Dense Wild Yam Patches Established by Hunter-Gatherer Camps: Beyond the Wild Yam Question, Toward the Historical Ecology of Rainforests

Prior to the 1980s, most researchers believed that the African forest hunter-gatherers, or Pygmies, were the original inhabitants of the central African rainforests. It was assumed that their close social, economic, and ecological relationships with neighboring agricultural societies did not date back long, and that they had previously lived solely through foraging wild forest products. The same is true for forest hunter-gatherers on other continents.