Vᵉ siècle av. J.-C. – Xᵉ siècle
Central, eastern, and southern Africa
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Early Iron Age Bantu expansion describes the spread of iron-using food-producing communities and associated cultural traditions across sub-equatorial Africa. The passage places ancestral speakers of Bantu Zones C and D near the northern margins of the Congo forest around the middle of the first millennium BC and argues that, by the end of the first millennium AD, Bantu-speaking food-producers had established themselves across most of the area occupied by their descendants. Expansion varied by environment, with savanna farming and stock-raising advancing more rapidly than forest-based food production.
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The archaeological record presented here places the entry of Iron Age traditions into Bantu Africa across the western part of the northern frontier. One route may have followed river systems through the forest toward Kinshasa and the southern savanna by about the third century BC, while the principal movement appears to have tracked the north-eastern margins of the Congo forest toward the highlands bordering the Western Rift. From these zones, eastern variants spread across Tanzania to the Indian Ocean and southward through Malawi, Rhodesia, Mozambique, and South Africa between about the second and fifth centuries AD.
The expansion did not proceed uniformly. Around the Congo forest, riverside fishing and forest vegeculture remained important, while savanna communities benefited more strongly from cereal agriculture, stock-raising, and iron tools. The passage suggests that the Bantu savanna culture eventually moved around the forest to the east and south, overtaking the more slowly expanding forest culture in many surrounding regions.
By the end of the first millennium AD, Bantu-speaking food-producers had long established themselves across most of the territory occupied by their descendants. Their advantage is attributed to the relative efficiency of iron-using agriculture and to the capacity to adapt food production to different environments. Population growth among food-producers contributed to the absorption of earlier hunting and gathering communities and to the emergence of the diverse Bantu peoples of the following millennium.
Vᵉ siècle av. J.-C. – Xᵉ siècle
Central, eastern, and southern Africa
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
Early Iron Age Bantu expansion describes the spread of iron-using food-producing communities and associated cultural traditions across sub-equatorial Africa. The passage places ancestral speakers of Bantu Zones C and D near the northern margins of the Congo forest around the middle of the first millennium BC and argues that, by the end of the first millennium AD, Bantu-speaking food-producers had established themselves across most of the area occupied by their descendants. Expansion varied by environment, with savanna farming and stock-raising advancing more rapidly than forest-based food production.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
The archaeological record presented here places the entry of Iron Age traditions into Bantu Africa across the western part of the northern frontier. One route may have followed river systems through the forest toward Kinshasa and the southern savanna by about the third century BC, while the principal movement appears to have tracked the north-eastern margins of the Congo forest toward the highlands bordering the Western Rift. From these zones, eastern variants spread across Tanzania to the Indian Ocean and southward through Malawi, Rhodesia, Mozambique, and South Africa between about the second and fifth centuries AD.
The expansion did not proceed uniformly. Around the Congo forest, riverside fishing and forest vegeculture remained important, while savanna communities benefited more strongly from cereal agriculture, stock-raising, and iron tools. The passage suggests that the Bantu savanna culture eventually moved around the forest to the east and south, overtaking the more slowly expanding forest culture in many surrounding regions.
By the end of the first millennium AD, Bantu-speaking food-producers had long established themselves across most of the territory occupied by their descendants. Their advantage is attributed to the relative efficiency of iron-using agriculture and to the capacity to adapt food production to different environments. Population growth among food-producers contributed to the absorption of earlier hunting and gathering communities and to the emergence of the diverse Bantu peoples of the following millennium.