Middle Africa (2,637 – 910 BCE) Bronze and Early Iron — Bantu Dispersals and Metallurgy

Geographic and Environmental Context

The broad equatorial–central belt of Africa including:

• Chad and Lake Chad Basin,

• the Central African Republic (Ubangi–Sangha region),

• Cameroon (highlands, Adamawa Plateau, coastal plains),

• Equatorial Guinea (islands and coast),

• São Tomé e Príncipe,

• Gabon,

• the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville),

• the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo Basin, Kasai, Katanga, Ituri),

• Angola.

Anchors: Lake Chad, Chari–Logone delta, Adamawa Plateau, Sangha–Ubangi junction, Cameroon Highlands, São Tomé e Príncipe volcanic isles, Congo River mainstem, Kasai–Katanga copperbelt, Ituri rainforest, Angolan escarpment.

• Congo Basin, Kasai–Katanga copperbelt, Angola highlands.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Rainfall fluctuated; lakes shrank periodically.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Farming villages expanded; yams, millet, oil palm staples.

• Bantu herding communities with cattle/pigs spread through forests and savannas.

Technology & Material Culture

• Iron smelting appeared by 1st millennium BCE (Nsukka/Cameroon).

• Copper mining in Katanga belt.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Congo River canoe routes moved iron, beads, food.

• Lake Chad Basin tied into Saharan trade.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Ancestral veneration; iron incorporated into ritual.

• Rock art in Angola depicts cattle, hunters.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Agro-pastoral–iron complex buffered instability.

Transition

By 910 BCE, Bantu-speaking iron-farmers occupied much of Middle Africa.