I live in KZN, where the heartland of so-called Nguni people (i. e. Ndebele, Zulu, Swati, Hlubi, Lala, Phuthi, Mzizi, Nhlangwini/Dlamini, Mfengu, Xhosa, Mpondo, Tembu, Ngwane, Nguni, Bhaca & Mbo) is said to be a.k.a. Embo. Through recent research, we find that archaeologists carbon date some artefacts of ancient people that lived in these Nguni areas & find that they are much older than the 200 AD that is often said to be the arrival of Nguni people to their present territory. Adding to the fact that most Nguni people alive today have some San DNA bolsters the belief that the Nguni way of life could be much older than we originally thought.
The Lebombo Bone & Sibudu Cave.
The Lebombo bone is said to be one of the oldest mathematical artefacts in the world dating to 30 000 BC according to archaeologists. Sibudu Cave was said to be inhabited 40 000 years ago already. We find that in Swazi history that there were tribes that were found inhabiting Swazi territory before the existence of modern Eswatini & then there were tribes that arrived later, these tribes altogether became the Swazi. The Nguni are said to have arrived in present-day South Africa in 200 AD & intermarried with the San that lived to the west of the Ukhahlamba Mountains. The San on the west of the Ukhahlamba Mountains were pushed southwest by the oncoming Sotho tribe in the 19th century, Sotho-Tswana tribes said to have arrived in present-day South Africa in 800 AD. But what if it wasn't a single mass arrival of Nguni people & they had already been slowly trickling into the place before 200 AD.
To me, the Nguni & thus Zulu way of life could be much older than the 1800 years it's claimed to be. The so-called "Bantu Expansion" is said to have been 10 000 years ago, Bantu movements across the millenia being tracked by carbon-dating metal objects used by Bantu peoples. Did we not use other materials like wood & animal bone before metal or even alongside metal? The Nguni way of life could be up to 77 000 years old if we're going to take estimates of the inhabitation of Sibudu Cave.
Ancient Nguni language & culture.
The Swazi are said to be distant cousins of the Tsonga & the Zulu are brothers of the Swazi. The language ancient Nguni people spoke would've been almost unrecognisable to modern Nguni speakers if it sounded remotely like Tsonga or the language of the Hadza. But one way to check if a Nguni word could've possibly been used by ancient Ngunis is that you do a cross-reference using the equivalent Swahili word & equivalent word from another Bantu language (e. g. Kinyarwanda, Lilanga, Burundian or Shona). This can be done to estimate cultural similarities. For example, we know goats could've been commonplace in ancient east Africa & southeast Africa because the Swahili, Kinyarwanda & Zulu word for goat ("mbuzi") is the same or similar.