Bantu Migrations: Resources

Here are three good clips about the early Bantu migrations, and a terrific site about iron in Africa.

One video clip comes from Masaman, who produces educational videos on his YouTube channel. He does a good job of explaining the groups of people who lived in Africa before the Bantu migrations and the changes the Bantus brought, especially regarding language.

Khan Academy produced the second clip. The first four minutes of this clip clearly explain the causes and effects of the migrations. The second four minutes review the Polynesian migrations.

A third clip comes from Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond notes that words in many African languages sound remarkably similar because of a common root.  They all come from the Bantu, who originated in West Africa and spread throughout tropical Africa about 5000 years ago.

Finally, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel has a fascinating site about iron in Africa (thanks to Eri Beckman for the link)

It reviews four main points about iron smelting.

• Smelting happened all over the place in many cultures. The iron produced was mostly used for everyday items, farming implements, ritual things, and for (simple) weapons.
• The level of sophistication was shallow and far below of what is needed to produce for example a pattern-welded sword, a wootz blade or a Japanese katana.
• It is difficult to find examples of early African iron. Almost all pictures found on the net relate to commercial items, either without a date or the 19th / 20th century. Items in museums are often not dated either or from more recent times.