New Holocene Radiocarbon Dates from the Heart of the Sangha River Interval, Southwestern Central African Republic

Radiocarbon assay of charcoal from four sites in Nola, Central African Republic, provide new age estimates from the Sangha River Interval and doubles the number of radiocarbon dates from the center of this important and controversial biogeographical tract. The new age estimates mark the occupation of a village ~575 cal BP, two iron-smelting events about 1550 cal BP, and a ~2750–2520 cal BP iron production feature that represents one of the earliest smelting sites in the Congo Basin. Although the numbers of dated sites in the northcentral Sangha River Interval remain unfortunately small, most represent iron production loci that predate 1550 cal BP and suggest Nola supported widespread Early Iron Age smelting on the cusp of a proposed human population collapse. The extant record also indicates this profusion of smelting occurred hundreds of years before intensification in metallurgy in the neighboring Lobaye River basin.