Chapter 8

Chapter 8: African Civilizations 1500 B.C. - A.D. 700

Chapter 8.1: Diverse Societies in Africa

• Each African environment offers its own challenges.

• The deserts are largely unsuitable for human life and also hamper people’s movement to more welcoming climates.

• The largest deserts are the Sahara in the north and the Kalahari in the south.

• Only a small part of the Sahara consists of sand dunes.
• The rest is mostly a flat, gray wasteland of scattered rocks and gravel.

• The rainforest is also uninhabitable.

• It is sometimes referred to as “nature’s greenhouse” it produced mahogany and teak trees up to 150 feet tall/

• Their leaves and branches form a dense canopy that keeps sunlight from reaching the forest floor.

• The tsetse fly is what prevented Africans from using cattle, donkeys, and horses to farm near the rainforests.

• The insect is deadly.

• The northern coast and the southern tip of Africa have welcoming Mediterranean-type climates and fertile soil.

• Because these coastal areas are so fertile, they are densely populated with farmers and herders.

• Most people in Africa live on the savannas.

• Savannas: grassy plains that include mountainous highlands, and tropical stretches.

• They cover over 40 % of the continent.

• The first humans appeared in the Great Rift Valley, a deep gash in the Earth’s crust that runs through the floor of the Red Sea and across eastern Africa.

• They developed technologies that helped them survive in and then alter their surroundings.
• They were nomadic hunter-gatherers.

•  Today some of the San of the Kalahari Desert and the  BaMbuti of the rainforests of Congo are still hunter-gatherers.

• The San travel in small bands of a few related families.
• The men hunt with spears and bows and arrows, and the women and children gather roots and berries.

• Eventually they learned to domesticate and raise a variety of animals for food.

• The pastoralists were people who kept cattle, goats or sheep.

• They were nomads who drove their animals to find water and good pastures for grazing during the dry season.

• Experts believe that agriculture in Africa probably began by 6000 B.C.

• To survive the dry land many moved east into the Nile Valley and south into West Africa.
• Some also moved to the savannas.

• Grain grew well in the savannas .
• They also began to raise cattle here.

• South and east of the rainforests, cattle raising became an important part of agricultural life.

• The Africans that lived in the rainforests, planted roots, such as yams that needed little sun.
• Growing their own crops allowed them to build permanent shelters in one location.

• Settlements expanded because reliable food supplies led to longer, healthier lives and an increased birth rate.

• It also led to some people being able to practice activities such as working metal, making pottery, and crafting jewelry.

• The societies south of the Sahara shared common elements.

• One of these elements was the importance of the basic social unit, the family.

• Aside from the parents and children, this primary group often  included grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in an extended family.

• Families that shared common ancestors sometimes formed groups known as clans.

• They organized themselves into family groups.

• They also developed belief systems that helped them understand and organize information about their world.

• Nearly aloof these local religions involved a belief in one creator, or god.
• They generally also included elements of animism.

• Animism: a religion in which spirits play an important role in regulating daily life.
• They believe that spirits are present in animals, plants, and other natural forces, and also take the form of the souls of their ancestors.

• Few African societies had written languages.

• Storytellers shared orally the history and literature of a culture.

• In west Africa, the griots (storytellers) kept this history alive, passing it from parent to child.

• Archaeologists’ main source of information about early West African cultures has been from artifacts such as pottery, charcoal, and slag- a waste product of iron smelting.

• Scientists can piece together a picture of life in West Africa as early as 500 B.C.
• The peoples of Africa south of the Sahara seem to have skipped the Copper and Bronze ages and moved directly into the Iron Age.

• Evidence of Iron production was dated to around 500 B.C.

• This was a major technological achievement of the ancient Nok of sub-Saharan Africa.

• West Africa’s earliest known culture was that of the Nok people.

• They lived in what is now Nigeria between 500 B.C. and A.D. 200.
• Their name came from the village where the first artifacts from their culture were discovered
• Nok artifacts have been found in an area stretching for 300 miles between the Niger and Benue rivers.
• They were the first West African people known to smelt iron.

• The iron was fashioned into tools for farming and weapons for hunting.

• In the region south of the Sahel, most Africans lived in small villages.

• Cities began to develop sometime between 600 B.C. and 200 B.C.

• Usually they were in areas along rivers or at an oasis.

• One of these cities was Djenne-Djeno.

• It was uncovered by archaeologists in 1977.
• It is located on a tributary of the Niger River in West Africa.
• Scientists discovered hundreds of thousands of artifacts.

• These objects included pottery,copper hair ornaments, clay toys, glass beads, stone bracelets, and iron knives.
• The oldest objects found there dated from 250 B.C,

• At its height, it had 50,000 residents.
• People lived in round reed huts plastered with mud.

• They later built enclosed houses made of mud bricks.
• They fished in the Niger River, herded cattle, and raised rice on the river’s fertile floodplains.

Chapter 8.2: Migration

• Migration: a permanent move from one country or region to another.

• The causes of migrations fall into three categories: environmental, economic, and political.

• In the 15th century the Ottomans’ drive for power pushed them to move all over the ancient world to create a massive empire.
• As the world became more industrialized, more people moved to cities where work in factories was available.

• When looking at migration, historians speak of push-pull factors.

• These factors can either push people out of an area r pull them into an area.

• An example of a pull factor might be abundant land that attracts people.
• On the other hand, the depletion of natural resources forces people away from a location.

• There were effects to migration, both positive and negative:

• Redistribution of the population may change population density
• Cultural blending of languages or ways of life may occur
•  Ideas and technologies may be shared.
• People’s quality of life may be improved as a result of moving
• Clashes between groups may create unrest, persecution, or even war
•  Environmental conditions may change, causing famine or depleted natural resources.
• Employment opportunities may dry up, creating unemployment and poverty.

• One way experts can trace the pattern of movement of people over time is by studying the spread of languages.

• People bring their language with them when they move to new locations.
• A Bantu language is the first language of nearly ⅓ of all Africans.

• The Bantu speaking peoples originally lived in the savanna south of the Sahara, in the area that is now southeastern Nigeria.
• The Bantu peoples were not one people, but rather a group of peoples who shared certain cultural characteristics.

• They were farmers and nomadic herders who developed and passed along the skill of ironworking.

• They taught the slash and burn technique.

Chapter 8.3: The Kingdom of Aksum

• Under Zoskales, who was thought to be the first king of Aksum, it seized areas along the Red Sea and the Blue Nile in Africa.

• Aksum’s location and expansion made it a hub for caravan routes to Egypt and Meroe.

• It became an international trading power.

• Aksumite merchants traded necessities such as salt and luxuries such as rhinoceros horns, tortoise shells, ivory, emeralds, and gold.

• In return they chose from items such as imported cloth, class, olive oil, wine, brass, iron, and copper.

• The Kingdom of Aksum reached its height between A.D. 325 and 360, when a strong ruler named Ezana occupied the throne.

• He first conquered the part of the Arabian peninsula that is now Yemen.
• The then turned his attention to Kush, which had already begun to decline.

• In 350 he conquered the Kushites and burned Meroe to the ground.

• From the beginning the Aksumites had a diverse cultural heritage.

• This blend included traditions of the Arab peoples who  crossed the Red Sea into Arica and those of the Kushite peoples they settled among.

• As the kingdom expanded and became a powerful trading center, it attracted people from all over the ancient world.  

• The port city of Adulis was particularly cosmopolitan.

• It included people from Aksum’s widespread trading partners, such as Egypt, Arabia, Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and even Byzantium.

• In the babble of tongues heard in Aksum, Greek stood out as the international languages of the time.

• The Aksumites believed in one god.  

• They called their god Mahrem and believed that their kings was directly descended from him.
• King Ezana eventually converted to Christianity and Chritianity strengthened its hold in Aksum.

• Aksum was the only known African kingdom to have developed a written language.

• It was also the first state south of the Sahara to mint its own coins.

• The Aksumites created a new method of Agriculture to adapt to their hilly environment.

• This increased the productivity of their land.
• Terraces helped the soil retain water and prevented its being washed downhill in heavy rains.

• Aksum’s cultural and technological achievements enabled it to last for 800 years.

• The kingdom declined under invaders who practiced the religon called Islam.

• In 710 they destroyed Adulis, which cut Aksum off from the major ports along both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

• Eventually Aksum became isolated from other Christian settlements.