Ancient site · Other
Shum Laka
A large rock shelter behind a waterfall in a volcanic crater near Bamenda, in the Grassfields of northwestern Cameroon, the region where Bantu languages probably began. People used it on and off for some 30,000 years.
Eighteen skeletons were buried here in two phases, about 8,000 and 3,000 years ago. DNA from four children, the first ancient DNA from West or Central Africa, showed they were related more to Central African hunter-gatherers than to today's Bantu-speaking peoples.
- Dates
- used from c. 30,000 years ago to c. 400 years ago; burials c. 6000 and 1000 BCE
- Still standing
- Yes
- Location
- 5.86° N, 10.08° E
How we know
No writing existed; the layers and burials are dated by radiocarbon, and ancient DNA was read from four children in 2020.
Nearby sites
- Taruga c. 600–200 BCE (iron smelting c. 4th–3rd century BCE)
- Nok c. 1500 BCE – 1 CE; terracottas from c. 900 BCE
- Gobero c. 7700–6200 and 5200–2500 BCE
- Ounjougou oldest pottery c. 9400 BCE
- Djenné-Djenno c. 250 BCE – 1400 CE
- Tassili n'Ajjer rock art c. 10,000 BCE (debated) to the early centuries CE