ABSTRACT

This chapter is based on updated earlier works reviewing the specific aspects of human biology. African hunter-gatherers are found primarily in two very different ecosystems. Some live in semidesertic lands, such as the Koesaan (or San) of Namibia and South Africa, or in savanna, such as the Hadza and Sandawe of Tanzania; others live in the central African rainforest. Central African hunter-gatherer groups, episodically called Negrilles–"small negroes"–by French authors and Twiden by Germans are generally named Pygmies. Cultural anthropologists, linguists, and musicologists distinguish three groups of Pygmies: the Eastern, Western, and Southern. The Eastern group live in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Social and environmental changes have undoubtedly modified the pattern of these diseases, but it is yet unclear whether the loss of rainforest habitat will ultimately increase the costs, or the benefits, to the health of Pygmy populations.