Who  are  the  Batwa  of  Zambia?  

An  interdisciplinary  perspec9ve    

 Prof  Lawrence  Barham  School  of  Archaeology,  Classics  &  Egyptology  

•  Smith & Dale 1920 •  Breslford 1946,1956 •  Lehman 1977 •  Smith 1995, 2006 •  Barham 2006

               An  old  ques9on  

• Cavalli-Sforza 1986, genetically related to Congo Basin HGs

•  Expanded range, zone of interaction

•  Testable hypothesis

An  important  ques9on  

Mul9disciplinary  answer?  

•  Ethnohistorical,  archaeological  &  gene9c  evidence  combined  

_______________________________________  

1.  Current  and  historic  status  2.  Prehistoric  record  (mid  to  late  Holocene)  

3.  Future  research    

Batwa ‘Akafula’ Bushmen

?

Recent hunter-gatherers in Zambia

‘People  who  always  move’  

• Batwa – wetlands only: Bangweulu, Kafue, Lukanga, & Mweru (1) pre-Bantu HG population?

(2) transient fishermen/outcasts? (3) or Luba/Lunda refugees? • Akafula – eastern highlands:     -­‐  last  recorded  early  1900s  

Oral history, eastern Zambia, Kunda & Bisa

•  Akafula/Batwa expert hunters, mobile

•  Accounts of conflict, trade

Twa fisherman, Bangweulu

•  Colonial period: loss of fishing grounds, political marginalisation under chiefs (Haller & Merten 2008)

A  history  of  marginalisa9on  

•  Post-independence: commercial fishing, immigrants, prostitution, HIV/AIDS, population decline (Gregerson nd)

•  Today: Batwa as term of abuse: “Thieving, ugly, immoral, but good fishermen” (Unga comment, 2006)

Prehistoric  forager/farmer  interac9on  

•  ~100-­‐1850  AD  eastern  Zambia  •   Luangwa  Valley:  fer9le  soils,  game-­‐rich           -­‐  coexistence  farmers  &  foragers  

•  ~300  AD-­‐1600  AD  (?)  central/southern  plateau       -­‐  chitemene  (shiYing  agriculture)  on  poor  miombo  soils    

    -­‐    earlier  displacement/assimila9on  of  foragers  Miombo deciduous woodlands – Zambia, Malawi, s. Tanzania, n. Mozambique

Kakumbi spring SL13

Forager/farmer sequence

Farmers

HGs

Nachikufan III Industry, North of Zambezi 5000 BP – historic present

  40 14C dates

  ~100 AD – 1850 AD

SL13

DNA  sampling,  Luangwa  Valley    deFilippo  et  al  2009    

     Limited  forager/farmer  intermarriage    •  mtDNA    low  maternal  admixture:    5%  Bisa,  3%  Kunda  

•   Y  –  low  paternal  admixture:  3%  Bisa,  3%  Kunda  •   limited  Twa  and  Sandawe  gene  flow  to  Bisa,  Kunda  &  

symmetrical  

  Interpreta9on  •  Cultural  separa9on  &  coexistence  •  Gradual  ex9nc9on                loss  of  land  

 Middle-­‐Holocene  skeletal  data    

•  Gwisho  A  ,  Kafue  flats,  Zambia  (Gabel  1965)  

-­‐  Cranial  evidence:      West-­‐Central  Africa  ancestry,  not  Khoi-­‐San  (Morris  &  Ribot  2006)  

Rock  art  –  links  to  visual  arts  of  Congo  Basin  (Smith  2006)    

So,  who  are  the  Batwa?  

•  Long  process  of  assimila9on  &  marginalisa9on  •  Zambezi  as  cultural/biological  divide  

•  Batwa  probably  Congo  Basin  ancestry  •  But  hypothesis  s9ll  to  be  tested:  gene9cally  &  linguis9cally  

•  Bangweulu  wetlands  as  future  focus  

Thank you:

  National Heritage Conservation Commission, Zambia

  Chiefs Kakumbi, Kapamba and Chiundapunde

  Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

References  •  Barham,  LS.  2006.  Batwa  in  the  mist.    Before  Farming  4,  ar9cle  9.  •  Cavalli-­‐Sforza,  LL.  1986.  African  Pygmies.  New  York,  Academic  Press.  •  Brelsford,  WV.  1946.    Fishermen  of  the  Bangweulu  Swamps.  Rhodes-­‐Livingstone  Ins9tute,  12.  •  Brelsford,  WV.  1956.    The  Batwa  in  Tribes  of  Northern  Rhodesia,  pp.  96-­‐99.    Lusaka:  

Government  Printer.  •  deFilippo,  C.  (et  al).  2009.  Gene9c  perspec9ves  on  forager-­‐farmer  interac9on  in  the  Luangwa  

Valley  of  Zambia.    Am.  J.  Phys.  Anthropol.  141:382-­‐394.  •  Gregerson,  P.  1994  (nd).  Human  use  of  natural  resources  in  the  project  area.  WWF-­‐Danida  

Bangweulu  Wetlands  Project.    Unpublished  report.  •  Haller,  T.  &  Merten,  S.    2008.    “We  are  Zambians  –  Don’t  tell  us  how  to  fish!”  Ins9tu9onal  

change,  power  rela9ons  and  conflicts  in  the  Kafue  Flats  fisheries  in  Zambia.    Hum  Ecol  36:699-­‐715.  

•  Lehman,  DA.  1977.  The  Twa:  People  of  the  Kafue  Flats.  The  Kafue  Basin  Research  Commiqee,University  of  Zambia.  

•  Morris,  AG,  &  Ribot,  I.  2006.  Morphometric  cranial  iden9ty  of  prehistoric  Malawians  in  the  light  of  sub-­‐Saharan  African  diversity.  Am.  J.  Phys.  Anthropol.  130:10-­‐25.  

•  Smith,  B.  2006.    Reading  rock  art  and  wri9ng  gene9c  history.    In  Soodyall,  H.  (ed)  The  Prehistory  of  Africa,  pp.  76-­‐96.  

•  Smith,  EW  &  Dale,  AM.  1920.    The  Ila-­‐speaking  peoples  of  Northern  Rhodesia.    London:  MacMillan.