Bantu

Bantu, linguistically related group of about 200 million people living in equatorial and southern Africa. The Bantu probably originated in what is now Cameroon. From about 1000 bc, they began to spread out their small farming settlements across most of central, eastern, and southern Africa, reaching the south-east coast of South Africa in the 3rd or 4th centuries ad. In the past this has been described as the great Bantu migration, although recently anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians have questioned the use of the term “migration”, which suggests a large, continuous movement of people. Current evidence suggests that movements were piecemeal and sporadic, involving small numbers of individuals—dividing and subdividing their settlements, moving into new areas, and absorbing local hunter-gatherer populations. The exact cause of such movement is uncertain, but many anthropologists believe it was prompted by an increase in population, a result of the development of new farming techniques or the introduction of new crops, such as the banana (native to southern Asia), which allowed for more efficient food production. Archaeological evidence suggests it may also have been linked in its later stages to the introduction of ironworking technology. The adoption of iron tools and weapons enabled Bantu farmers to clear new land and create farming settlements in areas previously only roamed by Stone Age hunter-gatherers.

Early in their history, the Bantu split into two major linguistic branches—the Eastern and Western Bantu. The Eastern Bantu migrated through present-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique, southward to South Africa. The Western Bantu moved into what is now Angola, Namibia, and north-western Botswana.

Today the Bantu are seen more as a language group than as a cultural group. The most widely spoken Bantu-derived language is Swahili, which is used as a lingua franca (a language used in common by different peoples to facilitate commerce and trade) by up to 50 million speakers on the eastern coast of Africa. Indigenous groups descended from the Bantu include the Shona, Xhosa, Kikuyu, and Zulu, of the Eastern Bantu language branch; and the Herero and Tonga peoples, of the Western Bantu language branch. (See also African Languages.)