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Bantu Expansion
Bantu Expansion
Theories on expansion
Initially archaeologists believed that they could nd archaeological similarities in the ancient cultures of the region that the Bantu-speakers were held to have traversed;
while 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 1 = 20001500 BC origin
Roland Oliver published an article presenting these cor- 2 = ca.1500 BC rst migrations
2.a = Eastern African, 2.b = Western African
relations as a reasonable hypothesis.[16]
The hypothesized Bantu expansion pushed out or assimilated the hunter-forager proto-Khoisan, who 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 signicant human migration.
2 NigerCongo languages
The NigerCongo family comprises a huge group of
languages spread throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. The
BenueCongo branch includes the Bantu languages,
1
4 EXPANSION
4 Expansion
3.1
Central Africa
3.3
Eastern Africa
The Hadza and Sandawe-speaking populations in Tanzania comprise the other modern hunter-forager remnant in
Africa.
Parts of what now is present-day Kenya and Tanzania
were also primarily inhabited by agropastoralist AfroAsiatic speakers from the Horn of Africa followed by a
later wave of Nilo-Saharan herders.[20][21][22][23]
3
ments in economic activity, and new techniques in the
political-spiritual ritualisation of royalty as the source of
national strength and health.[30]
4.3
In the late 18th and early 19th century, two major events
occurred. The Trekboers were colonizing new areas of
southern Africa, moving northeast from the Cape Colony,
and they came into contact with the Xhosa, the Southern [9] De Filippo, C; Barbieri, C; Whitten, M; et al. (2011).
Y-chromosomal variation in sub-Saharan Africa: InNguni. At the same time major events were taking place
sights into the history of NigerCongo groups. Molecfurther north in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal. At that time
ular Biology and Evolution.
28 (3): 125569.
the area was populated by dozens of small clans, one of
doi:10.1093/molbev/msq312.
PMC
3561512 . PMID
which was the Zulu, then a particularly small clan of no lo21109585.
cal distinction whatsoever. In 1816 Shaka acceded to the
Zulu throne. Within a year he had conquered the neigh[10] Alves, I; Coelho, M; Gignoux, C; et al. (2011). Geboring clans, and had made the Zulu into the most imnetic homogeneity across Bantu-speaking groups from
portant ally of the large Mtetwa clan, which was in comMozambique and Angola challenges early split scenarios
petition with the Ndwandwe clan for domination of the
between East and West Bantu populations. Human Biolnorthern part of modern-day KwaZulu-Natal.
ogy. 83 (1): 1338. doi:10.3378/027.083.0102. PMID
21453002.
See also
Bantu peoples
References
[16] Oliver, Roland (1966). The Problem of the Bantu Expansion. The Journal of African History. 7 (3): 361.
doi:10.1017/S0021853700006472. JSTOR 180108.
[17] Campbell-Dunn, G.J.K. (2004). Comparative Linguistics Indo-European and Niger-Congo (PDF) (Report).
Christchurch, New Zealand: Penny Farthing Press. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
[18] Awad, Elias. Common Origins of Pygmies and Bantus. CNRS International Magazine. Centre National de
la Recherche Scientique. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
[19] Bahuchet, Serge (1993). Hladik, C.M., ed. History of the
Inhabitants of the Central African Rain Forest: Perspectives from Comparative Linguistics. Tropical Forests, People, and Food: Biocultural Interactions and Applications
to Development. Paris: Unesco/Parthenon. ISBN 978-92310-2879-3.
[20] Ehret, Christopher (1980). The Historical Reconstruction
of Southern Cushitic Phonology and Vocabulary. Volume
5 of Klner Beitrge zur Afrikanistik. Berlin: Reimer. p.
407.
[21] Ehret, Christopher (1983). Mack, John; Robertshaw, Peter, eds. Culture History in the Southern Sudan. Nairobi,
Kenya: British Institute in Eastern Africa. pp. 1948.
ISBN 9781872566047.
[22] Ambrose, Stanley H. (1982). Ehert, Christopher; Posnansky, Merrick, eds. Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstructions of History in East Africa. The Archaeological
and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-5200-4593-4.
[23] 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.
[24] Vansina, Jan (1990). Paths in the Rainforest: Toward a
History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-29912573-8.
[25] Ehret, C. (2001). Bantu Expansions: Re-Envisioning a
Central Problem of Early African History. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 34 (1): 541.
doi:10.2307/3097285. JSTOR 3097285.
[26] Beleza, Sandra; Gusmao, Leonor; Amorim, Antonio;
Caracedo, Angel; Salas, Antonio (August 2005). The
Genetic Legacy of Western Bantu Migrations. Human
Genetics. 117 (4): pp 366375. doi:10.1007/s00439005-1290-3.
[27] Ehret, Christopher (1998). An African Classical Age:
Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C.
to A.D. 400. London: James Currey.
[28] Newman, James L. (1995). The Peopling of Africa: A
Geographic Interpretation. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale
University Press. ISBN 0-300-07280-5.
[29] Shillington, Kevin (2005). History of Africa (3rd ed.).
New York: St. Martins Press.
[30] Shillington (2005).
External links
Genetic and Demographic
Bantu Expansion and Hunter-gatherers
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