Bambata Pottery and Western Bantu: re-interpreting the Early Iron Age in southern Africa

Abstract

New evidence indicates that Bambata pottery is part of the Kay Ladio Group centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rather than a facies of the Kalundu Tradition. This means that Western Bantu speakers produced the style. Other cornerstones of previous interpretations remain the same: Bambata derives from Benfica and it was spread to the southeast by hunter-gatherers. The distribution of Bambata also roughly marks the spread of Western Bantu-speaking people. In the Mount Buhwa area of Zimbabwe, Benfica people interacted with Eastern Bantu who produced Silver Leaves (Kwale), Ziwa/Gokomere (Nkope) and Happy Rest (Kalundu) pottery: thus, this was the confluence of four moving frontiers. These frontiers demonstrate the complexity of interaction, which in turn has linguistic ramifications.