The project started with a large language documentation effort, covering 54 out of over 90 languages, mostly Bantu. We described the linguistic situation in the northeastern DRC in Ricquier et al. (2022) and presented five poorly documented Bantu languages to the scientific community (Lekango, Mokpa, Mbole, Kolongbandi and Bogbasa) (Kujath et al. submitted). The linguistic data served language classification, the study of language contact, the historical-linguistic reconstruction of river-related vocabulary and the grammatical study of Lekango. We presented a new phylogenetic classification for the Bantu languages of the northeastern DRC (Ricquier et al. 2022). Further research surprisingly refutes previous hypotheses. Concerning language contact, we focused on Mokpa and neighboring languages. A study of labial-velar consonants led to the discovery of substrate influence, possibly related to Mbole and Lokele (Kopa wa Kopa & Ricquier 2023). Lexical comparison confirms the influence of Mbole and reveals earlier contact between the ancestors of the mentioned languages (Kopa wa Kopa & Ricquier submitted). Finally, a sociolinguistic study addresses the present contact situation (see David Kopa wa Kopa’s PhD dissertation, successfully defended on March 27th, 2025).
We collected vernacular histories in 2019-2020 but reverted to the archives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Combined with linguistic results, this provided new insights into the precolonial history of the lower Lualaba (Ricquier et al. 2023). The anthropological fieldwork truly started off in 2022, in Mbole villages in Opala and Isangi Territory, villages around Basoko, and Mokpa villages at the Lualaba River. The anthropologists documented boat construction types, the use of specific fish traps, a collective and socially important fishing technique named “scooping” and the plastification of fish net weights.
The archaeological fieldwork consisted of three campaigns: the first along the Lualaba River, between Kisangani and Kirundu (Nieblas Ramirez et al. 2023), the second in the wider region around Isangi (Nieblas Ramirez et al. 2023), and the third in the Basoko area plus interviews on ceramic traditions in Banalia (Vutseme et al. 2024). The excavations along the lower Lualaba enabled us to extend the first expansion into the Congo Basin to the South of Kisangani. Other sites in the same area enabled us to extend a subsequent major cultural change beyond the Boyoma Falls at Kisangani. However, more recently, the arrival of new techniques pushed the techniques specific to the mentioned cultural change back to the area between Basoko and Kisangani. The excavations and interviews during the second and third fieldwork campaigns allowed for a better understanding of the cultural evolutions over the last 2 millennia in the Basoko-Isangi region. Most importantly, a new date situates the cultural change earlier, more than 1 millennium ago. Archaeobotanical material is currently studied by Louis Champion (IRD), the archaeo-ichthyological material by Laurent Nieblas Ramirez (ULB).
The BANTURIVERS team organized two international conferences. The first focused on methodology (Extracting the Past from the Present, March 1st – 5th, 2021, online, proceedings: Ricquier et al. 2023). The second conference revolved around the project’s research results (Social spaces, languages, and material culture in the history of the northern Congo Basin, 17th-21st June 2024, University of Kisangani). It was the first international conference in human sciences at the University of Kisangani. The conference proceedings will be published in an edited volume along with the research results of the project (Lambertz et al. in progress).
