Nikis, N. 2021. ‘Upemba Depression’. In: D. T. Potts, Ethan Harkness, Jason Neelis, et Roderick J. McIntosh (eds), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa. Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (PR) ISBN: 978-1-119-39991-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119399919.eahaa00629.

Chapitre dans un livre / Article dans un ouvrage collectif

The Upemba Depression (southeast DRC) is unique in providing a deep historical background to the sociopolitical history of Central Africa. The excavation of around three hundred graves, one of the largest groups in sub-Saharan Africa, allowed archaeologists to build a chrono-cultural sequence running from the sixth century ce to the nineteenth century. During the Kamilambian (ca. sixth–eighth century ce), a few scattered ironworking communities were settled in the Upemba Depression. At the end of the first millennium ce, the number of sites increased and two independent – though related – cultures, the Kisalian and the Katotian, flourished. The development of a hierarchical organization of society is displayed by elite burials containing a large amount of goods and status symbols. Fish was one of the main resources of the Upemba Depression and, along with other items, was traded in regional networks for luxury goods such as copper or Indian Ocean shells. Around the fourteenth century, the Kisalian culture was replaced by the Kabambian. Social inequalities became sharper and exchange networks were extended. Material culture suggests that the Upemba Depression was progressively integrated in the Luba kingdom during this period until its full integration in the nineteenth century. Despite major changes throughout the sequence, material culture suggests a cultural continuity between the different archaeological cultures of the Upemba Depression and that political tradition and some prominent symbols of authority of the major Central African polities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries arose during the first millennium ce.