Climate-induced vegetation dynamics and the Bantu Expansion: Evidence from Bantu names for pioneer trees (Elaeis guineensis, Canarium schweinfurthii, and Musanga cecropioides)

Abstract

The present article examines whether Late Holocene climate-induced vegetation changes in the Central African forest block may have facilitated the Bantu Expansion. This is done through a body of evidence that is not commonly used for the reconstruction of vegetation dynamics, i.e. language data. The article focuses on common Bantu vocabulary for three pioneer species abundantly present in the Central African pollen record between ca. 2500 and 2000 BP: Musanga cecropioides, Elaeis guineensis, and Canarium schweinfurthii. The geographical distribution patterns of the vernacular names for these pioneer trees add weight to the hypothesis according to which the rainforest contraction that emerged in the first millennium BC had an impact on the way Bantu languages dispersed.

Were the first Bantu speakers south of the rainforest farmers?

“…Destro-Biso et al 2004;QuintanaMurci et al 2008;de Filippo et al 2010;Barbieri et al 2014;Patin et al 2014). However, as we have extensively argued elsewhere (Kahlheber et al 2009;Neumann et al 2012a;Bostoen et al 2013a;Bostoen 2014;, both direct archaeological evidence and indirect linguistic evidence concur to question the plausibility of agriculture as the main driving force behind the Bantu Expansion, especially as far as its initial phases are concerned.…”

“…This is a widespread and ancient ritual tradition among western Bantu speech communities (Vansina 1990: 300;MacGaffey 1991: 9). As Vansina (1990: 300) (Bostoen et al 2013a). In certain present-day languages, such as Ntandu and Yombe in Table 5 below, the term actually refers to the closely related species Erythrophleum suaveolens, which is used for the same purposes.…”

“…This number does not include those for (wild) yams and for wild trees, such as oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), bush-candle (Canarium schweinfurthii), African plum (Dacryodes edulis), umbrella tree (Musanga cecropioides) and cola nut tree (Cola sp. ), which were reconstructed earlier on for ProtoBantu (Maniacky 2005;Bostoen et al 2013a;Bostoen 2014) and several of which were retained in Proto-West-Coastal Bantu. It would go beyond the scope and the page constraints of this chapter to present all 42 new lexical reconstructions.…”

“…One of the latter kind is a term referring to the kapok tree or Ceiba pentandra (Malvaceae). This tree is, just like Elaeis guineensis, Canarium schweinfurthii and Musanga cecropioides (Bostoen et al 2013a), a pioneer species that naturally colonizes clearings in the tropical forest zone. In Central African societies, this tree traditionally is multifunctional: the wood is used for carvings, coffins and dugout canoes, the fibres for bedding and life preservers, the oil in the seeds for soap, the bark as a purgative and to cause vomiting in the event of poisoning and the leaves for different kinds of medical treatment, such as for haemorrhoids, asthenia, heartburn, etc.…”

“…However, they did already exploit fruit-bearing trees before leaving their homeland, and quite extensively to judge from the number of reconstructions, which would even increase provided that more dedicated historical linguistic research was done. Proto-Bantu vocabulary includes names for several wild species, which have been widely protected and cultivated in equatorial Central Africa, but have never become domesticates, such as the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), the bush-candle (Canarium schweinfurthii), the African plum (Dacryodes edulis), and the umbrella tree (Musanga cecropioides) (Bostoen et al 2013a;Bostoen 2014).…”