Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T16:01:15.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bantu Genesis—Archaeological Reflexions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Merrick Posnansky
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article presents a reassessment of the archaeological background for the prehistory of the Bantu movements. The differences between the Channelled wares of Central Africa and the Dimple-based wares of East Africa are demonstrated and the greater abundance of Dimple-based ware sites noted. In both cases the distribution is largely in areas suitable for primary cultivation such as river valleys and lakeside areas. It is suggested that both wares are derived from pottery traditions originating to the west of their eastern African distribution areas. Recent evidence would indicate that iron working spread to sub-Saharan Africa both from West Africa and also, via the East African coast, from the Red Sea, and that the earliest iron-using peoples in southern Africa were probably not all negroes. It is also suggested that a negro foraging population was perhaps present in Central Africa before the arrival of agriculture. On agricultural origins, it is noted that some agriculture existed in the Rift valley area by perhaps as early as 1000 b.c., though the main expansion of agriculture is postulated as being of western origin. In conclusion it would appear that the West African origins of Bantu genesis are more important than suggested by Oliver in Journal of African History, Volume VII, and almost certainly antedate the 2000 years timescale previously advanced.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 All the page numbers refer to the Journal of African History version, reprinted under the title ‘The problem of the Bantu expansion’, pp. 361−77.

2 Current Anthropology (10 1966); Archaeology (1966)Google Scholar in a review of Fagan's, B. M.Southern Africa; and Prelude to East African History, ed. Posnansky, M. (London, 1966), p. 90.Google Scholar

3 Hiernaux, J. and Maquet, E., Mém. de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, X (1960), pt 2, 1–88.Google Scholar

4 Posnansky, M. (1967). ‘The Iron Age in East Africa’, in Background to African Evolution, ed. Bishop, W. W. and Clark, J. D. (Chicago, forthcoming).Google Scholar

5 Leakey, M. D. and Leakey, L. S. B. and Archdeacon, Owen, ‘Dimple-based pottery from Central Kavirondo’, Coryndon Museum Occasional Papers, no. 2 (Nairobi, 1948).Google Scholar

6 Nenquin, J., Man, LIX, no. 242 (1959).Google Scholar

7 Posnansky, loc. cit.

8 Sutton, J. E. G., ‘A review of pottery from the Kenya Highlands’, South African Archaeological Bulletin, XIX (1964), 28–9.Google Scholar

9 Evidence from Tunnel Rock Shelter, Kenya, contained in Sutton, J. E. G., ‘The archaeology and early peoples of the Highlands of Kenya and northern Tanzania’, Azania, I (1966).Google Scholar

10 Basil, Davidson, Old Africa Rediscovered (London, 1959) 72–5.Google Scholar

11 Posnansky, M. ‘Kingship, archaeology and historical myth’, Uganda Journal, XXX (1966 b), 3.Google Scholar

12 Armstrong, R. G., The Study of West African Languages (Ibadan, 1964), and by personal communication.Google Scholar

13 Posnansky, M., ‘Pottery types from archaeological sites in East Africa’, J. African Hist. II (1961), 793.Google Scholar

14 Fagan, B. H., ‘Radiocarbon dates for Sub-Saharan Africa’, J. African Hist. IV (1966), 503.Google Scholar

15 Information from DrFr., Anfray and from recent accounts in Annales d'Ethiopie, V–VI, (1963, 1965).Google Scholar

16 South West Journal of Anthropology (1963), 768–76.Google Scholar

17 Posnansky, , loc. cit. (1966 b), 2.Google Scholar

18 Personal information from Carleton S. Coon based partly on the work of the Southern Methodist College in Nubia.

19 Unpublished report on excavations at Iwo Ileru given by Professor Shaw at the Premier Colloque International d'Archéologie africaine held at Fort Lamy in December 1966.

20 Also referred to sometimes in southern Africa as (or related to) the Bush-Boskopoids.

21 MacNeish, R. S., ‘The origins of New World civilization’, Scientific American, CCXI, no. 5 (1965).Google Scholar

22 Fock, G. S., ‘Steintöpfe im südlichen Afrika’, S. W. Africa Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, XV (1961), 41–6.Google Scholar

23 Clark, J. D., Man, no. 88 (1964), 69–73.Google Scholar

24 Phillipson, D. W. ‘A stone mortar from Northern Malawi’, Azania, I (1966), 159–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Information from reports given to and discussions at the Premier Colloque International d'Archéologie africaine held at Fort Lamy, December 1966.

26 Leakey, M. D. and Leakey, L. S. B., Excavations at Njoro River Cave (Oxford, 1950).Google Scholar

27 Recent unpublished radiocarbon dates as well as typological studies suggest that the Capsian is post-Pleistocene in age. In North Africa the Capsian dates are all post 10,000 B.C. (in part, personal communication from Dr Glynn Isaac).

28 Wright, R., Proc. Preh. Soc., XXXVII (1961), 28–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Graziozi, P., ‘New discoveries of rock paintings in Ethiopia’, Antiquity.Google Scholar

30 Mistakenly labelled ‘Bushmen’ by Oliver, (p. 370).Google Scholar Woodburn has recently quoted Tucker in describing certain elements in the Hadza language which have affinities to Erythraic or Hamito-Semitic languages (paper on the Hazda, prepared for Man the Hunter conference, Chicago, 04, 1966). The adjective Hottentot as applied to the Sandawe is also misleading. Physically Trevor has shown some affinities to the Hottentot, but their language is not Khoisan, nor is their way of life culturally close to that of the Hottentot.Google Scholar

31 Sassoon, H., ‘Engaruka: excavations during 1964’, Azania, I (1966), and private communication on work in 1966 which produced skeletal material.Google Scholar

32 Soper, R., ‘Archaeological evidence from the coastal hinterland of Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania’, paper presented to the conference on East Africa and the Orient, 04 1967, and personal communication.Google Scholar

33 Smolla, G., ‘Prehistorische Keramik aus Ostafrika’, Tribus, VI (1957), 35–64.Google Scholar

34 Posnansky, , loc. cit. (1966 b), 10.Google Scholar

35 Ibid, 9.

36 Review of Jones, A. M., Indonesia and Africa (Leyden, 1964)Google Scholar in Man (1965) by Mantle, Hood;Google Scholar and by Heins, E. L. in Bÿdragen Voor Taal, Land sa Volkenkunde (1966).Google Scholar