Current scholarly understanding places
the ancestral proto-Bantu homeland
near the southwestern modern
boundary of Nigeria and Cameroon
ca. 4,000 years ago (2000 B.C.), and
regards the Bantu languages as a
branch of the Niger–Congo language
family.[3] This view represents a
resolution of debates in the 1960s over
competing theories advanced by Joseph
Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie, in favor
of refinements of Greenberg's theory.
Based on wide comparisons including
non-Bantu languages, Greenberg
argued that Proto-Bantu, the
hypothetical ancestor of the Bantu
languages, had strong ancestral
affinities with a group of languages
spoken in Southeastern Nigeria. He
proposed that Bantu languages had
spread east and south from there, to
secondary centers of further dispersion,
over hundreds of years.
A Kikuyu woman in Kenya
Using a different comparative method
focused more exclusively on
relationships among Bantu languages,
Guthrie argued for a single central
African dispersal point spreading at a
roughly equal rate in all directions.
Subsequent research on loanwords for
adaptations in agriculture and animal
husbandry and on the wider Niger–
Congo language family rendered that
thesis untenable. In the 1990s Jan
Vansina proposed a modification of
Greenberg's ideas, in which dispersions
from secondary and tertiary centers
resembled Guthrie's central node idea,
but from a number of regional centers
rather than just one, creating linguistic
clusters.[4]
1 = 2000–1500 BC origin
2 = ca.1500 BC first migrations
2.a = Eastern Bantu, 2.b =
Western Bantu
3 = 1000–500 BC Urewe nucleus of
Eastern Bantu
4–7 = southward advance
9 = 500 BC–0 Congo nucleus
10 = 0–1000 AD last phase[5][6][7]
It is unclear when exactly the spread of
Bantu-speakers began from their core
area as hypothesized ca. 5,000 years
ago. By 3,500 years ago (1500 B.C.) in
the west, Bantu-speaking communities
had reached the great Central African
rain forest, and by 2,500 years ago
(500 B.C.) pioneering groups had
emerged into the savannahs to the
south, in what are now the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Angola and Zambia.
Another stream of migration, moving
east, by 3,000 years ago (1000 B.C.) was
creating a major new population center
near the Great Lakes of East Africa,
where a rich environment supported a
dense population. Movements by small
groups to the southeast from the Great
Lakes region were more rapid, with
initial settlements widely dispersed near
the coast and near rivers, due to
comparatively harsh farming conditions
in areas farther from water. Pioneering
groups had reached modern KwaZulu-
Natal in South Africa by A.D. 300 along
the coast, and the modern Northern
Province (encompassed within the
former province of the Transvaal) by
A.D. 500.[8]
A Makua mother and child.
The Makua are the largest
Bantu group in
Mozambique, a
predominantly Bantu
country.
Before the expansion of farming and
herding peoples, including those
speaking Bantu languages, Africa south
of the equator was populated by
neolithic hunting and foraging peoples.
Some of them were ancestral to modern
Central African forest peoples (so-called
Pygmies) who now speak Bantu
languages. Others were proto-Khoisan-
speaking peoples, whose few modern
hunter-forager and linguistic
descendants today occupy the arid
regions around the Kalahari desert.
Many more Khoekhoe and San
descendants have a Coloured identity in
South Africa and Namibia, speaking
Afrikaans and English. The small Hadza
and Sandawe populations in Tanzania
comprise the other modern hunter-
forager remnant in Africa.
Early Iron Age findings in eastern
and southern Africa
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_peoples

why have the world down played this important finding? The Bantus over 220 milion people are ancient migrants from igbo land. They are indeed igbos
maybe the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter , untill the lions have their own Historians

Ure on crack and wikipedia is not a credible source!!!

Are Igbos Bantu or semi-Bantu. What I've read is that some Igbos are Bantu while others are not. Maybe the Southeast here refers to the real geographical Southeast of Nigeria which is around Calabar. Igboland is geographically South-central and divided into two unequal parts by River Niger.

Abagworo: Are Igbos Bantu or semi-Bantu. What I've read is that some Igbos are Bantu while others are not. Maybe the Southeast here refers to the real geographical Southeast of Nigeria which is around Calabar. Igboland is geographically South-central and divided into two unequal parts by River Niger.

igboland is south east nigeria. Why are you changing clear history?

they write up is from wikipedia and constantly updated. It said south east Nigeria which is igboland

Thankgodifeduba: igboland is south east nigeria. Why are you changing clear history?

Igboland is not Southeast Nigeria but Southeast was just chosen as a name for the 5 predominantly Igbo speaking States as a zone. Southeast is more of Akwa-Ibom, Cross river, Adamawa with parts of Abia and Ebonyi.

Abagworo:

Igboland is not Southeast Nigeria but Southeast was just chosen as a name for the 5 predominantly Igbo speaking States as a zone. Southeast is more of Akwa-Ibom, Cross river, Adamawa with parts of Abia and Ebonyi.

mind you that even in the so called south south we have igbos e.g ikwere, anioma and in bayselsa. What we have formally is eastern nigeria

southeast nigeria is not igboland but parts of crossrivers and western cameroun . dont mix it up, Igbos are not bantu but some parts of cross rivers ,adamawa ,benue ,taraba have bantu migrants , even as of 1999 some were still being discovered