The earliest iron-producing communities in the Lower Congo region of Central Africa: new insights from the Bu, Kindu and Mantsetsi sites

Abstract

In 2015 the KongoKing research project team excavated the Bu, Kindu and Mantsetsi sites situated in the Kongo-Central Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). All are part of the Kay Ladio Group. This is the first detailed publication on this cultural group, to which no contemporary ones can currently be linked, either from the Atlantic coast of Congo-Brazzaville or from along the Congo River and its tributaries upstream of Kinshasa. Dated to between cal. AD 30 and 475, these settlements mark the presence of what are so far the oldest known iron-producing communities south of the Central African equatorial forest. Evidence for metallurgy is associated with remants of polished stone axes, which were perhaps being used for ritual purposes by this point in time. The charcoal remains found at the sites indicate a savanna environment that was more wooded in Kindu and Mantsetsi than in Bu. RÉSUMÉL'équipe du projet de recherches KongoKing a fouillé en 2015 les sites de Bu, Kindu et Mantsetsi situés dans la Province du Kongo-Central de la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC). Tous représentent la culture dite 'Kay Ladio'. Le présent article est la première étude détaillée publiée sur cet ensemble culturel auquel ne peut être relié aucun des groupes culturels contemporains connus à ce jour sur le littoral Atlantique du Congo ou en RDC en amont de Kinshasa autour du fleuve Congo et de ses affluents. Datés entre cal. 30 et 475 ap. J.-C., ces anciens villages marquent la présence des plus anciennes communautés métallurgistes au sud de la forêt équatoriale de l'Afrique Centrale. Les preuves pour la métallurgie y sont associées aux restes de haches polies, peut-être utilisées pour des raisons rituelles à cette époque. L'identification des charbons de bois trouvés dans ces sites indique un milieu de savane qui était plus boisé à Kindu et Mantsetsi qu'à Bu.

Kitala Ware: A New Early Iron Age Pottery Group from the Lower Congo Region in Central Africa

“…Kay Ladio ware. The latter is attested in the excavated assemblages of the Kindu, Mantsetsi, Sakuzi, and Sumbi sites in the Kongo Central province (de Maret 1972;Clist 1982;Gosselain 1988;de Maret 1990;Clist et al 2019b). In §4.2, we discuss Kitala ware with reference to Gombe ware from the Kinshasa region, which is roughly contemporaneous.…”

“…The Kitala vessels are thicker than the Kay Ladio ones, up to 12mm for Kitala, and only 8mm to 10mm for Kay Ladio. The 5 Kitala clay recipes are coarser and quite different from the 5 described for Kay Ladio ware described in Clist et al (2019b) and compared in Table 7. In sum, Kitala and Kay Ladio pottery clearly share several features in terms of vessel types, shaping and decoration.…”

“…3 only) available between calAD and calAD 1275-1390 (Clist 2018); all radiocarbon dates are presented as calibrated with the Calib 7.0.4 software, using the southern hemisphere tables and a 2-sigma range. The Bu, Kindu and Mantsetsi sites in the Kongo Central Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) yielded, both north and south of the Congo River, new attestations of the earlier documented EIA "Kay Ladio" pottery, whose time range was redefined at calAD 30-475 (Clist et al 2019b). However, KongoKing research has also led to the discovery of new EIA pottery groups, such as the Kitala ware or pottery group, which is the main focus of the present article.…”

“…The first pottery group associated with iron metallurgy in Kongo Central Province is the aforementioned Kay Ladio ware, which is stylistically distinct from Ngovo ware and whose time range has been determined at calAD 30-475 ( de Maret 1990;Clist et al 2018e: 49-50;Clist et al 2019b). Its producers still used stone hoes and polished stone axes, possibly only for symbolic purposes, but also transformed iron ore near their settlement as documented, for instance, at the Kindu site.…”

Review of Archaeological Research in Angola

“…The beginning of EIA in the Lower Congo area has been dated to the first quarter of the first millennium AD and linked to Bantu expansion's western corridor (Clist et al 2019b;Denbow 1990;Philipson 2005). Thus, the sites in the northern half of Angola (namely Cabolombo, Dundo, and Quibaxe) and their known pottery industries (Martins 1976;Valdeyron and Domingos 2009) have been correlated to the cultural area encompassing the entire lower Congo basin (Clist et al 2019a(Clist et al , 2019b) (Fig. 5).…”