history of Gabon

Simplified map of Gabon

Present-day Gabon was first inhabited by rainforest hunter-gatherers (often called Pygmy peoples), attested as early as c. 43,000 BC; archaeology confirms occupations from the Late Pleistocene to the Neolithic along the coast and in the Ogooué. By c. 400–300 BC, Bantu-speaking farming and ironworking communities settled in the middle Ogooué, initiating an expansion that subsequently structured settlement across the region.