500 BC to 999

Footprints and farmers

Tanzania's past reaches far back: early humans left stone tools at Olduvai Gorge, and footprints about 3.7 million years old are preserved at Laetoli. In the last centuries BC, farmers speaking Bantu languages and working iron spread across the region, alongside Cushitic speaking herders. Most of today's more than 120 peoples descend from these movements.