African Agriculture and Bantu Expansion Detailed Notes

The Anthropological Context II

African Archaeology

  • Focusing on the origins of African agriculture and the Bantu expansion.

Origins of Agriculture

  • Humans spent the vast majority of their existence as foragers (approximately 95%), spanning from 300,000 B.P. to 10,000 B.P.
  • Foraging involves hunting and gathering, where people subsist on wild plants and animals.

Characteristics of Foragers

  • Foraging societies are often considered the original affluent societies because they typically only required about 2-4 hours per day to obtain their daily food requirements.
  • These societies had tremendous food diversity, and food scarcity was relatively rare.
  • In foraging societies, about 60-80% of food was obtained through gathering by women, while 20-40% of food was obtained through hunting by men.
  • Foragers are typically nomadic, practicing seasonal migration, and live in small groups, usually consisting of 20-30 individuals.
  • Foraging societies are socially egalitarian, emphasizing equality, and often engage in nature worship.

Transition from Foraging to Agriculture

  • Reasons for shifting from foraging to domesticating plants and animals:
    • Climate change, primarily desiccation.
    • Population pressure.
    • Experimentation.
    • Cultural diffusion.
  • Domestication involves altering animal or plant species to suit human needs and was a gradual process.

Agricultural Domestication Centers

  • Various regions worldwide served as centers for agricultural domestication, each with its unique set of crops and animals.
    • North America: Artichoke, blueberry, cranberry, sunflower, tepary bean, tobacco.
    • Meso-America: Beans, maize, squash.
    • Mediterranean: Barley, cattle, goat, grapes, celery, lentils, dates, garlic, lettuce, olives.
    • Southwest Asia: Barley, cattle, dog, beets, camel, fruits, grapes, hemp, horse, lentils, melons, oats, onions, oilseeds, rye, sheep, wheat.
    • North Central China: Apricots, barley, beans, buckwheat, cabbage, peaches, plums, soybeans.
    • West Africa: Chili pepper, cotton, gourds, lettuce, melons, okra, peanuts, rice, taro, tobacco, yams.
    • Andean Uplands: Alpaca, arrowroot, beans, guinea pig, llama, sweet potato.
    • Eastern Brazil: Brazil nuts, cacao, manioc, muscovy duck, papaya, pineapple.
    • East Africa: Ass, barley, coffee, finger millet, peas, sorghum, teff, wheat.
    • Southern and Southeastern Asia: Bananas, breadfruit, chicken, citrus fruits, coconuts, cucumbers, dog, dromedary, duck, eggplant, goose, hemp/jute, oil palm, pig, rice, sugar cane, taro, tea, water buffalo, yams, zebu cattle.

Major Indigenous Domesticated Plants & Animals of Sub-Saharan Africa (Senegambia to Ethiopia)

  • Animals: Dogs, Guinea Fowl, Donkeys
  • Plants: African Rice, Guinea Corn, Oil Palm, Sorghum, Coffee, Teff, Ensente, Finger Millet, Hungry Rice, Fonio and Yams

Important Non-African Domesticates in Africa

  • Middle Eastern domesticates: cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs
  • American domesticates: maize (corn), peanuts, cassava, and cacao
  • China: Asian rice, chickens, tea
  • Other: bananas, oranges (both SE Asia)

Subsistence Strategies

  • Pastoralism: The reliance of humans on domesticated animals for the majority of their diet (herders).
  • Horticulture: Cultivation without irrigation, fertilizer, and draft animals (gardeners).
  • Agriculture: Cultivation with irrigation, fertilizer, and draft animals (farmers or peasants).

Map 7 African Agriculture, ca. 5500 BCE

  • Aquatic
  • Sudanic agriculture
  • West African planting agriculture
  • Cushitic agripastoralism
  • Middle Eastern agriculture
  • pastoralism
  • proto-Chadic?

African Iron Age

  • Did it develop independently in Sub-Saharan Africa, or did it diffuse into Sub-Saharan Africa from Asia?
  • Iron was common in Egypt by 1200BC, and some believe the Nubians taught its manufacture to the Egyptians around 700BC while others believe it was from the Carthaginians, Assyrians or Asia (via Indian Ocean)?
  • In other parts of the world, people went from stone to copper, to iron. In Africa, most people went from stone to iron.
  • The presence of iron manufacture dates back to between 3,800-4,200 years ago years ago at Ôboui in the western section of the Central African Republic and Gbatoro in northern Cameroon.
  • These dates not only make these locations the oldest indications of iron manufacture in Africa but in the entire world.
  • It is from this location and time that iron manufacture would diffuse northward to the Lake Chad basin by 3,000 years ago and westward to the central Nigerian plateau by 2,900 years ago where it is associated with the Nok culture (Ehret 2023).
  • Whatever the answer, the use of iron led to a dramatic change in African culture.
  • Example: The Bantu Expansion

Bantu Expansion

  • About 2,500 years ago a massive movement of people from eastern Nigeria to eastern and southern Africa occurred.
  • This occurred over a 1000 year period (500BC - 500AD).
  • Associated with iron use, agriculture, and population pressure (moving away from Nok peoples).
  • Denoted in the similarities of the languages spoken among the people of east and southern Africa.
  • Replaced Khoisan and Mbuti Pygmy peoples and language.
  • Migration complete by 1,000 years ago resulting in contemporary locations of many of Sub-Saharan Africa’s ethnic groups.