Rwanda - a country that is engulfed between Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and Zaire has been green and fertile for many thousands of years. This has been recorded even during the last ice age, when part of the Nyungwe Forest was above the ice sheet. It is not known when the country was first inhabited, but it is thought that humans moved into the area shortly after that ice age, either in the Neolithic period, around ten thousand years ago, or in the long humid period which followed, up to around 3000 BC.

The earliest inhabitants of the region were the Twa, a group of aboriginal Pygmy forest hunters and gatherers, who still live in Rwanda today. Archaeological excavations conducted from the 1940s have revealed evidence of sparse settlement by hunters in the last stone age, followed by a larger population of early iron age settlers. The later groups were found to have manufactured artifacts, including a type of dimpled pottery, iron tools and implements. Today Rwanda, which better through a bitter genocide in 1994 is now a peaceful state and is opening up for tourism. The main attractions are the gorilla and the chimpanzees viewing along with the culture of the many tribes including the pygmies.