Connections across a wide region

The migration of the Bantu people is a fascinating story in the history of agriculture. The Bantu passed information through a rich oral tradition. They left very little in writing until the Middle Ages. Researchers have still found ways to trace the movement of Bantu speaking peoples that began possibly as early as 2000 BCE.

The Bantu began in western Africa and migrated south and east. Evidence suggests that they moved across the continent sometime between 2000 BCE and 1000 CE. By about 1200 CE, they had a cultural and technological network across the trunk (center) of Africa. Bantu expansion reached almost all the way to the southern tip of the continent. The result was a web of trade, cultural exchange, and shared technology.

The agricultural revolution in much of Afro-Eurasia began around 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. It seems to have begun much later in most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is not known why. There is evidence of farming in modern-day Cameroon as early as 7000 BCE. Originally this was home to Bantu-speaking people. However, foraging was the main food source in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa until 2000 BCE. Archaeologists have unearthed pottery, iron tools and settlements, which are all evidence of agriculture. They date to between 2000 BCE and 1000 CE. These tools spread in the same areas the Bantu did, then spread out across most of Africa. How did these technologies move to create this vast network across the continent?
 

Evidence from different academic disciplines

There are many maps of the Bantu migrations similar to the one above. Different maps often show different pathways and it’s hard to know what information is reliable. There is excellent evidence for the movement of Bantu technologies and culture from a variety of academic disciplines.

Let’s look at the ancient settlements of Bantu-speaking populations in Cameroon in western Africa. Archaeologists have found potsherds (pieces of broken pottery) dating back to 5000 BCE there. Populations who made pottery typically did not move around. This evidence supports a theory that sub-Saharan agriculture could have begun in this region.

Archaeologists analyze the age of potsherds found in other parts of the continent. That creates data that can be used to map the spread of agriculture. We can see where it started in western Africa, and then how it radiated out south and east.

Researchers who study languages can also gather evidence about the spread of the Bantu language. Linguists analyze modern Bantu-based languages, like Swahili. They try to determine how the Bantu language spread through the continent.

More recently, scientists who study genetics have analyzed the DNA of modern speakers of Bantu languages. They have compared them to the DNA of the original Bantus of western Africa. Their data allows them to see which populations are most closely related to the original Bantus.

Both the linguists and geneticists reached the same conclusion of the archaeologists. They all determined that the Bantu moved south and east from western Africa between 2000 BCE and 1000 CE. 

Theories about the Bantu migration

Bantu migration opens a discussion about the movement of people, technology and culture in these ancient times. How did the vast Bantu network actually come into being? The three theories that have emerged are migration, adoption and diffusion. Migration refer to the physical migration of the Bantu people. Adoption and diffusion refer to the spread of Bantu ideas and technologies.

There are still disputes about which of these theories is correct or how they might all be part of the same story. Genetic evidence may indicate something different than the archaeological evidence.
 

Table 1: Theories about the Bantu Migration

More questions to answer

The story of the agricultural revolution in sub-Saharan Africa is incomplete. Experts from multiple academic disciplines continue to debate the Bantu migration routes based on their evidence. Some even question whether they migrated at all.

One question to ask is why Bantu farmers moved from their homeland while their foraging ancestors did not. Leonard Ngcongco of the University of Botswana has explained that “people move … for a reason. They move because the population has expanded. They move because the resources which support the population in the settlements have become more or less inadequate. They move because there are changes to the climate and they move for the sake of finding better areas in which to live” (BBC).

What seems certain is that farming in the region began near the modern-day border of Cameroon and Nigeria. It dates to somewhere between 5000 and 2000 BCE.

Beyond that, researchers can only debate. Perhaps historians, along with scholars in other disciplines, will find answers to these questions as new evidence emerges. These scholars may help explain the spread of agriculture and language across the African continent.