1st Edition
An Archaeology of the Bantu Expansion Early Settlers South of the Congo Rainforest
1. Introduction to a new archaeology of the Bantu Expansion
Koen Bostoen & Peter R. Coutros
2. Mapping the Palaeoenvironmental Context of the Bantu Expansion
Christopher Albert Kiahtipes
3. Central African Hunter-Gatherers: A History Deeply Rooted in Time and Space
Isis Mesfin
4. A new Bantu story with more than a few thorny issues
Pierre de Maret
5. Towards an Oral History of Kwilu-Kasai peoples
Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem & Igor Matonda Sakala
6. Language divergence and convergence and deep-time population history in the Kwilu-Kasai region
Koen Bostoen, Sara Pacchiarotti & Guy Kouarata
7. The Lifeworld of the Kwilu-Kasai Region’s First Bantu speakers: Insights from Lexical Reconstruction
Koen Bostoen, Jessamy Doman, Sara Pacchiarotti & Sifra Van Acker
8. The Early Bantu Expansion into Central Africa: New Data and Insights from Population Genetics
Cesar Fortes-Lima,Sara Pacchiarotti, Lorenzo Maselli, Jean-Pierre Donzo Bunza Yugia, Guy Kouarata, Joseph Koni Muluwa, Leon Mundeke, Koen Bostoen & Carina Schlebusch
9. A New Archaeology of the Kwilu-Kasai River Network: Methods, Sites, and Dates
Peter R. Coutros & Igor Matonda Sakala
10. Survey and Excavations along the Kwilu River
Peter R. Coutros, Igor Matonda, Isidore Nkanu Tsatsa & Arnaud Mabuaka Duki
11. Survey and Excavations along the Kasai River
Igor Matonda, Peter R. Coutros, Isidore Nkanu Tsatsa & Arnaud Mabuaka Duki
12. Survey and Excavations along the Loange River
Igor Matonda, Peter R. Coutros, Isidore Nkanu Tsatsa & Arnaud Mabuaka Duki
13. Survey and Excavations along the Kamtsha River
Peter R. Coutros, Igor Matonda, Isidore Nkanu Tsatsa & Arnaud Mabuaka Duki
14. Survey and Excavations of the Idiofa Region
Peter R. Coutros, Igor Matonda, Isidore Nkanu Tsatsa & Arnaud Mabuaka Duki
15. Excavations at Mashita Mbanza
Peter R. Coutros, Igor Matonda, Isidore Nkanu Tsatsa & Arnaud Mabuaka Duki
16. Excavations at Mukila
Katharina V.M. Jungnickel, Dirk Seidensticker, Jeanine Yogolelo & Clement Mambu Nsangathi
17. Survey from Mbankana to Bandundu
Dirk Seidensticker, Katharina V.M. Jungnickel & Roger Kidebua
18. New Lithic Finds from the Kwilu-Kasai River Region and Kongo Central Province
Els Cornelissen, Isis Mesfin & Marie-Josée Angue-Zogo
19. The Pottery of the Kwilu-Kasai Region
Peter R. Coutros & Igor Matonda Sakala
20. Phytolith analysis in the Kwilu-Kasai region
Jessamy Doman & Koen Deforce
21. Soil stable isotope analysis in the Kwilu-Kasai region
Jessamy Doman & Samuel Bodé
22. Charcoal Analysis in the Kwilu-Kasai and Lower Congo regions
Wannes Hubau and Blanca Van Houtte Alonso
23. Human remains from the Late Stone Age site of Luani
Jessamy Doman
24. A longue dureé Socio-Environmental History of the Kwilu-Kasai region
Peter R. Coutros, Jessamy H. Doman, Igor Matonda Sakala & Koen Bostoen
25. Rethinking the Early Bantu Expansion from South of the Congo Rainforest
Koen Bostoen, Peter R. Coutros, Jessamy H. Doman & Igor Matonda Sakala
Biography
Peter R. Coutros is an anthropological archaeologist specialising in West and Central Africa. He received his PhD in 2017 from Yale University based on the research he directed at the Late Stone Age site of Diallowali in northern Senegal. He has extensive field experience in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University directing research in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic.
Jessamy H. Doman received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology, Yale University, in 2017. She is an osteological and palaeoenvironmental specialist whose work has spanned the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, Miocene-Pliocene hominin evolution, and Pleistocene-Holocene socio-environmental change in West and Central Africa. She led several expeditions in Kenya, conducted fieldwork in Senegal, and worked as a forensic anthropologist at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Igor Matonda Sakala is an Associate Professor at the University of Kinshasa, Department of Historical Sciences. He received a joint PhD in African Languages and Cultures from Ghent University and History, Art History and Archaeology from Brussels University (ULB), based on his historical, archaeological, and linguistic research of the Inkisi Valley during the Kongo Kingdom. His research and teaching focuses on African precolonial and colonial history.
Koen Bostoen is a Professor of African Linguistics and Swahili at UGent. His research pertains to the past and present of Bantu languages and interdisciplinary approaches to Africa’s ancient history with a special focus on the Bantu Expansion and the Kongo Kingdom. He obtained ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants for the KongoKing (2012–2016) and BantuFirst (2018–2023) projects, respectively.
