BANANAS were being grown in West Africa 2500 years ago鈥攁t least 1000
years before the accepted start of banana farming on the continent. The finding
raises questions about how a plant from Asia reached what is now Cameroon so
long ago.
The evidence comes from microscopic silica fossils called phytoliths.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e mineral inclusions in plant tissue,鈥� explains Hans Beeckman of the
Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium.
No one knows their function, but the size and shape of each phytolith reveals
which plant it came from. Beeckman and colleagues from Belgium and Cameroon
found conical phytoliths in ancient rubbish pits in Cameroon and compared them
with phytoliths from plants native to the region. They drew a blank at first,
but eventually concluded they must have come from the cultivated banana, having
ruled out an inedible indigenous relative called the red Abyssinian banana.
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鈥淲e were surprised because we thought bananas were not grown in Cameroon
during that era,鈥� says Beeckman鈥檚 colleague Luc Vrydaghs. Cultivated bananas can
only be grown from cuttings rather than seeds, so humans must have brought them
to Africa from Asia, where they originated.
The big question is who brought them, and how? 鈥淸They] probably came from
Indonesia and Asia by sea to Madagascar, then through eastern Africa and finally
to Cameroon,鈥� says Beeckman. 鈥淏ut we鈥檝e done the botanical part, and
anthropologists can now take it on,鈥� he says. One way to trace the banana trail
might be to study old African languages and map the positions of ancient tribes
with words for the banana.
Nicholas David, professor of archaeology at the University of Calgary in
Alberta, is mystified by the finding. He thinks bananas weren鈥檛 known even in
East Africa until the 10th century AD. He adds that it鈥檚 possible bananas were
brought by Indonesians who settled in Madagascar in the first century AD,
introducing technology such as sewn boats and xylophones to Africa鈥檚 east coast.
鈥淏ut they would be too late to get them to Cameroon by 500 BC.鈥�
- More at: Vegetation History and Archaeobotany (vol 10, p 1)