The Emergence of Farming and the Bantu Migrations

The earliest evidence of plant domestication in Africa has been uncovered in three different areas: Egypt, the eastern Sahara, and West Africa. In Egypt, agricultural technologies were introduced from southwest Asia, where the Neolithic Revolution first occurred. From there, wheat and barley agriculture spread across North Africa over thousands of years. In the other two locations, plant domestication appears to have emerged independently. In these locations, early Neolithic societies grew crops of sorghum, yams, watermelons, and African rice. In Central and West Africa, the farming of these crops was aided greatly by iron technology. Once believe to have been introduced to Africa through Egypt, scholars now generally agree that iron smelting was developed independently in Central Africa. Iron tools allowed sub-Saharan African farmers to more efficiently clear forested areas to establish farms. By at least 500 BCE, Bantu-speaking peoples migrating across Africa were using iron tools to aid them in their gradual expansion. The Bantu speakers likely originated in West and Central Africa and began spreading east and south as early as 3000 BCE. Their migrations were gradual, protracted, and took a few different routes. As they spread, they established farms, introduced others to agricultural practices, and dramatically transformed the linguistic makeup of much of subequatorial Africa. ll images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/9-2-the-emergence-of-farming-and-the-bantu-migrations Welcome to A Journey into Human History. This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story. The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

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Welcome to a journey into human history. This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story. You may be asking yourself what is history? Is it simply a record of things people have done? Is it what writer Maya Angelou suggested—a way to meet the pain of the past and overcome it? Or is it, as Winston Churchill said, a chronicle by the victors, an interpretation by those who write it? History is all this and more. Above all else, it is a path to knowing why we are the way we are—all our greatness, all our faults—and therefore a means for us to understand ourselves and change for the better. But history serves this function only if it is a true reflection of the past. It cannot be a way to mask the darker parts of human nature, nor a way to justify acts of previous generations. It is the historian’s task to paint as clear a picture as sources will allow. Will history ever be a perfect telling of the human tale? No. There are voices we may never hear. Yet each new history book written and each new source uncovered reveal an ever more precise record of events around the world. You are about to take a journey into human history. The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. For more information please review the links and resources in the description. Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a creative common sense production.