TY - JOUR AU - Huffman, Thomas N PY - 2021/06/29 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Bambata Pottery and Western Bantu: re-interpreting the Early Iron Age in southern Africa JF - Southern African Humanities JA - SA Humanities VL - 34 IS - SE - DO - UR - https://sahumanities.org/index.php/sah/article/view/468 SP - 1–17 AB - <p>New evidence indicates that <em>Bambata</em> pottery is part of the Kay Ladio Group centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rather than a facies of the <strong>Kalundu Tradition</strong>. This means that Western Bantu speakers produced the style. Other cornerstones of previous interpretations remain the same: <em>Bambata</em> derives from <em>Benfica </em>and it was spread to the southeast by hunter-gatherers. The distribution of <em>Bambata</em> 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 <em>Silver Leaves</em> (<strong>K</strong><strong>wale</strong>), <em>Ziwa/Gokomere</em> (<strong>Nkope</strong>) and <em>Happy Rest</em> <strong>(Kalundu</strong>) pottery: thus, this was the confluence of four moving frontiers. These frontiers demonstrate the complexity of interaction, which in turn has linguistic ramifications.</p> ER -