Editing Zambia (section)

====Bantu origins====
[[File:Batonga women.png|thumb|[[Tonga people (Zambia and Zimbabwe)|Batonga]] fisherwomen in Southern Zambia. Women have played and continue to play pivotal roles in many African societies]]
The Bantu people originally lived in West and Central Africa around what is today Cameroon and Nigeria.<ref name="unych">{{cite book | last=Flamming | first=D. | title=African Americans in the West | publisher=ABC-CLIO | series=Cultures in the American West | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-59884-003-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rUbyCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 | access-date=2023-06-17 | page=15 | archive-date=18 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918071953/https://books.google.com/books?id=rUbyCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 | url-status=live }}</ref> Approximately 5000 years ago, they began a millennia-long expansion into much of the continent. This event has been called the [[Bantu expansion]];<ref name="qnr0r">{{cite journal | last1=Grollemund | first1=Rebecca | last2=Branford | first2=Simon | last3=Bostoen | first3=Koen | last4=Meade | first4=Andrew | last5=Venditti | first5=Chris | last6=Pagel | first6=Mark | title=Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume=112 | issue=43 | date=2015-09-14 | issn=0027-8424 | doi=10.1073/pnas.1503793112 | pages=13296–13301 | pmid=26371302 | pmc=4629331 | bibcode=2015PNAS..11213296G | doi-access=free }}</ref> it was one of the largest human migrations in history. The Bantu are believed to have been the first to have brought iron working technology into large parts of Africa. The Bantu Expansion happened primarily through two routes: a western one via the [[Congo Basin]] and an eastern one via the African Great Lakes.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bostoen|first=Koen|date=26 April 2018|title=The Bantu Expansion|url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-191|access-date=27 October 2020|website=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|language=en|doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.191|isbn=978-0-19-027773-4|archive-date=7 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807224432/https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-191|url-status=live}}</ref>