The Bantu migration
People speaking Bantu languages seem originally to have lived
in today’s Nigeria and Cameron and it was from here that they
started migrating sometime in the first millennium BCE. [Read
more: The Bantu migration] There seem to have been two waves
of migrants. In the first wave, people moved both across the
continent to East Africa and down along the West African
coast. Some time around 300 CE they may have reached today’s
South Africa. The second wave, starting perhaps a thousand
years later, spread the Bantu speakers from what today is
Congo and into central and eastern Africa. These migrations
seem to have been spontaneous movements but exactly why they
took place is less clear and debated among scholars. Some
suggest it was due to overpopulation while others cite disease
or changes in the climate. Many Bantu speaking peoples took up
cattle herding in their new locations and everywhere they went
they pushed away the original inhabitants, such as the San
bushmen of southwestern Africa, who were forced to leave their
original lands and eke out a living in more inhospitable
places.