11. Bantu Expansion into Eastern Africa: Archaeological Evidence

Abstract

Taking Buhaya provisionally as the starting point for the spread of the Iron Age Complex across the eastern part of Africa, the author postulates the following pattern of directions: north and east around Lake Victoria, southward to the east of Lake Tanganyika, eastward to Sandaweland and thence to Kilimanjaro and the highlands of northeastern Tanzania; whence again southward, northward, and possible northeastward. Turning to historical linguistics, a straight one-for-one correlation of Early Iron Age variants with modern Bantu subgroupings does not seem to be tenable. As to Later Iron Age correlations, there is evidence for a general widespread continuum represented by Gatung'ang'a Maore wares, emerging by the end of the first millennium A.D. and either stemming directly from the Kwale Early Iron Age variant or having had direct relationships with its makers. Fig., map.

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