Bantu

A Niger-Congo language family, with approximately 60,000,000 speakers of more than 200 distinct languages, who occupy almost the entire southern projection of the African continent (roughly from the bulge downward). The classification is linguistic as the cultures of the Bantu speakers are extremely diverse. The languages are closely interrelated, indicating expansion of the population from a single source, probably the eastern Nigeria/Cameroon area. Throughout the region these first farming settlements are marked by a common pottery tradition, the 'Early Iron age' complex.

A linguistic term, applied to a widely distributed group of closely interrelated languages in sub-Saharan Africa. It has long been believed that the distribution of these languages, which form part of the Niger-Congo linguistic family, indicates a relatively recent expansion of population from a single source area, which linguistic evidence locates in the modem eastern Nigeria/Cameroon area, at the extreme northwestern limit of the Bantu-speaking zone. Beyond this area Bantu languages are today spoken over the whole of the continent south of a line which closely follows the northern margin of the equatorial forest, with the exception of the San people now concentrated in Botswana and Namibia. Despite the manifest dangers in assuming a correlation between archaeological and linguistic reconstructions of the past, several prehistorians have attempted to trace parallels between the linguistically indicated Bantu language dispersal and the archaeological evidence for the rapid appearance of metalworking mixed-farming peoples over the greater part of sub-Saharan Africa during the first few centuries of the Christian era. Whatever the linguistic attributions of the people concerned, it is clear that this period saw a pronounced change in the life-style prevailing over the eastern and southern parts of the subcontinent. Villages of mixed-farmers who made pottery and worked metals were established in areas which appear previously to have been occupied solely by huntergatherers using stone tools. It seems probable that this change was due to the physical arrival of a new population element, particularly since both life-styles seem to have flourished side by side in many areas throughout and beyond the 1st millennium ad. Throughout the region these first farming settlements are marked by a common pottery tradition, seen as the hallmark of a single ‘Early Iron Age’ complex. This complex is represented first during the last few centuries be in the Lake Victoria basin, where its characteristic pottery is known as Urewe ware. Related wares are attested near the Kenya and Tanzania coasts by the 2nd century ad, and as far south as the Transvaal and Natal by the 4th century.