Abstract
The subsistence of Neolithic populations is based on agriculture, whereas that of previous populations was based on hunting and gathering. Neolithic spreads due to dispersal of populations are called demic, and those due to the incorporation of hunter-gatherers are called cultural. It is well-known that, after agriculture appeared in West Africa, it spread across most of subequatorial Africa. It has been proposed that this spread took place alongside with that of Bantu languages. In eastern and southeastern Africa, it is also linked to the Early Iron Age. From the beginning of the last millennium BC, cereal agriculture spread rapidly from the Great Lakes area eastwards to the East African coast, and southwards to northeastern South Africa. Here we show that the southwards spread took place substantially more rapidly (1.50–2.27 km/y) than the eastwards spread (0.59–1.27 km/y). Such a faster southwards spread could be the result of a stronger cultural effect. To assess this possibility, we compare these observed ranges to those obtained from a demic-cultural wave-of-advance model. We find that both spreads were driven by demic diffusion, in agreement with most archaeological, linguistic and genetic results. Nonetheless, the southwards spread seems to have indeed a stronger cultural component, which could lead support to the hypothesis that, at the southern areas, the interaction with pastoralist people may have played a significant role.
Highlights
At different times and regions over the world, human populations undertook agriculture as their new way of life, gradually replacing the previous hunting-gathering economies
These processes took place with different staple crops and livestock species, but in all cases the adoption of agriculture brought radical social transformations. Often it led to the spread of farming to neighboring regions. This was the case for the agricultural practices that appeared in West Africa and spread across most of subequatorial Africa
The earliest dates in our database fall west and south of Lake Victoria, we shall use these sites as possible origins of the expansion in our regression analyses
Summary
At different times and regions over the world, human populations undertook agriculture as their new way of life, gradually replacing the previous hunting-gathering economies. These processes took place with different staple crops and livestock species, but in all cases the adoption of agriculture brought radical social transformations. Often it led to the spread of farming to neighboring regions. Many authors have related the spread of farming in eastern and southeastern Africa to that of Bantu languages [1,2,3,4,5,6,7].
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