The Bantu expansion
Language, iron and farming spread across half a continent
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The Bantu expansion is one of the largest linguistic and demographic transformations in human history, traced through linguistics, archaeology and genetics. Ironworking combined with yam and later sorghum cultivation produced population growth that gradually replaced or absorbed hunter-gatherer societies across vast areas. It was not one wave but many, over some two thousand years, producing the linguistic map of southern and eastern Africa we see today — Swahili, Zulu, Shona and hundreds more.
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From the area of present-day Cameroon, farmers spread south and east across Africa, thousands of kilometres over many centuries. They brought farming, iron tools and their language. Today over 350 million people speak languages descended from theirs.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org