Occupation of the humid tropics by Late Holocene food producers depended on the use of vegetative agricultural systems. A small number of vegetative crops from the Americas and Asia have come to dominate tropical agriculture globally in these warm and humid environments, due to their ability to provide reliable food output with low labour inputs, as well as their suitability to these environments. The prehistoric arrival in Africa of Southeast Asian crops, in particular banana, taro and greater yam but also sugar cane and others, is commonly regarded as one of the most important examples of transcontinental exchanges in the tropics. Although chronologies of food-producer expansions in Central Africa are increasingly gaining resolution, we have very little evidence for the agricultural systems used in this region. Researchers have recovered just a handful of examples of archaeobotanical banana, taro and sugar cane remains, and so far none from greater yam. Many of the suggested dispersal routes have not been tested with chronological, ecological and linguistic evidence of food producers. While the impact of Bantu-speaking people has been emphasised, the role of non-Bantu farmers speaking Ubangi and Central Sudanic languages who have expanded from the (north)east has hardly been considered. This article will review the current hypotheses on dispersal routes and suggest that transmissions via Northeast Africa should become a new focus of research on the origins of Asian vegeculture crops in Africa.

全新世晚期粮食生产者对潮湿热带地区的占领依赖于植物农业系统的使用。在这些温暖潮湿的环境中，来自美洲和亚洲的少数植物作物已在全球热带农业中占据主导地位，因为它们能够以较低的劳动力投入提供可靠的粮食产出，并且适合这些环境。东南亚作物，特别是香蕉、芋头和山药，还有甘蔗等，在史前抵达非洲，通常被认为是热带地区跨大陆交流的最重要例子之一。尽管中部非洲粮食生产扩张的年代越来越清晰，但我们对该地区使用的农业系统的证据却很少。研究人员仅发现了少量香蕉、芋头和甘蔗遗迹的考古植物样本，到目前为止还没有发现来自大山药的遗迹。许多建议的传播路线尚未经过食品生产者的时间、生态和语言证据的测试。虽然强调班图语人民的影响，但几乎没有考虑从（东北）东扩展的、讲乌班吉语和中苏丹语的非班图农民的作用。本文将回顾目前关于传播途径的假设，并建议通过东北非的传播应成为非洲亚洲蔬菜作物起源研究的新焦点。