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The Bantu Expansion: a new overview
Conference
Published on
02 June 2015
Updated on
13 June 2017
Colloquia
The archaeology of Migrations
International colloquium organized by Inrap, in partnership with the National Museum of Immigration History.
November 12 and 13, 2015 at the National Museum of Immigration History.
Archaeology of Migrations
by Augustin Holl, Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre la Défense
The African continent displays great linguistic¬ diversity. There are anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 African languages depending on the differentiation criteria used. These are divided into four main language families whose geographic distribution can be represented in large, diagonal strips West/North-West-East/South-East (fig.1). The Afroasiatic family which covers the North of the continent, from the Horn of Africa to North Africa and passing through the Sahara, includes around 200 languages. The Nilo-Saharan family, with its 140 languages, is found in the Centre-North and Eastern part of the continent. The Niger-Congo family, which includes more than 1,000 languages, covers one third of the continent and is split into two branches: the Niger-Congo A branch in West Africa, and the Niger-Congo B branch (Bantu languages) in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. The Khoisan family is made up of around thirty languages, most of which are heard in the Western part of Southern Africa. Finally, the Austronesian family is a relatively recent arrival and is represented by Malagasy, found only on the large island of Madagascar, on the South-East edge of the continent. This division of the major language families is clearly the result of historical processes, a number of which, like the Berber and Arab expansions or the colonisation of Madagascar, are relatively well documented. Based solely on a study of maps, the surrounding of Khoisan languages by Bantu languages is indicative of the process which gave rise to this distribution. This presentation examines all the processes which have led to this situation.
Augustin F.C. Holl (PhD 1983, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, HDR 1994, Paris X-Nanterre) Formerly assistant and lecturer at the Université Paris X – Nanterre (1983 - 1997), Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego (1997 – 2000), Curator at the Anthropology Museum, Professor of Anthropology and of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2000 – 2009), Consultant and Associate-Researcher at the Field Museum, Chicago (2009 – 2011). Since 2011, he has held a Professorship in the Department of Anthropology at the Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, and has been Guest-Professor in the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology at the University of Xiamen, Fuijan Province (China). He has led field research on: Calcolithic settlements in the Negev region of Israel; Neolithic mixed farming in Dahr Tichitt (Mauritania); the emergence of chieftaincies in the Houlouf region (Cameroon); the ethnoarchaeology of the Shuwa-Arab nomadic pastoralists (Cameroon); and the archaeology of large, self-sustaining villages in the Boucle du Mouhoun region (Burkina Faso). He also led the "Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project" on Senegambian Megalithic art from 2002 to 2010 (Senegal). He has published numerous articles in a wide range of publications, has been co-editor of two books and the author of 12 others including: Diwan Revisited (2000), Ancient African Metallurgy (2000, with M.S. Bisson, S.T. Childs, and P. De Barros), The Land of Houlouf (2002), Holocene Saharans (2004), Ethnoarchaeology of Shuwa-Arab Settlements (2003), Saharan Rock Art (2004), West African Early Towns (2006), Les Traditions Mégalithiques de Sénégambie (2014) (with H. Bocoum) and The Archaeology of West African Mound-Clusters (2014).
Bibliography
Bibliography
- HOLL A. F. C. (1985), « Review Article de David W. Phillipson, 1985, African Archeology », Londres-New York, Cambridge University Press, L'Ethnographie, 81, vol. 95, p. 41-48.
- LEVY T. E., HOLL A. F. C. (2002), « Migrations, Ethnogenesis, and settlement Dynamics: Israelites in Iron Age Canaan and Shuwa-Arabs in the Chad Basin », Journal of Anthropological Archeology, 21, vol. 1, p. 83-118.
- HOLL A. F. C. (2003), Ethnoarcheology of Shuwa-Arab Settlements, Lanham, Lexington Books.
- HOLL A. F. C. (2014), « Focus : l'expansion bantoue : vieilles questions, nouvelles données », in FORGET P. M., HOSSAERT-MCKEY M., PONCY O. (dir.), Écologie tropicale : de l'ombre à la lumière, Paris, Éditions du Cherche-Midi, p. 120-121.
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