Bantu Expansion

Abstract

The Bantu expansion is the initial spread of the Bantu languages and the people speaking them from their original homeland in the border zone of modern‐day Nigeria and Cameroon over major parts of eastern and central Africa. This entry reviews the key evidence from historical linguistics, evolutionary genetics, and archaeology for this major demic expansion which took place between about five thousand and two thousand years ago and transformed the continent's linguistic, biological, and cultural landscape.