The Kiffians were skilled
hunters. Bones of many large savannah animals that were discovered in the same area suggest that they lived on the shores of a lake that was present during the Holocene Wet Phase, a period when the Sahara desert was verdant and wet. Based on dental evidence, Joel D. Irish of
Liverpool John Moores University suggests sub-Saharan West African affinities for the Kiffians, in turn suggesting that the common ancestors of West African and
Proto-Bantu peoples may have originated in the southwestern region of the
Sahara amid the Kiffian period at
Gobero, and may have migrated southward from the Sahara into various parts of
West Africa (e.g.,
Benin,
Cameroon,
Ghana,
Nigeria,
Togo) as a result of desertification of the Green Sahara in 7000 BCE. From parts of southeast Nigeria and Cameroon,
agricultural Proto-Bantu peoples began to
migrate, and amid migration, diverged into East Bantu peoples (e.g., Democratic Republic of Congo) and West Bantu peoples (e.g., Congo,
Gabon) between 2500 BCE and 1200 BCE. or
Niger-Congo speakers. == Decline ==