1000 BC to 1399

Forest and river peoples

Forest hunter gatherers such as the Aka and Mbendjele are among the earliest known inhabitants of the northern rainforest. Over roughly the last three thousand years, Bantu-speaking farmers settle along the rivers and the coast, later working iron. Their villages and chiefdoms grow, and by the fifteenth century kingdoms such as Loango on the coast and Tio on the plateaus have taken shape.