ABSTRACT
The large mammals of Africa escaped most of the wide-scale extinctions that occurred in Europe, Asia, and North America at the end of the Pleistocene, so that even today (at least in some wildlife reserves) we can see much of the range of species of large mammals that populated the earth before the advent of human hunters. Almost a hundred large ungulates, including elephant, rhinoceroses, giraffe, hippopotamus, suids, around 78 species of bovids, and many species of carnivores give the African fauna a unique character, described by Bigalke (1978) as "prePleistocene" in composition (by which I assume he meant pre-glacial). It was in this environment that the first agriculturists had to establish themselves, south of the Sahara.
