ABSTRACT
After the end of the Pleistocene, sub-Saharan Africa seems to have been more receptive of than contrjbutory to cultural progress in the Old World as a whole. By that time favourable localities in the sub-continent - the margins oflakes and watercourses, the sea coasts, the peripheral regions of the equatorial forest - were sometimes supporting nearly, or entirely, sedentary communities of huntingcollecting peoples who were enabled to live in this way due to the permanent presence of one or more staple sources offood: freshwater fish, water animals and plants, and sea foods; and forest foods (the Dioscoreas, Elaeis guineensis, and other oil-bearing plants), either perennial or capable of being stored. Evidence of such occupation is seen in the midden accumulations in both cave and open sites at this time (1). Populations could thus become more concentrated and an increase in density may be inferred, the limiting factor being the maximum that anyone environmenf could support by intensified collecting methods (Fig. I).
