Geoarchaeological research on Bantu landscapes is being carried out as part of the interdisciplinary Bantu Mobility Project. This project is exploring Bantu expansions in the Kafue floodplain of central Zambia. By combining archaeological survey and excavation, spatial analysis, historical linguistics and geoarchaeological investigations, the project is tracing the human agency shaping movements of people, animals, material goods, and languages of Bantu-speaking populations that became settled in the region between the sixth and sixteenth centuries CE.

Geoarchaeological surveys and analyses are focusing on establishing landscape sequences in relation to mounded settlements, characterising buried soils and archaeological sediments, and tracing the footprint and movement of people across different ecological niches.

The Bantu Mobility Project is led by Matthew Pawlowics (Virginia Commonwealth University), Jeffrey Fleisher (Rice University, and Kathryn de Luna (Georgetown University, Washington). Since 2014, the project has been funded by the Rice University Social Science Research Institute, Georgetown University’s Office of the Provost, and the US National Science Foundation.

For general enquires, contact Federica Sulas.