Great Lakes Protoculture

The bow and arrow, otherwise nonexistent in Africa, is developed by fishermen in southern Mozambique. This allows the tribes there to outcompete others and their descendants spread into the large Great Lakes proto-culture. It's quite large, but prehistoric cultures were often very large.

Culture
They are identified by the use of the distinctive African bow and arrow, and its variants, a contraption whose remains can be found all over that territory. Other than this, little else unites the Great Lakes peoples except for the unified belief in Alkabist religions, other than which, they share little in common

Religion
They follow Alkabist relgions, the internal variaton of which a much as the variation of Alkabism in other sapien populations

Social Structure
They are organized in Bands, with no higher organization over that, each lead communally, by an elder or by charismatic leaders. These bands are typically no larger than 20 individuals.

Language
Due to their rapid advance and initial primitive state (compared to other distinct proto-cultures) there is no majority language within the Great Lakes proto-culture, only a variation of many different tongues.

History and Collapse
After their formation, they spread rapidly reaching their largest extent in 30,000 BC before the population at the edges became distinct enough to be considered their own proto-cultures. These were the Rhodesian in Central Southern Africa, The Congolese in the Congo Basin and the Mozambiquean, corresponding to OTL Mozambique and surrounding valleys. They each took on new Characteristics that made them better able to thrive in their new environments but achieved little expansion, while the more traditional Great Lakes were left confined to the territory east of the Congolese and north of the Mozambiquean.

The end of the Great Lakes proto-culture would come when the Kigali protoculture formed in the confluence of the four Great Lakes descended proto-culture, combining aspects from all to make a more advanced proto-culture, one with tribal level organization, they were able to out-compete the main Great Lakes proto-culture actively and passively, absorbing all the Great Lakes peoples into the Kigali.