UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Central Africa
5
F. VAN NOTEN
with the collaboration ofD.
and P. DE MARET
CAHEN
Introduction
Two problems fundamental to the history of Africa are the diffusion of
metallurgy and the amazing spread of the Bantu languages.
For a long time there has been a distinct tendency to link the two
questions and explain them in terms of one another. The diffusion of
metallurgy is seen as a consequence of the spread of the Bantu-speaking
peoples, and, conversely, this expansion is supposed to have been facilitated
by the possession of iron tools which made it possible to tackle the equatorial
forest.
Language specialists were the firstto put forward the theory that the
Bantu languages originated on the plateaux of Nigeria and Cameroon.
Archaeologists, historians and anthropologists followed suit and tried to
make the findings in their respective fields fitin with that hypothesis. But
the areas covered by these sciences do not exactly coincide, and it is a pity
that the word Bantu, a linguistic term, should have come to be used for the
ethnological concept of the Bantu peoples and their societies, and thence
for the archaeological concept of a Bantu iron age. '
Geographical background
The region dealt with in this chapter is Central Africa, i.e. the republic
of Zaïre and the neighbouring countries of Gabon, Congo, the Central
African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi and northern Zambia.
It forms a huge basin with an average altitude of 500 metres. Around
this vast inner plain the ground rises in steps to become mountains or high
plateaux.
The regions near the Equator have abundant rainfall all the year round.
To both north and south are belts which have two rainy seasons that
merge into one; from about latitudes 5 0 or 6° there is one rainy season.
Mean annual temperatures are fairly high, the range widening with
distance from the Equator.
1. In this chapter 'Bantu' will be used only in the linguistic sense.