Chapter 10. Were the first Bantu speakers south of the rainforest farmers?

Bostoen, Koen; Muluwa, Joseph Koni

doi:10.1075/z.215.10bos

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This paper is a response to evidence of increasing interest from other disciplines in the spread of farming and pastoralism in southern Africa, as evidenced in cross-disciplinary papers [ 40 , 41 , 42 ]. We first comment on the two spread events themselves, before raising some points that speak to potential gaps and weaknesses in archaeological research and method.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The archaeological evidence for the appearance of pastoralism and farming in southern Africa

Lander

Russell

2018

PLoS ONE

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This paper is a response to the growing reference to archaeological evidence by linguists and geneticists interested in the spread of early farmers and pastoralists in southern Africa. It presents two databases. The first contains the archaeological evidence for pastoralism and farming in southern Africa, for the period 550 BC to AD 1050. This is the first time that the seven different types of archaeological evidence that have traditionally been used to identify both spread events are presented together at this scale. This was stimulated by our interest in investigating the antiquity of an early ‘Iron Age package’ relative to the spread of single archaeological traits. The analysis shows that the package appears approximately 700 years after sites containing pottery, cattle and sheep, without agriculture, appear in the drier parts of the sub-continent. It post-dates the appearance of earlier sites with pottery associated with farmers, metal-working and cultivation in the eastern half of the sub-continent. While poor preservation undoubtedly explains the absence of some parts of the package, the analysis suggests that other explanations should be considered. The second database is a quantitative, spatial study of archaeological publications on southern African farming and pastoralism for the period 1950 to 2016, covering the same geographical area and archaeological timeframe. This is presented as a proxy for research-intensive areas in attempt to show the gaps in archaeological fieldwork and knowledge.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The archaeological evidence for the appearance of pastoralism and farming in southern Africa

Lander

Russell

2018

PLoS ONE

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“…The available linguistic evidence does not so far conclusively support the exclusive importance of Bantu for agriculture in the rainforest, let alone its specific role in the dispersion of Asian crops. In fact, recent research on the Bantu expansion suggests that the initial south(east)ward migration phase, into and through the more southern humid zone, occurred within a partly savannah-like environment due to localized forest crises in western areas that today again have complete tree cover (Bostoen et al 2013(Bostoen et al , 2015Bostoen and Muluwa 2017;Grollemund et al 2015;Maley 2002;Maley et al 2018;Ngomanda et al 2009), although some authors question this Savannah Corridor model (Bremond et al 2017). In any case, the Bantu expansion was not obviously fuelled by a strong agricultural subsistence adapted to the rainforest.…”

Section: Historical Linguistic Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asian Crop Dispersal in Africa and Late Holocene Human Adaptation to Tropical Environments

et al. 2019

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Occupation of the humid tropics by Late Holocene food producers depended on the use of vegetative agricultural systems. A small number of vegetative crops from the Americas and Asia have come to dominate tropical agriculture globally in these warm and humid environments, due to their ability to provide reliable food output with low labour inputs, as well as their suitability to these environments. The prehistoric arrival in Africa of Southeast Asian crops, in particular banana, taro and greater yam but also sugar cane and others, is commonly regarded as one of the most important examples of transcontinental exchanges in the tropics. Although chronologies of food-producer expansions in Central Africa are increasingly gaining resolution, we have very little evidence for the agricultural systems used in this region. Researchers have recovered just a handful of examples of archaeobotanical banana, taro and sugar cane remains, and so far none from greater yam. Many of the suggested dispersal routes have not been tested with chronological, ecological and linguistic evidence of food producers. While the impact of Bantu-speaking people has been emphasised, the role of non-Bantu farmers speaking Ubangi and Central Sudanic languages who have expanded from the (north)east has hardly been considered. This article will review the current hypotheses on dispersal routes and suggest that transmissions via Northeast Africa should become a new focus of research on the origins of Asian vegeculture crops in Africa.

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“…Moreover, we find widespread families for which agricultural vocabulary can be confidently reconstructed, but where it remains unclear whether agriculture is indeed the main driving force behind the spread. This is, for instance, the case for Indo-European as discussed above, the Quechuan and Aymaran languages (Emlen & Adelaar, 2017 ) and even the initial Bantu expansion (Bostoen & Koni Muluwa, 2017 ). Nevertheless, even if not all language dispersal is caused by farming, farming/language dispersal remains a viable hypothesis for many language families across the world.…”

Section: Farming Language Dispersalmentioning

confidence: 84%