The dry plateau of central Tanzania south of the Lake Victoria basin.
Bantu farmers and cattle-keepers, forebears of the Nyamwezi, Sukuma and Kimbu in the west and of the Gogo, Nyaturu, Iramba and Rangi further east, live in scattered homesteads among Cushitic, Nilotic and foraging neighbours. The chiefdoms of the ntemi kind that later cover the plateau are of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The archaeology of this century is almost blank.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not known: no leader is named for this date
- Title
- Heads of lineages, villages and clans
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
How things stand that morning
Independent. North of about 3 degrees south, the Lake Victoria basin (Mwanza, Shinyanga's north, the Mara) is left to the neighbouring researcher.
Assemblies
Village and lineage elders settle disputes and allocate land; there is no chief over the whole people that the evidence can show for 1200.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- Through 1200No dated event is known.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Language history only; very thin.
On the map: Drawn from modern language areas, physical geography and a few dated sites; the 1200 extent is a rough guess.
Sources and studies
- Ehret, An African Classical Age (1998) and Nurse and Spear, The Swahili (1985), on the language history of the East African interior and coast (cited from memory of the literature)
- UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. 4, and Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 3, chapters on East Africa and the interior (cited from memory of the literature)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.