Bantu expansion

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Chronological overview after Nurse and Philippson (2003):[1]
1 = 4,000–3,500 BP: origin
2 = 3,500 BP: initial expansion
"early split": 2.a = Eastern,    2.b = Western[2]
3 = 2,000–1,500 BP: Urewe nucleus of Eastern Bantu
47: southward advance
9 = 2,500 BP: Congo nucleus
10 = 2,000–1,000 BP: last phase
Map indicating the spread of the Early Iron Age across Africa; all numbers are AD dates except for the "250 BC" date.

The Bantu expansion is a hypothesis about the history of the major series of migrations of the original Proto-Bantu-speaking group,[3][4] which spread from an original nucleus around West-Central Africa. In the process, the Proto-Bantu-speaking settlers displaced, eliminated or absorbed pre-existing hunter-gatherer and pastoralist groups that they encountered.

There is linguistic evidence for this expansion – a great many of the languages which are spoken across

Atlantic-Congo language family, was located in the southern regions of Cameroon.[5] Genetic evidence also indicates that there was a large human migration from the central Africa, with varying levels of admixture with local population.[6][7]

The expansion is believed to have taken place in at least two waves, between about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago (approximately 2,000

BC to AD 1). Linguistic analysis suggests that the expansion proceeded in two directions: the first went across or along the Northern border of the Congo forest region (towards East Africa),[8] and the second – and possibly others – went south along Africa's Atlantic coast into what is now the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, or inland along the many south-to-north flowing rivers of the Congo River system. The expansion reached South Africa, probably as early as AD 300.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

Theories on expansion

Bantuists believe that the Bantu expansion most probably began on the highlands between Cameroon and Nigeria.[17] The 60,000-km2 Mambilla region straddling the borderlands here has been identified as containing remnants of "the Bantu who stayed home" as the bulk of Bantu-speakers moved away from the region. Archaeological evidence from the separate works of Jean Hurault (1979, 1986 and 1988) and Rigobert Tueché (2000) in the region indicates cultural continuity from 3000 BC until today.[18] The majority of the groups of the Bamenda highlands (occupied for 2000 years until today), somewhat south and contiguous with the Mambilla region, have an ancient history of descent from the north in the direction of the Mambilla region.

Initially, archaeologists believed that they could find archaeological similarities in the region's ancient cultures that the Bantu-speakers were held to have traversed. Linguists, classifying the languages and creating a genealogical table of relationships, believed they could reconstruct material culture elements. They believed that the expansion was caused by the development of agriculture, the making of ceramics, and the use of iron, which permitted new ecological zones to be exploited. In 1966, Roland Oliver published an article presenting these correlations as a reasonable hypothesis.[19]

The hypothesized Bantu expansion pushed out or assimilated the hunter-forager proto-Khoisan, who had formerly inhabited Southern Africa. In Eastern and Southern Africa, Bantu speakers may have adopted livestock husbandry from other unrelated Cushitic-and Nilotic-speaking peoples they encountered. Herding practices reached the far south several centuries before Bantu-speaking migrants did. Archaeological, linguistic, genetic, and environmental evidence all support the conclusion that the Bantu expansion was a significant human migration. Generally, the movements of Bantu language-speaking peoples from the Cameroon/Nigeria border region throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa radically reshaped the genetic structure of the continent and led to extensive admixture between migrants and local populations.[7] In 2023, using 1,487 Bantu speakers sampled from 143 populations across 14 African countries, revealed that the expansion occurred ~4,000 years ago in Western Africa. The results showed that Bantu speakers received significant gene-flow from local groups in regions they expanded into.[6]

Based on dental evidence, Irish (2016) concluded that the common ancestors of West African and

Democratic Republic of Congo) and West Bantu peoples (e.g., Congo, Gabon) between 2500 BC and 1200 BC.[20] He suggests that Igbo people and Yoruba people may have admixture from back-migrated Bantu peoples.[20]

Atlantic–Congo languages

The Atlantic-Congo family comprises a huge group of languages spread throughout Western, Central and Southern Africa. The Benue–Congo branch includes the Bantu languages, which are found throughout Central, Southern, and Eastern Africa.

A characteristic feature of most Atlantic–Congo languages, including almost all the Bantu languages except Swahili, is their use of tone. They generally lack case

noun classes). The root of the verb tends to remain unchanged, with either particles or auxiliary verbs expressing tenses and moods. For example, in a number of languages the infinitival
is the auxiliary designating the future.

Pre-expansion-era demography

Before the expansion of Bantu-speaking farmers, Central, Southern, and Southeast Africa was populated by

pastoralists
.

Central Africa

It is thought that

Mbenga or "Baaka") language.[22]

Southern Africa

Before the Bantu expansion,

Kalahari desert, while a larger number of Nama
continue their traditional subsistence by raising livestock in Namibia and adjacent South Africa.

Southeast Africa

Prior to the arrival of Bantus in Southeast Africa, Cushitic-speaking peoples had migrated into the region from the Ethiopian Highlands and other more northerly areas. The first waves consisted of Southern Cushitic speakers, who settled around Lake Turkana and parts of Tanzania beginning around 5,000 years ago. Many centuries later, around AD 1000, some Eastern Cushitic speakers also settled in northern and coastal Kenya.[23]

Khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherers also inhabited Southeast Africa before the Bantu expansion.[24]

Nilo-Saharan-speaking herder populations comprised a third group of the area's pre-Bantu expansion inhabitants.[25][26][27]

History and development

Expansion

San rock art depicting a shield-carrying Bantu warrior. The movement of Bantu settlers, who migrated southwards and settled in the summer rainfall regions of Southern Africa within the last 2000 years, established a range of relationships with the indigenous San people from bitter conflict to ritual interaction and intermarriage.[citation needed]

Linguistic, archeological and genetic evidence indicates that during the course of the Bantu expansion, "independent waves of migration of western African and East African Bantu-speakers into southern Africa occurred."

Pygmies or are in Mozambique,[29] while another population genetic study found this to be the case in the Bantu language-speaking Lemba of Southern Africa.[30]
Where Bantu was adopted via language shift of existing populations, prior African languages were spoken, probably from African language families that are now lost, except as substrate influences of local Bantu languages (such as click sounds in local Bantu languages).

c. 3000 BC to c. AD 500 

It seems likely that the expansion of the Bantu-speaking people from their core region in West Africa began around 4000–3500 BC. Although early models posited that the early speakers were both iron-using and agricultural, definitive archaeological evidence that they used iron does not appear until as late as 400 BC, though they were agricultural.[31] The western branch, not necessarily linguistically distinct, according to Christopher Ehret, followed the coast and the major rivers of the Congo system southward, reaching central Angola by around 500 BC.[32]

It is clear that there were human populations in the region at the time of the expansion, and

mtDNA genetic research from Cabinda suggests that only haplogroups that originated in West Africa are found there today, and the distinctive L0 of the pre-Bantu population is missing, suggesting that there was a complete population replacement. In South Africa, however, a more complex intermixing could have taken place.[33]

Further east, Bantu-speaking communities had reached the great Central African rainforest, and by 500 BC, pioneering groups had emerged into the

.

Another stream of migration, having moved east by 3,000 years ago (1000 BC), was creating a major new population center near the

Great Lakes of East Africa, where a rich environment supported a dense population. The Urewe culture dominated the Great Lakes region between 650BC and 550BC. It was one of Africa's oldest iron-smelting centres.[34][35] By the first century BC, Bantu speaking communities in the great lakes region developed iron forging techniques that enabled them to produce carbon steel.[36]

Movements by small groups to the southeast from the Great Lakes region were more rapid, with initial settlements widely dispersed near the coast and near rivers, due to comparatively difficult farming conditions in areas farther from water. Archaeological findings have shown that by 100 BC to 300 AD, Bantu speaking communities were present at the coastal areas of Misasa in

From the 11th century to 17th century

Between the 11th and 16th centuries, powerful Bantu-speaking states on a scale larger than local

Pate and Malindi. The Swahili traded with the inland kingdoms, including Great Zimbabwe.[37] Such processes of state-formation occurred with increasing frequency from the 16th century onward. They likely resulted from denser population, which led to more specialised divisions of labour, including military power, while making outmigration more effortful. Other factors promoting state-formation were increased trade among African communities and with European and Arab traders on the coasts, technological innovations in economic activity, and new techniques in the political-spiritual ritualisation of royalty as the source of national strength and health.[43] Other inland centres established during this phase of expansion include Bigo bya Mugenyi in Uganda, Thimlich Ohinga in Kenya and the Kweneng' Ruins in South Africa.[44][45]

Criticism

Manfred K. H. Eggert stated that "the current archaeological record in the Central African rainforest is extremely spotty and consequently far from convincing so as to be taken as a reflection of a steady influx of Bantu speakers into the forest, let alone movement on a larger scale."[46]

See also

References

  1. ^ Derek Nurse and Gérard Philippson: The Bantu Languages. Routledge, London 2003.
  2. S2CID 3094410
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  16. ^ "Carte Blanche > M-Net". Beta.mnet.co.za. Archived from the original on 7 January 2012. Retrieved 2011-12-31.
  17. PMID 35914165
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  18. ^ Zeitlyn, D and Connell, B (2003): Ethnogenesis and Fractal History on an African Frontier: Mambila-Njerep, -Mandulu. Journal of African History, Vol. 44, No 1, pp. 117-138, June 11, 2003. C.U.P.
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  21. ^ Awad, Elias. "Common Origins of Pygmies and Bantus". CNRS International Magazine. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
  22. ISBN 978-9-2310-2879-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
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  23. ^ "Early migrations into East Africa | Enzi".
  24. ^ Ambrose, S.H. (1986). "Hunter-gatherer adaptations to non-marginal environments: an ecological and archaeological assessment of the Dorobo model". Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (SUGIA). 7 (2): 11.
  25. ^ Ehret, Christopher (1980). The Historical Reconstruction of Southern Cushitic Phonology and Vocabulary. Vol. 5 of Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik. Berlin: Reimer. p. 407.
  26. .
  27. ISBN 978-0-5200-4593-4. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
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  28. ^ Michael C. Campbell and Sarah A. Tishkoff, "The Evolution of Human Genetic and Phenotypic Variation in Africa," Current Biology, Volume 20, Issue 4, R166–R173, 23 February 2010
  29. ^
    PMID 19360089
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  39. ^ Shillington, Kevin (2005). History of Africa (3rd ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press.[page needed]
  40. S2CID 162627912
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  42. ^ Shillington (2005).
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Further reading

External links