The conservation of the forest resources of eastern Africa: past influences, present practices and future needs - Biogeography and Ecology of the Rain Forests of Eastern Africa - page 284

review and summaries by Griffiths, Chapter 2 and
Lovett, Chapter 3). They argue that forest cover
was at maimum spread some 6000-8000 years
BP (before present) and has decreased since then
owing partly to a gradually drying climate but
especially to the increasing effects of clearing and
buing by hunter-gatherer and agricultural man.
This chapter discusses the effect of man in
greater detail.
The end of the late stone age and the start of an
iron age culture in many parts of East Africa some
2000 years ago would have led to intensified for-
est clearing or wood or iron-smeling (Davidson,
1961; Soper, 1967; Clarke, 1969; Hamilton,
1974). Morrison & Hamilton (1974), in a detailed
study of a forest system in Uganda, suggested that
such clearing began in the valleys, then the lower
slopes, and eventually spread to the upper slopes.
The beginning of the Azanian culture of easten
and cenral Africa, traces of which have been seen
on the Uluguru, Usagara and Southen Highland
mountains of Tanzania, date from this period.
Unil recently there was little informed discussion
on the development of forest-living people over
the ensuing millennium. Lundgren & Lundgren
(1972) menion mountain forest areas cleared
during minor dy periods (e.g. AD 1000) and then
kept open by fire and grazing; Wood (1965) and
Soper (1967) urther discuss the possibiliy of
man-induced clearings in the forests of Mounts
Meru and Kilimanjaro. Dale (1954) quotes Fos-
brooke as saying that a period of aridity from AD
1600 to 1750 would have caused a spread of
people from the dry plains to the moister forests.
Fosbrooke & Sassoon (1965) have described a
stone-bowl culture from the present-day forest-
grassland boundary on Kilimanjaro. Odner
(1971) n a more detailed discussion of Kiliman-
jaro menions digging sicks and stone bowls rom
an esimated date of 1500 BP. Sutton (1966) says
that dwarf huning people of the orest, the
Wakonyingo, had a pottery and defensive pit
culture, and that they pre-dated the present-day
Bantu culivators. Odner (1971) gives a date of at
least 400 years for the Wakonyingo pottery.
Hamilton (1990) provides a more exhausive
discussion of probable major impacts of early Iron
Age peoples on what is usually considered to be

primay or climax natural forest, with especial
reference to the Usambara Mountains. He, and a
detailed paper by Schmidt (1990), present
evidence of archaeological finds, mainly pottery,
in the surface soil layers of tall natural forest sites
in the East Usambaras, e.g. Kwanguni. This they
ascribe to early Iron Age settlements some 2000
years ago. Schmidt (1990) argues that this was
part of a settlement pattern invading forests all
over East Africa between 500 BC and AD 500. He
describes a later wave of village settlements and
clearings in the later iron age, at about AD 900-
1000, e.g. sites at Mtai in the East Usambaras.
This patten of clearing may have allowed the
growth of the present large old Ocotea rees so
prominent in the Usambara forests. However, this
settlement patten then vanished as contemporary
ravellers (e.g. Moreau, 1935) showed extensive
forest cover in the East Usambaras. Farler (1879),
in a report from Mlinga Mission, discusses large-
scale depopulaion in the 19th centuy. Lovett
(Chapter 3) suggests that the high incidence of
secondary forest on the Westen Uzungwas indi-
cates a past higher agricultural populaion.
Kjekshus (1977), in a detailed debate on East
African demography, concluded that human
populaions were growing slowly prior to
European conquest in the late 19th century. He
suggested that the elaborate development of
irrigaion, manuring and erosion control systems
on many mountain areas indicated a long and
stable occupation of those areas, allowing such
agricultural pracices to evolve (e.g. the Chagga of
Kilimanjaro and the Matengo of the Southern
Highlands). Marealle (1949) esimated the
Chagga people to have been on Kilimanjaro for at
least 400 years.
Long associaion with forest may have led to
the evoluion of land use pracices allowing stable
ecological condiions and tradiions of soil and
water conservaion. These tradiions are based on
individual or family ownership of land which
allows the use of permanent tree crops as well as
irrigaion and ani-erosion measures. This is
evident in the Chagga (Allan, 1965) and Matengo
(Kjekshus, 1977), as well as the Wasambaa
systems of the Usambara (Farler, 1879; Eichhon,
1911-1923; Dobson, 1955; Feierman, 1970).