Wednesday 23 March 2011

According to Guns, Germs, and Steel, what advantages enabled the Bantu to replace the Pygmies and Khoisan?

Margarete Abshire

According to Diamond, the Bantu were able to expand into Southern Africa because they
had domesticated crops, such as yams, that were able to thrive in the wet-summer/dry-winter
climate. These crops gave them an advantage when they arrived in East Africa around 1000 BC,
since they were able to make use of land that was ill-suited for other crops.


The second advantage the Bantu had was the acquisition of metal tools. The Bantu
developed a process for making steel 2000 years before the Bessemer process in the west. The
combination of steel and domesticated crops made it possible for the Bantu to spread throughout
Southern Africa in a relatively short amount of time, either assimilating the native Khoisan
populations or forcing these populations into remote and disconnected areas ill suited to
agriculture.

In fact, the Bantu expansion was halted in South Africa only by
the change of climate, as...

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