The traditional Bantu theory states that Bantu migrants arrived in area already populated by hunter-gatherers groups with a different culture and identity. Do we find cultural trace of the pre-Bantu group, such as isolate language, in the core Bantu area ?

In our analysis, we will consider an area inhabited exclusively by Bantu speakers, at the exclusion of Pygmy, Khoisan, Nilotes, Cushitic, or other non-Bantu groups. This area, that we will call the Core Bantu Area (CBA), can be defined as the region delimited by the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Indian Ocean in the East, and extending from the Congo Forest and Great Lakes region in the North to the Kalahari Basin and Zambezi river in the south, as shown in the picture below.

If Bantu languages are from West Africa and had spread to Subequatorial Africa, we should have some isolated non-Bantu languages as witness of the pre-Bantu ethnic situation, but none are found. But it.s not he case, and no pre-bantu language survived in the Core Bantu Area, even in remoted area such as mountains, forests, marshlands. This area is 100% Bantu.

Moreover, if non-bantu languages were spoken in the CBA prior to Bantu expansion, we should have found traces or elements of these isolate languages in current Bantu languages. This is the situation of Bantu languages in Southern Africa, where clicks coming from Khoisan languages are present in many southern Bantu languages such as Zulu or Xhosa, which is a witness of cultural influence and ancient presence of non-Bantu languages in this region.

The absence of isolate languages is sometimes interpreted as a sign of total replacement of population in the region. However this argument seems questionable since no total replacement occured in East Africa (Nilotes, Cushites, Hadza..) or Southern Africa (Khoi, San) where Bantu groups also settle and non-Bantu groups are still present and have not be replaced.

Another point is that the Core Bantu Area is matching the proposed region of origin of Bantu languages defined by the linguist Malcolm Guthrie and discussed in the article (Bantu series 5 – Where are found the most archaic Bantu languages ?). This seems to indicate that the CBA area has always be inhabited by Bantu groups.

In conclusion, no isolate language or cultural trace of pre-Bantu group are noticed in most of Bantu area (Core Bantu Area). The absence of isolate language in most of Bantu area tends to indicate the absence of non-Bantu populations in this area instead of a total replacement of population as sometimes proposed. The more probable explanation to this phenomenom is that the Core Bantu Area has always be inhabited by Bantu people and is the point of origin of Bantu populations.

The next article of our series will discuss the genetic aspects of the Bantu theory, and adress the question of the genetic proof of the Bantu expansion ?