The Fascinating History of Southern Africa's First Farmers

The First Farmers of Southern Africa

• Bantu speaking farmers from Central and East Africa arrived in southern Africa around 1600 years ago, changing the economic and cultural environment of the region forever.
• The Bantu farmers were agriculturalists and relied on crops, making them less nomadic than the Khoisan hunter-gatherers who previously inhabited the area.
• The early farmers were capable of mining and processing metal, especially iron and copper, which began the process of development leading to the industrialisation of South Africa.
• The early farmers relied on hunting until the 10th century when they acquired livestock, including sheep, cattle, and goats, as well as chicken and dogs.
• The first farmers conducted trade with neighboring indigenous people, exchanging livestock, crops, pottery, and tools.
• The first farmers built permanent homes near their fields, with circular houses made from mud bricks or dome-shaped huts woven from grass.
• Farmers lived in large groups, with many people needed to work in the fields, and homesteads made up of many mud huts with thatched roofs, arranged around a kraal.
• Village life was communal, with people working together and looking after each other, and some villages forming chiefdoms with a leader or chief.
• The first farmers were a patriarchal and hierarchical society, with a person's position determined by wealth and land ownership.
• Men were responsible for hunting, tending to animals, and protecting the tribe from wild animals, while women looked after crops, cooked, cleaned, and collected water.
• Children learned their roles and skills from adults in the community and went through initiation rituals in their teenage years to be accepted into the community.
• There was always a lot of secrecy around these initiation rituals.

The First Farmers of Southern Africa

• Bantu speaking farmers from Central and East Africa arrived in southern Africa around 1600 years ago, changing the economic and cultural environment of the region forever.
• The Bantu farmers were agriculturalists and relied on crops, making them less nomadic than the Khoisan hunter-gatherers who previously inhabited the area.
• The early farmers were capable of mining and processing metal, especially iron and copper, which began the process of development leading to the industrialisation of South Africa.
• The early farmers relied on hunting until the 10th century when they acquired livestock, including sheep, cattle, and goats, as well as chicken and dogs.
• The first farmers conducted trade with neighboring indigenous people, exchanging livestock, crops, pottery, and tools.
• The first farmers built permanent homes near their fields, with circular houses made from mud bricks or dome-shaped huts woven from grass.
• Farmers lived in large groups, with many people needed to work in the fields, and homesteads made up of many mud huts with thatched roofs, arranged around a kraal.
• Village life was communal, with people working together and looking after each other, and some villages forming chiefdoms with a leader or chief.
• The first farmers were a patriarchal and hierarchical society, with a person's position determined by wealth and land ownership.
• Men were responsible for hunting, tending to animals, and protecting the tribe from wild animals, while women looked after crops, cooked, cleaned, and collected water.
• Children learned their roles and skills from adults in the community and went through initiation rituals in their teenage years to be accepted into the community.
• There was always a lot of secrecy around these initiation rituals.