Bantu and Polynesian migrations (Africa and South West Asia) [individual assignment]
Bantu and Polynesian migrations (Africa and South West Asia)
The migration of the Bantu people began around 1500 B.C.E., and by 1000 C.E. the Bantu occupied most of sub-Saharan Africa. The migration is believed to be due to overpopulation stretching resources in the Bantu homeland in modern-day Nigeria. As a result, groups of people gradually began to leave to set up new agricultural settlements. The Bantu people often intermarried with those they came in contact with, and these people often adopted the Bantu language and joined the Bantu society.
Around 1000 B.C.E. the Bantus began to produce iron tools, which enabled them to clear more land and expand agriculture. This led to an increase in both population and migration. The overall population of Africa grew from 3.5 million in 400 B.C.E. to 22 million in 1000 C.E.. Around 500 C.E. the cultivation of bananas— which had made their way to Africa via the Indian Ocean trade— enabled the Bantus to expand into heavily forested regions and to continue migrating. Today there are over 500 distinct (though related) languages that can be traced back to the Bantus.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Bantu-speaking peoples continued to migrate into forest, savannah, and highland regions, bringing iron tools and crops such as yams and sorghum. In eastern Africa these were joined by bananas and plantains brought from Asia by Austronesian migrants sailing across the Indian Ocean. Because soil quality was poor and draft animals that provided fertilizer as well as power could not survive in many tropical areas because of diseases, farmers generally practiced shifting cultivation, moving to new fields when the soil became less fertile or when population increase required this.
Village networks were interwoven with those of clans, religious societies, and age-grade groups (groups of people of about the same age who often underwent rituals that marked stages of life together) into a complex web of associations that stretched beyond a single village to link it to others.
Humans migrated to New Guinea and Australia around 45,000 years ago via watercraft and land bridges.
The Austronesians who sailed westward across the Indian Ocean to Africa also sailed eastward into the Pacific Islands beginning about 1500 BCE, carrying domesticated crops and animals along with families, seeds, and religious objects. These intentional settlement voyages pushed further and further across the Pacific.
This newer research suggests that Samoa was settled in about 800 BCE, but then voyaging stopped for a long time, and was resumed only about 800–1000 CE, perhaps spurred on by population growth, the invention of the large double-hulled sailing canoe (with large triangular sails, which carried a platform between the two hulls for shelter) that made long voyages possible, and decisions to explore and colonize made by political leaders.
Some scholars believe that the settlement was accidentally caused by sailors being blown off course, while others believe it was a planned colonization. As the migration spread, so did the cultivation of new food crops such as yams, taros, breadfruit, and bananas, as well as the introduction of domesticated animals such as dogs, pigs, and chickens.
There may have been a particular burst in the thirteenth century CE when seafarers spread out to the most remote islands of East Polynesia, reaching Hawai‘i in the north, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east, and AucklandIsland in the south, on some voyages crossing more than 2,000 miles of open ocean, navigating by the stars, sun, currents, wind patterns, and paths of birds. Once islands had been located, navigators also used nautical maps made of palm-fronds and reeds that indicated the time required to sail between islands. By 1500, people lived on almost every inhabitable island in the Pacific.
The Polynesian islands developed into hierarchical chiefdoms in which leadership was passed down to the eldest son, and relatives served as the local aristocracy. Conflict between groups, as well as population pressure, often led to further migration to new areas. The cultures and languages of these widely dispersed islands often adapted and evolved differently.
Questions for experts
1. What were the main points of the civilization?
2. What factors influenced the civilization?
Questions for the mixed groups
1. What was similar between the civilizations?
2. What was different between the civilizations?
3. What factors brought civilizations to contact each other?