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Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion
The present-day distribution of Bantu languages is commonly thought to reflect the early stages of the Bantu Expansion, the greatest migration event in African prehistory. Using 1149 radiocarbon dates linked to 115 pottery styles recovered from 726 sites throughout the Congo rainforest and adjacent...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880602/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33579711 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd8352 |
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author | Seidensticker, Dirk Hubau, Wannes Verschuren, Dirk Fortes-Lima, Cesar de Maret, Pierre Schlebusch, Carina M. Bostoen, Koen |
author_facet | Seidensticker, Dirk Hubau, Wannes Verschuren, Dirk Fortes-Lima, Cesar de Maret, Pierre Schlebusch, Carina M. Bostoen, Koen |
author_sort | Seidensticker, Dirk |
collection | PubMed |
description | The present-day distribution of Bantu languages is commonly thought to reflect the early stages of the Bantu Expansion, the greatest migration event in African prehistory. Using 1149 radiocarbon dates linked to 115 pottery styles recovered from 726 sites throughout the Congo rainforest and adjacent areas, we show that this is not the case. Two periods of more intense human activity, each consisting of an expansion phase with widespread pottery styles and a regionalization phase with many more local pottery styles, are separated by a widespread population collapse between 400 and 600 CE followed by major resettlement centuries later. Coinciding with wetter climatic conditions, the collapse was possibly promoted by a prolonged epidemic. Comparison of our data with genetic and linguistic evidence further supports a spread-over-spread model for the dispersal of Bantu speakers and their languages. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7880602 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78806022021-02-22 Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion Seidensticker, Dirk Hubau, Wannes Verschuren, Dirk Fortes-Lima, Cesar de Maret, Pierre Schlebusch, Carina M. Bostoen, Koen Sci Adv Research Articles The present-day distribution of Bantu languages is commonly thought to reflect the early stages of the Bantu Expansion, the greatest migration event in African prehistory. Using 1149 radiocarbon dates linked to 115 pottery styles recovered from 726 sites throughout the Congo rainforest and adjacent areas, we show that this is not the case. Two periods of more intense human activity, each consisting of an expansion phase with widespread pottery styles and a regionalization phase with many more local pottery styles, are separated by a widespread population collapse between 400 and 600 CE followed by major resettlement centuries later. Coinciding with wetter climatic conditions, the collapse was possibly promoted by a prolonged epidemic. Comparison of our data with genetic and linguistic evidence further supports a spread-over-spread model for the dispersal of Bantu speakers and their languages. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2021-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7880602/ /pubmed/33579711 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd8352 Text en Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Seidensticker, Dirk Hubau, Wannes Verschuren, Dirk Fortes-Lima, Cesar de Maret, Pierre Schlebusch, Carina M. Bostoen, Koen Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion |
title | Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion |
title_full | Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion |
title_fullStr | Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion |
title_full_unstemmed | Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion |
title_short | Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion |
title_sort | population collapse in congo rainforest from 400 ce urges reassessment of the bantu expansion |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880602/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33579711 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd8352 |
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