Richard Oslisly
When I arrived in extreme northern Congo back in the 80’s, there wasn’t a single road in the vast floodplain of the Congo River, the forest virgin and giant. This is where the cryptozoologists ventured to find the last dinosaurs, in this place where, they said, humanity had seldom ventured. Little was known about the When I arrived in extreme northern Congo back in the 80’s, there wasn’t a single road in the vast floodplain of the Congo River, the forest virgin and giant. This is where the cryptozoologists ventured to find the last dinosaurs, in this place where, they said, humanity had seldom ventured. Little was known about the forest, the wildlife, the people. I was there to survey these virgin forests, but in order to do that I knew I had to get as deep as you could go, beyond the touch of man, or so I thought.
I went to the village of Makao had a large population of Bambenzele Pygmies, most had never seen a rock, let alone a vehicle. They would be my guides in the forest. These guys could not imagine that humanity had the capacity to transform this forest to a human dominated landscape. Their world consisted of how far they could walk in the forest. They knew the paths and foods, just like the elephants and gorillas with whom they lived alone for maybe one hundred thousand years.
We were working against time, the entire map was cut up in blocks and logging companies were snapping up concessions, planning on cutting through the best of the best in 25 years.
In 1985, I set out to survey the area east of the upper Sangha River by foot, walking hundreds of kilometers trying to find the best places where forests were huge, wildlife abundant, and humans didn’t venture. I found something strange, in many of the crystal clear creeks, deep in the forest, I was finding oil palm nuts. The oil palm tree is a cultivated species, and there were none in this vast forest, so what were oil palm nuts doing where there was never any agriculture, no trace of humanity? I asked the Bambenzele; they said they fell with the rain. I collected samples from over 100 creeks and had them carbon dated. To my astonishment, and others skepticism, some of these nuts were over 2300 years old and none dated younger than 900 years BP. It seemed that agriculture had come and gone to a very large area of forest that was now supposedly virgin. This would have meant that this forest had been cut, probably by Bantu whose migrations that, archeologists say, started over two millennia ago from the highlands of Cameroon all the way to the Cape of Good Hope in less than 1000 years. Over the next few years we discovered deposits of clay pottery and stone tool manufacture in these same forests. I
So what happened to these people, why did they start to die out almost 2000 years ago and leave large areas of northern Congo quite empty of humanity? Yes, some argue that oil palms grow naturally in central Africa, but in my experience the vast majority of extant plants were either planted by humans or weedy in nature post agriculture or grow in alluvial disturbance on large rivers and savanna edges.
We were working against time, the entire map was cut up in blocks and logging companies were snapping up concessions, planning on cutting through the best of the best in 25 years.
In 1985, I set out to survey the area east of the upper Sangha River by foot, walking hundreds of kilometers trying to find the best places where forests were huge, wildlife abundant, and humans didn’t venture. I found something strange, in many of the crystal clear creeks, deep in the forest, I was finding oil palm nuts. The oil palm tree is a cultivated species, and there were none in this vast forest, so what were oil palm nuts doing where there was never any agriculture, no trace of humanity? I asked the Bambenzele; they said they fell with the rain. I collected samples from over 100 creeks and had them carbon dated. To my astonishment, and others skepticism, some of these nuts were over 2300 years old and none dated younger than 900 years BP. It seemed that agriculture had come and gone to a very large area of forest that was now supposedly virgin. This would have meant that this forest had been cut, probably by Bantu whose migrations that, archeologists say, started over two millennia ago from the highlands of Cameroon all the way to the Cape of Good Hope in less than 1000 years. Over the next few years we discovered deposits of clay pottery and stone tool manufacture in these same forests. I
So what happened to these people, why did they start to die out almost 2000 years ago and leave large areas of northern Congo quite empty of humanity? Yes, some argue that oil palms grow naturally in central Africa, but in my experience the vast majority of extant plants were either planted by humans or weedy in nature post agriculture or grow in alluvial disturbance on large rivers and savanna edges.
In 1993 I got my first airplane to start exploring this vast forest from the air. One of the first places I went was Lac Telle, a perfectly round lake in the swamps. This is where the cryptozoologists suggested the dinosaur Moukele-mbembe still lurked. I flew over flooded savanna on the far reaches of Likouala aux Herbes and discovered something shocking, signs of ancient raised bed agriculture that covered extensive areas of grassy plains in this uninhabited forest. How could that be? I took Nick Nichols to this spot and he photographed it for the National Geographic Magazine in 1995. The geometric forms were beautiful, elegant, and obviously of human construction.
.Over the years I spotted many other similar locations like this from the air, hundreds of kilometers apart. There were vast dike systems, raised beds, road beds. It looked to me like an entire civilization had come and gone to these vast flooded plains.
Fast forward to 2016. I use Google Earth for a lot of my work, not just to map stuff or navigate but also to explore. As the amount of high-resolution imagery accumulates you can see more and more detail. Outside of populated places there are land use planners, industrial companies, intelligence services, military and others who buy high-resolution imagery, which makes its way to Google Earth.
Cruising Google Earth, planning a trip from Gabon to the Central African Republic in my Cessna, I was reminded of the 1995 images we took of Lac Telle, and zoomed in and sure enough the same sites were clearly visible on Google Earth.
Fast forward to 2016. I use Google Earth for a lot of my work, not just to map stuff or navigate but also to explore. As the amount of high-resolution imagery accumulates you can see more and more detail. Outside of populated places there are land use planners, industrial companies, intelligence services, military and others who buy high-resolution imagery, which makes its way to Google Earth.
Cruising Google Earth, planning a trip from Gabon to the Central African Republic in my Cessna, I was reminded of the 1995 images we took of Lac Telle, and zoomed in and sure enough the same sites were clearly visible on Google Earth.
.So, I started to scour the high-resolution images available along the Congo River and was blown away for find a vast array of sites. By the time I was done I had documented over 1000s sites of complex and sophisticated agrarian structures in moist savannas of coastal Gabon and on both sides of the middle Congo River, in eastern Central African Republic and in southeastern Angola over an area the size of Great Britain. They were for me on the magnitude of civilization, millions of people may have inhabited these lands that are today very sparsely settled by humans.
The transition from this highly sophisticated paddy and raised field agriculture in the humid savannas in favor of today’s slash and burn agriculture based on continual deforestation in the same area begs many questions:
what was the architecture and function of these agricultural systems,
were these farms organized, were there towns and cities, commerce, government,
what human population could these farms have supported,
when exactly did the paddy and raised bed agriculture and the people who practiced it arise and go,
what tools did they use and how many people would it have taken to build such systems,
what were the climatic and anthropogenic factors that have contributed to the rise and fall,
what are the plants that have been grown and / or domesticated,
how many more sites are hidden in what is now forest,
how productive and permanent was the agriculture?
I am posting this Google Earth file of all of the sites that I have documented on Google Earth or Bing or other imagery, but it is like a turkey shoot, thousands more remain, in particular in the two polygons I include called Mbandaka Culture. The turquoise bookmarks are what look to be ancient agriculture and the green are the oil palm tree sites. When there are bs after the name that signifies importance (big). Some may be strange natural geometry, but most, I am convinced, show ancient agriculture. For you to decide; this is not a scientific paper, although some digs have already been undertaken in several of these sites with conclusive results.
Download the kml of over 1000 sites here
Download the map overlay kml for Google Earth here to view Bing Imagery
I invite one and all to add to the file, but I warn you it is addictive, you can while away hours and hours searching for new sites. It is up to the archeologists and historians to tell us the reality of what I would call a lost civilization. Just download the file, open it in Google Earth and then click on any bookmark to zoom to see the detail below. I have included a network link to permit overlay of Bing and other imagery on Google Earth.
All images below courtesy of Google Earth, Digital Globe and CNES/Airbus
what was the architecture and function of these agricultural systems,
were these farms organized, were there towns and cities, commerce, government,
what human population could these farms have supported,
when exactly did the paddy and raised bed agriculture and the people who practiced it arise and go,
what tools did they use and how many people would it have taken to build such systems,
what were the climatic and anthropogenic factors that have contributed to the rise and fall,
what are the plants that have been grown and / or domesticated,
how many more sites are hidden in what is now forest,
how productive and permanent was the agriculture?
I am posting this Google Earth file of all of the sites that I have documented on Google Earth or Bing or other imagery, but it is like a turkey shoot, thousands more remain, in particular in the two polygons I include called Mbandaka Culture. The turquoise bookmarks are what look to be ancient agriculture and the green are the oil palm tree sites. When there are bs after the name that signifies importance (big). Some may be strange natural geometry, but most, I am convinced, show ancient agriculture. For you to decide; this is not a scientific paper, although some digs have already been undertaken in several of these sites with conclusive results.
Download the kml of over 1000 sites here
Download the map overlay kml for Google Earth here to view Bing Imagery
I invite one and all to add to the file, but I warn you it is addictive, you can while away hours and hours searching for new sites. It is up to the archeologists and historians to tell us the reality of what I would call a lost civilization. Just download the file, open it in Google Earth and then click on any bookmark to zoom to see the detail below. I have included a network link to permit overlay of Bing and other imagery on Google Earth.
All images below courtesy of Google Earth, Digital Globe and CNES/Airbus
blog.nationalgeographic.org/2018/09/26/lost-civilization-in-the-congo-basin-by-mike-fay-and-richard-oslisly/
Pls go to the link to view sat-images
This is truly a lost civilization,we don't know what it was called, the ethnic group of groups involved,but the area may yet turnout to be yet another African nursery for civilization.
So much work to uncover, consider the Ishango bone calculator,some say have the doubling system,known to Ancient Egypt and beyond.