ANCIENT AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS TO ca. 1500
Text Supplement and Study Guide
for History/PAS 393
by
Dr.
Susan J. Herlin
©
Revised edition, 2003
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
PART I. TEXT SUPPLEMENT
African Geography………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
MAP 1: India, USA,
China and Europe superimposed on African Continent……………………… 5
MAP 2: Physical Features (Modern)…………………………………………………………………………… 6
MAP 3: Regional names (Map Quiz Version)……………………………………………………………….. 7
AFRICAN ROOTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE………………………………….. 8
Scientific evidence for early human
ancestor and their way of life………………………………….. 8
MAP 4: Paleolithic
Africa………………………………………………………………………………………. 10
Prehistory: probable sequences of human
development in the Paleolithic………………………. 11
Society,
economy, and culture in the Stone ages: Becoming Human…………………………… 13
CHART: Stone Age Chronologies……………………………………………………………………………. 17
CHART: The Late Stone Age Way of Life………………………………………………………………… 18
MAP 5: Late Stone Age
Africa………………………………………………………………………………… 19
THE FOOD PRODUCTION REVOLUTION IN AFRICA…………………………………….. 20
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION IN THE NILE VALLEY…………………….. 23
The Physical
and Cultural Environment of the Nile in Ancient Times…………………………. 23
The
Development of Irrigation, Writing, Religion and Monarchy………………………………… 24
MAP 6: The Nile
Valley in Pharoanic times………………………………………………………………. 26
Pharaonic
Egypt to ca.800 BCE…………………………………………………………………………… 27
Nubia and Kush in Pharaonic Times……………………………………………………………………… 30
CHRONOLOGY: The Nile Valley in Pharaonic Times……………………………………………….. 31
MAP 7: Nubia
and Kush………………………………………………………………………………………… 32
Egypt and Its Neighbors:
the Impact of Egyptian Civilization: Issues and Evidence…………. 33
MAP 8: Northern Africa in Classical Egyptian times……………………………………………………. 36
WEST AFRICA IN ANTIQUITY…………………………………………………………………………. 37
MAP 9: Ethnolinguistic Map of West Africa………………………………………………………………. 40
CHART: Chronology of Ancient West Africa……………………………………………………………… 43
MAP 10: Northern Africa in Carthaginian Era…………………………………………………………… 44
EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE MAGHRIB: CARTHAGE………………………………… 45
CHRONOLOGY: The Maghrib in Carthaginian and Roman Times……………………………….. 48
THE ADVENT AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY…………………………………………….. 49
CHART: Chronology of Early Christianity…………………………………………………………………. 52
MAP 11: Christian North Africa……………………………………………………………………………… 53
CHART: Chronology of West Africa: 800 BCE to ca.1600 CE……………………………………… 54
CHART: Chronology of North African Islam to 1517…………………………………………………. 56
PART II HISTORY AND
HISTORIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY AND HISTORICAL
STUDIES……………………… 58
What is History? How and Why is it Done? ………………………………………………………….. 58
History,
Historiography and Historical Theory…………………………………………………………. 60
Doing History:
Critical Reading and Critical Analysis………………………………………………… 61
PART
III. STUDY GUIDE…………………………………………………………………………………………… 63
AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY
The
Continent now known as Africa is a very large landmass located to the south of
western Europe and to the southwest of what we now call the ‘Middle East.’ It is bordered in the north by the
Mediterranean Sea, in the east by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and in the
west by the Atlantic Ocean. The
Continent has many environments, ranging from the most arid of desert wastes to
tropical rain forest, savanna, vast swamps, and even snow-capped
mountains. The diverse flora and fauna
of these environments have supported a variety of human communities, which, in
turn have developed a correspondingly wide range of economic, social, cultural
and political strategies for survival.
Today
the Continent is divided politically into fifty independent countries, ranging
in population from Nigeria, with about 150 million, to Mauritania, Niger or
Namibia whose citizens number fewer than 5 million. In size the differences are equally as great, with countries
ranging in size from tiny, Connecticut-sized Gambia to giant Sudan, whose
territory equals that of the entire United States east of the Mississippi
River.
Over time the regions of the Continent have
acquired commonly applied names, such as Sub-Saharan, North, West, Southern,
East, Northeast (or Horn), Central, and Equatorial. Knowledge of these regional designations, along with the
important physical features and modern country boundaries is necessary for
understanding materials written about the history, societies, politics or
cultures of the Continent. [MAP 1]
The
geography of the Africa has played an important role not only in the history of
the peoples of the Continent, but history of all humans as well. All of us belong to a species, Homo sapiens sapiens, the remote
ancestors of whom lived in the African tropical savannas as early as 3 million
years ago. Although, as is true in the
rest of the world, African landform and climate have changed over the last 3
million years, we will first consider the modern geography and climate.
Africa
is a very large continent. Large
enough, in fact, to contain the United States, China, India, and Argentina combined.
[MAP 2] It is about 5,500 miles across
the Continent, both east to west and north to south. Africa is the most tropical of continents, being practically
bisected by the Equator. While
virtually any kind of climate or topographical feature can be found somewhere
on the African continent, the majority of land is either desert or savanna
(open plains). Substantial rain forest
(so-called ‘jungle’) covers the lowlands near the Equator. However, the majestic snow-capped peaks of
Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro are also located near the Equator. The Continent has four major river systems:
the Nile, the Niger, the Congo or Zaire, and the Zambezi. [MAP 3]
As
is the case in other world regions, human history in Africa is closely linked
to the favorable distribution of natural resources–particularly good soils and
an adequate water supply. The savanna
regions of eastern Africa are literally home to the human species. Other well-watered savanna regions of the
Continent, especially the Sudannic regions north of the great equatorial
forest, have long supported diverse populations of farmers, herders, crafts
people and traders. And, of course, the
fertile Nile valley was the cradle of one of the earliest civilizations known,
that of the ancient Egyptians.
The Continent can be divided into broad
climate zones according to patterns of rainfall and temperature. In the tropical forest or equatorial zone,
which covers the lowlands of central Africa, the climate is similar year round,
with warm, humid conditions and nearly daily rainfall. The dense forests and lush vegetation of
this zone has historically made farming very difficult, and thus kept
population densities low. The prevalence
of the tse-tse fly prevented the raising of cattle. Thus, fishing, hunting and gathering, and trade have historically
sustained regional economies. Equatorial mountain terrain provides an exception
to the rule of tropical rain forest.
Mountain slopes and valleys above 5,000 feet have environments that are
more temperate; in the higher elevations, even alpine in character. The equatorial mountain zone is in the
eastern part of the region, in modern day Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and
Tanzania.
Both
to the north and south of the equatorial forest zone the tree cover gradually
thins out as annual rainfall declines.
In the resulting tropical savannas rain occurs seasonally, alternating
with increasingly lengthy dry seasons.
In the open country days are hotter and nights cooler than in the forest
year round. Even though soils are often
poor and rainfall erratic, nonetheless this open country is more suitable for
farming than either dense forest or desert; and can support livestock such as
goats and cattle. Tropical savanna
farming communities are historically the most typical of African settlement
patterns. The indigenous savanna
crops—millets, black-eyed peas, yams, palm oil and fruits—are still important
to the diets of many rural people.
The
further one gets from the Equator the longer the dry season, until one reaches
lands where there is no rainy season at all.
In these deserts, which now cover about one-third of the Continent,
water comes almost exclusively from underground sources (or from rain that fell
elsewhere and comes down the river in the form of annual floods, as in
Egypt. Thus agriculture can only be
sustained in river valleys or in oases.
Egyptian civilization was based on the exceptionally fertile alluvial
soils of the Nile River, which, for the last 4500 years or so, has flowed
through one of the most arid parts of the western Saharan desert. Deserts are hot during the day and cold
during the clear starry nights. Most desert dwellers are nomadic herders, since
animals must be regularly moved to take advantage of sparse grass and brush.
As
one approaches either the northern or southern-most coasts of the Continent the
climate becomes more temperate, with winter and summer seasons and periods of
rainfall throughout the year, much the same as is the case in southern parts of
the United States. Here the agriculture
follows seasons familiar to us, and the climate supports crops and animals that
are similar to other regions around the Mediterranean Sea, such as wheat,
olives, grapes; sheep, goats and cattle.
Although
there are people living in mountain valleys, along large lakes or seacoast, in
swamps or on islands, the majority of African peoples live in the tropical
savannas, the Nile Valley or Mediterranean climate zones in either the far
north or the far south. It is the people
of these three major environments who have, therefore, been the central
characters in the long, interesting and very diverse history of the Continent,
taken as a whole.
MAP 1 India, USA, China and Europe superimposed
on African Continent
MAP 2: Physical Features (Modern)
MAP 3: Regional names (Map Quiz Version)
AFRICAN ROOTS OF HUMAN SOCIETY AND
CULTURE
The
African continent, and particularly sub-Saharan Africa, has an extremely
lengthy period of human prehistory.
Over one hundred years ago Charles Darwin hypothesized, on the basis of
the limited evidence available at that time, that Africa would prove to be the
homeland of the human species. In the
last fifty years researchers in fields as diverse as archaeology and genetics
have convincingly demonstrated the correctness of Darwin’s thesis.
Recent
archaeological research indicates that early proto-humans, called hominids,
were making and using stone tools in northern and eastern Africa three million
or more years ago. Clear evidence for
similar developments outside Africa does not appear until about one million
years ago. Thus it seems likely that
the first two million or so years of human development in took place on the
continent of Africa. Recent genetic research further suggests that all living
members of our species, that is, Homo
sapiens sapiens, may have had either a common grandmother (or grandfather,
depending on the researcher), ten thousand times removed. This ancestress/ancestor of us all probably
lived in Africa between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago.
All
but the last 10,000 or so years of human history belong entirely to the era
known broadly as the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age). The beginning of the Paleolithic is dated from when the hominid
populations of Africa started to regularly make rudimentary tools from
intentionally shaped stones for use in their daily lives. The “stone ages” (Old and New) ended when ancient humans began to use metals, such
as copper or iron, as their principal tool making materials. Metal decorations, tools and weapons began
to appear about 8,000 years ago in some places, but were not in general use,
even in the ‘civilized world’ of the time, until about 3,000 years ago. Thus the stone ages, from the standpoint of
time, constitute the bulk of human history.
Scientific
Evidence for Early Human Ancestors and Their Ways of Life
Although
stone tools give their names to eras of human prehistory and provide a major
means for tracing its development, it is certain that materials other than
stones were used as tools by hominids and early humans in their daily
lives. However, since most of those
made of organic materials have decayed beyond trace, they cannot be used as
evidence by the archaeologists or other scientists interested in pre-history. It is very likely that the earliest hominid
tools will forever remain unknown, as they were either natural objects (sticks,
vines, rocks) or were so little changed from natural objects that they can’t be
distinguished in fossil remains.
Archaeologists
and paleo-anthropologists, the principal researchers into our stone age past,
use fossil remains of humans and other animals, tools, seeds, even pollen, as
well other data from the environment, such as soils and rock strata, to
reconstruct the ways of life of the peoples who used them. They also use
indirect evidence in their research, including fossil remains from other
related species, such as chimpanzees, and the data supplied by observing the
ways of life of living populations of apes. Some information is gathered as
well from contemporary human societies that still follow what are presumed to
be the ancient gathering and hunting way of life. Data derived from comparative anatomy, blood, protein and DNA
research are also used in the search for understanding about our remote African
ancestors.
Dating
of evidence plays a significant role in archaeological research, since it is
impossible to trace changes without knowing the relative sequence of fossils
and related evidence over time. Dating
methods continue to improve. However,
even the most sophisticated techniques for recovering and dating materials from
antiquity do not give us the story of human development. All the evidence must be analyzed and
interpreted using a unifying theoretical framework. The basic interpretive
framework in use today is evolutionary theory.
Charles Darwin and his contemporaries in England and other Western
countries first developed it more than a hundred years ago. Evolutionists hypothesize that living species
are the product of thousands, even millions of years of incremental genetic
changes. That, in essence, if you take
the ancestry of any living thing back far enough it will merge with all other
living things.
MAP 4: Paleolithic Africa
Prehistory:
probable sequences of human development in the Old Stone Age.
The
stone ages were not static. Popular
expressions such as ‘living in the stone age’ or ‘stone age man’ are unhelpful
when they are based on the false assumption that the ancestral human way of
life remained the same throughout the millions of years known collectively as
the stone ages. Changes in technology
and lifestyle during all these stone ages from the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age)
through the Neolithic (New Stone Age) are easily demonstrated. Stone Age ‘toolkits’ [1]
differed from period to period as the peoples who made and used them developed
both physically and culturally over time.
Specialists subdivide the stone ages into periods, such as ’early,’
‘late,’ and ‘new,’ to indicate the significant differences that developed over
time.
The
longest period in human pre-history encompasses the era known as the early
Paleolithic (early Old Stone Age), which lasted from the time of the earliest
recognizably proto-human beings to the advent of our species (i.e., from about
3 million BCE[2] until about
200,000 BCE). The first recognizable stone tools appeared in this period. Most of the fossil remains connected with
the early Paleolithic are African. The
first phase of this era (ca. 3 million to 1 million BCE) is named
Olduwan–after Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania where the fossils remains associated
with the earliest tools were first discovered.[3]
Among the tool makers of Olduvai was the human ancestral species called Homo
Habilis, whose members were fairly small in stature, walked upright, had fairly
small brains, and lived an average of only 20 years or so.
Olduwan
hominids made pebble or chopper tools, which were probably used to fashion
wooden digging sticks, to butcher already dead wild animals, and to scrape
hides or soften leather. These early hominids began to develop the foraging
(gathering and hunting) way of life that came to separate them from their
primate cousins, the various species of apes.
Cultural and physical changes occurred very slowly in the early
Paleolithic because the total hominid populations were small, living in very
small groups scattered across the then vast tropical African savannas.
The
second phase of the early Paleolithic (c. 1 million to 200,000 BCE) is called
the Acheulian, after its typical industry that is named for a typesite in
southern France. Acheulian industries
are distinguished by more sophisticated stone tools which gradually became
sharper and more effective. Tasks which
had been accomplished with the older technology could now be done better, plus
the new ‘hand axes’ were good for digging.
These industries were the work of Homo
erectus (and perhaps other species).
They had larger and differently organized brains than their Homo habilis ancestors. This enabled them to colonize favorable
environments throughout the ‘Old World.’[4]
In
the Acheulian period cultural changes began occurring with somewhat greater
frequency. This may have been because developing brain and speech capacities
gave homo erectus the ability to
transmit information more effectively both to group members and to offspring—thus
making possible the accumulation of knowledge over time. Also, there was probably a significant
overall population increase, since improved communication and tools also meant
more reliable food supplies. Of course,
not all populations changed at the same pace or in the same way. This depended upon environmental, cultural
and communications factors specific to each.
After
200,000 BCE regional specialization of tools appears for the first time, again
in Africa. Regional specialization
describes the move from the production of generic, all-purpose tools, to tose
designed for more specific tasks, such as trapping animals specific to a
particular environment. These innovations were the work of Homo sapiens and/or Homo
sapiens sapiens. Both groups were skilled and versatile enough to begin to
move into environmentally more difficult territories, from temperate Europe and
Asia to tropical rain forest Africa. To
do this they adapted their existing tool kits–employing new materials and
devising distinctive styles, some of which we even recognize as artistic
qualities as well as functional ones.
The status of Homo sapiens,
the species known as ‘Rhodesiensis’ in Africa and ‘Neanderthal’ in Europe,
whose members had physical characteristics very close to those of modern
humans, is currently under debate. It
is not known how populations of Homo
sapiens and Homo sapiens sapiens related to each other, or why Homo sapiens disappeared. What is known is that all living humans
belong to one species, Homo sapiens
sapiens. .
As had been true from the beginning,
change in the later Paleolithic can be linked to climatic factors, specifically
to movement of glaciers in northern Europe and changes in rainfall levels in
southern Europe and Africa. Climatic
cycles alone, however, do not explain the accelerated pace of change. In the case of Africa experts have
hypothesized that more dense populations, made possible by more abundant food
supplies during wet phases, used their greater collective brain power to develop
innovative means of coping with the harsher conditions prevalent in the drier
times that followed.
Beginning
around 200,000 new methods for making stone implements began to appear in some
parts of Africa. The tools produced by
Homo sapiens and/or early Homo sapiens sapiens were thinner,
sharper, more accurately made. They
display a greater variety of shapes enabling their owners to perform a wider
variety of tasks. In the northern part
of Africa large, stemmed projectile points, such as arrowheads, distinguish the
regional industry called Mousterian. In
the southern savannas more triangular-shaped points characterized the
Fauresmith tool kit. Also, human groups
began to tackle the difficult forest environment. These pioneer forest-dwellers departed from the traditions of
their savanna cousins to develop the tools necessary for wood working and
digging which weren’t needed on the more open plains. The earliest specialized African forest industry is called Sangoan.
By
about 30,000 BCE Homo sapiens sapiens
had become the only human creature on the planet. With the introduction of
‘hafting,’ that is attaching wooden shafts to stone implements, people could
make such things as spears and axes.
Techniques for finishing, sharpening and shaping stones continued to
improve as well, with communities in each environmental region adapting both
tools and styles more and more precisely to the needs of their own locale.
From about 20,000 BCE, there are further
refinements in stone technology. Very
specialized tools appeared, including arrowheads, fishhooks, grindstones, and
awls. These most refined of stone
implements have the generic name ‘microlithic.’ [5] This era of the late Paleolithic also saw
the development of complex composite tools such as bows and arrows. As well, fishing equipment, including boats,
and even pottery appeared in some environmental niches. As tools became more
specialized and finely made, local variations, including stylistic ones, became
more and more the rule.
By the Late Stone Age virtually the entire
now-inhabited world had been occupied by human foraging communities. In various
different regions of the world (including different parts of Africa), late
Paleolithic people themselves probably were developing some of the distinctive
(but superficial from a species perspective) physical characteristics, such as
skin color, hair texture and eye-shape, which we associate with modern
‘races.’ On the cultural side, the
earliest roots of modern language families can be traced back to communities
living this long ago as well.
From
the standpoint of African history the most important development of the late
Stone Age was the emergence of more settled (‘sedentary’) societies. These probably developed first along the
banks of the Upper Nile in the Cataracts region, in modern day southern Egypt
and northern Sudan (ancient Nubia).
Evidence of barley harvesting there dates from as early as 16,000
BCE. The ability to make greater use of
abundant wild grains, probably coupled with greater exploitation of aquatic
resources, led to a more settled existence for some people. These more sedentary peoples were a part of
what is now known collectively as the African Aquatic Culture/Tradition. This way of life spread from the Upper Nile
into a much larger area of Africa during the last great wet phase of African
climate history, which began about 9,000 and peaked about 7,000 BCE. The higher rainfall levels of the period
created numerous very large shallow lakes across what are now the arid southern
borderlands of the Sahara desert.
Inhabitants of shore communities crafted microlithic tools to exploit a
marine environment: fishing and trapping aquatic animals. This provided abundant food supplies,
particularly high in protein and supported the earliest known permanent
settlements. Culturally and
linguistically related peoples ancestral to modern Black Africans established
settlements throughout this vast, ancient great lakes area. It is theorized that they spoke the mother
Nilo-Saharan[6] tongue. Sophisticated water-related technologies
supported not only the development of settled communities, but also the
invention of things like pottery, which were formerly thought to be associated
exclusively with the Food Production Revolution[7]
of the later New Stone Age, or Neolithic.
While the African aquatic tradition itself lasted only until the
beginning of the modern drier period, around 3,000 BCE, its legacy has been
felt ever since.
Society,
Economy, and Culture in the Stone Ages: Becoming Human
The
preceding discussion has emphasized developments in technology and physiology
as a way of understanding the changes that constitute our human
prehistory. However, to answer the
question, “How did we come to be the distinctive species we now are?” we
must go beyond just chronicles of stones and bones. It is only by asking questions about how our hominid ancestors
actually lived that we can understand the roots of later societies and cultures
developed by our Homo sapiens sapiens
ancestors. In other words asking such
basic questions are critical to our achieving a fuller understanding of
ourselves and our species in all its diversity.
As it happens, until fairly recently basic
questions about human origins were usually asked by male scientists and
scholars. They tended to interpret the
fossils and other evidence in ways that emphasized hunting (a presumed male
activity) in explaining the origins of such distinctively human traits as
reflective thinking, myth making, tool using and society building. Hunting was assumed to have been in practice
for 99% of human prehistory and thus to have provided the ‘master behavior
pattern’ of the human species.
Research
by both men and women in the last few decades has raised serious questions
about the effectiveness of the ‘hunting model’ as a tool for understanding the
socio-cultural evolution of the human species.
These researchers relied on a principal called ‘behavioral
continuity.’ This deceptively simple
concept asserts that new ways always grow out of and build onto existing
ones. Recent studies also draw from
biological research to emphasize the proposition that ‘evolutionary success is
reproductive success.’[8] Use of these analytical tools has made it
clear that women were at least as central as men to the process of creating our
distinctive human species. And,
further, that ‘gathering and not hunting was the initial food-providing
behavior that distinguished ape from
human.’[9]
Before
we go further, it is important to stress that Homo sapiens sapiens is a
fundamentally social animal. No humans
are born, grow up, reproduce and survive into old age alone. It has been said that the proper unit for
humanity is not the individual, but the pair (man and woman), because this is
the theoretical minimum necessary to carry on the species. Of course, at a practical level, one pair is
not viable all alone, either. Such a
pair had to be raised to adulthood before being able to reproduce—and neither of
them could possess fertility problems, or get sick and die before at least a male
and female offspring were produced. We
are also culture dependent; that is, each of us must be taught how to be human,
how to behave, speak, and think like a human.
Last, of course, each person learns to be human in a time and place
specific manner, by means of a particular language and all the cultural
elements that come with it. There are,
in other words, no generic humans, although there is the human species, which
is distinctive from even its nearest genetic relatives among the apes. Recent research suggests that it was the
development of group foraging, specifically gathering of plants and small
animals to feed a small group that formed the basis for the rich physical and
cultural development of our social species.
Hominid
gathering was specifically different from ape feeding practices in that it
involved using tools for collecting a quantity of food that was often carried
some distance for consumption and sharing.
This was a departure from the apes’ ‘pluck and eat’ technique, in which
the weaned young were left to find their own food. Adult female hominids, however, not only used tools to obtain
food for themselves, but also to feed their children, who unlike ape offspring,
could not provide adequate food for their own survival until they were near
puberty. Hunting, according to this
model, emerged rather late in human evolutionary history as a specialized form
of gathering.
In
this interpretation of early hominid history, the first tools would have been
only slightly modified natural objects, such as a stick for digging edible
roots, or a crude container to transport food to a safe place for sharing with
children and siblings. Among the
earliest inventions, then, would surely have been a baby sling, to enable
mothers to gather and carry food while still carrying their nursing infants.[10] A child’s survival depended upon its
mother’s ability to carry it great distances for several years; her skill in
finding and gathering food; and her ability to space infants, to feed weaned
offspring and maintain social ties with at least her siblings, and possibly her
mate and some of his siblings (for protection, food sharing, and comfort).
Children were dependent on adults until they could walk long distances (about
puberty)–and had learned the skills to enable them to locate, identify, gather
and process available food using handmade tools.
Males
also gathered. After all they too were
carried by their mother, fed and taught by her until they could do for
themselves. Thus they would have had to learn from her effective techniques of
food gathering and food sharing.
Females, it is theorized, probably preferred to mate with friendly
males, who were successful at food gathering and were willing to share food. In fact, both sexes must have been able to
care for young, protect themselves from predators, mate, and use tools. Both men and women needed to move freely
about the environment in order to exploit available resources widely
distributed through space and time. It
is this range of behaviors–the overall behavioral flexibility of both
sexes–that, according to the reproductive success model was the primary
ingredient of the early hominids’ successful adaptation to their tropical
savanna environment, and which thus ultimately provided the basis for our uniquely
human development.
Let
us reconsider then, the chronology of evolution in the Stone Ages from a
social, economic, and ideological as well as a technological and physiological
perspective. Through the millennia of
the early Paleolithic, small hominid populations developed a way of life, which
exploited the resources of the tropical savannas of northern and eastern
Africa. They used their slightly larger
brain capacity and their ability to walk long distances on two legs to develop
techniques for gathering vegetable foods and processing them. Like their chimpanzee cousins, they probably
also ate small animals. In order to
perpetuate themselves they had to rear dependent offspring to adulthood and
teach them how to survive. This required knowledge acquired from parents and
cooperation with fellow hominids–probably initially those with a close genetic
relationship to them, for example siblings who had been raised together, played
and gathered together and formed emotional ties to each other.
For
the earliest millennia there is no evidence of hominid encampments. Small groups of adults and children may have
simply slept in the nearest available sheltered place. Change was very slow, but the emerging
foraging way of life was sufficient for survival, and permitted periodic
innovations, which were widely adopted.
The only innovations that are clear to us from the archaeological record
are those of stone tools, but these inventions could only have happened in a context
of social and reproductive success within living communities.
By
the second phase of the Paleolithic (Acheulian era) significant changes had
occurred in both technology and physiology.
Physically, the ancestral stock is getting much closer to the modern
one–so much so that it is designated by the genus homo, as in Homo erectus. Tools are a bit more varied, probably allowing Homo erectus to process a wider variety
of vegetables and butcher (but still not kill) large game. Fire comes into use in this era. Campsites appear, so Homo erectus must have developed larger communities than those of
the preceding era. This in turn implies
the development of more complex rules for getting along. Because all innovation consists in
recombining existing elements with perhaps a new idea or technique, these
larger groups must have grown out of the existing ones, perhaps now including
mates of related adults, as well as their pre-pubescent children. Certainly, with more individuals interacting
and more effective communication, more complex rules of behavior would have
been devised. Although the experts do
not agree on this, it seems likely that Homo
erectus had better developed speech capabilities than her predecessors, a
very important factor in the growth of distinctively human societies and
associated cultures.
With
the emergence of Homo sapiens (sapiens), again in Africa, between
200,000 and 60,000 years ago, the social and technological skills of our
ancestors began to develop ever more rapidly.
As we have seen, more specialized tools were devised to cope with a new
range of environments. Tools for actual
hunting as we know it were produced, perhaps providing the initial spur to a
conscious division of labor by gender, with men forming the groups necessary to
track and kill large animals, while women defended camps and continued to
provide the bulk of the basic diet of plants and small animals. Shelters were constructed. Fishing was invented. Some campsites in particularly well-watered
areas were occupied for long periods of time.
Overall population increased.
Presumably foraging groups, called bands, by anthropologists, were approaching the size (about 30-75
people) which is still characteristic of surviving gatherer-hunter
societies. The beginnings of art, found
in cave shelters, suggests that people were concerned with beauty and the
meaning of things–that is, with what we would now call science and
religion. This in turn suggests that
these concerns are fundamental to our survival and development as humans.
The
achievements of Homo sapiens sapiens
were built on those of its hominid predecessors. They inherited the basic physiology, economic, social and
cultural skills necessary to human existence.
Child-rearing, pair-bonding, social support for children and adults, the
providing of food, tools, shelter, artistic and spiritual or symbolic concerns
were all being dealt with in ways which we recognize as ancestral, that is, as
fundamentally human. With the advent of
modern human (our species) such things as cosmetics, poison (and herbs for
healing), theology (ritual burials), arts (painting, singing, dancing, and
storytelling), decoration (jewelry and decoration of living sites) all very
quickly appeared. With the development
of the African Aquatic Tradition settled life enters the picture, and such
truly modern concerns as property rights, home maintenance, food storage,
housekeeping and garbage disposal had to be dealt with. With the development of larger, long-term
settlements, social methods had to be devised to cope with issues of conflict
and cooperation in communities whose resident population numbered in the
hundreds rather than the tens. Thus the
elaboration of kinship and marriage arrangements surely dates at least from
this era. The advent of settlements may
have also contributed to an even more strongly developed sex division of
labor. It is also in this context that
the seeds of plant and animal domestication were doubtless sown, since
according to some experts, garbage piles may have helped the process of
movement towards dependence on food production along.
STONE AGE CHRONOLOGIES. AFRICA.
PERIOD [BD]
{BD=before now}
CLIMATE
SPECIES
CULTURE
4,500
Beginning
of current
dry era for Sahara
Modern
genetic
variations.
Old Kingdom Egypt. Neolithic widespread
north of forest.
6,000
Gradual
ending of wet phase in the north
Modern
genetic variations.
Neolithic (New Stone Age): early Nile
Valley civilization
9,000
Humid
phase
Modern.
Earliest roots of modern languages.
African aquatic culture. First sedentary communities, based on
fishing.
40,000
Arid phase
Homo sapiens sapiens. All modern
humans.
Microlithic tools. (Late era of
Paleolithic)
200,000
Variable
Homo
sapiens. Near modern-sized brain, speech capabilities.
Tools
adapted to specific environments: Sangoan, Fauresmith. Mousterian. (Middle
era of Paleolithic)
1,000,000
Variable
Homo
erectus. Larger, reorganized brain. Pre-modern speech organs.
Acheulian. Camps. Fire. Hunting. Early
era of Paleolithic/
2-3,000,000
Variable
Homo Habilis. Bipedalism.
Olduwan. Baby slings, digging sticks.
Scavenging. Early era of Paleolithic.
THE
LATE STONE AGE WAY OF LIFE
By about 20,000 years ago peoples, cultures, and
societies clearly ancestral to our own dotted the global landscape. The following is a summary, using modern
analytical categories, of some of the probable features of a typical lifestyle
for our ancestors of those times.
ECONOMY Gathering
and hunting for food and other necessary materials was practiced by all.
Plants
and plant products were gathered near campsites following seasonal cycles. Hundreds plants were known. Women did most
gathering, preparing and sharing food with family and friends.
Small
animals were trapped or hunted near camp by women and men. These were also shared.
Large
animals were hunted periodically by men of the band operating in a group using
bows and arrows, spears, poisons. Extensive knowledge of animals and the
environment. They shared the kill with
the band; used all parts of the animals for clothing, tools, art work.
All
adults participate in acquiring food for the group.
Some
division of labor by gender.
Few
material belongings limited to easily portable items.
SOCIETY Organized
into bands of not fewer than 30 or more than 100 related individuals.
Marriage
and kinship practiced. Descent likely
reckoned through the female line.
Leadership,
decision-making, and conflict resolution handled by adults meeting together.
Few
specialized jobs. However, part-time
specialists in such areas as healing, story-telling, artistic endeavors are
likely.
Strong
emphasis on cooperation within the group. Emphasis on group activities,
reciprocity, friendliness.
SCIENCE Generally
skilled in the practical aspects of botany, biology, zoology, chemistry and
meteorology.
Relate
time to menstrual, lunar and seasonal cycles.
Produce
a wide range of tools out of materials found in the environment or obtained
through gathering and hunting, including stone, wood, leather, plant fibers and
bone.
Use
herbs and other plant materials for medicines, poisons, cosmetics, art
supplies, clothing, shelter and containers.
CHILD-REARING Practice child-spacing; usually 4-5
years between births using a long period of nursing.
All
adults in the camp participate in parenting the children of the camp.
Education
of children very informal. Children
free to play in the camp; learn how to behave and develop necessary technical
skill by imitating the adults.
VALUES Animist
or spiritual world view expressed through community rituals and art. Religious concerns included death (burials);
fertility (female symbolism); success in the hunt (animal art); and a sense of
meaning.
Widespread
use of symbolic representations as well as naturalism in artistic endeavors.
Value
cooperation, fertility, and the natural world which sustains their lives.
Transmit
values through art, music, ritual and storytelling–including stories of how
the world began and people came into being.
MAP
5: Late Stone Age Way of Life
THE
FOOD PRODUCTION REVOLUTION IN AFRICA
Food producing economies became typical
for African people living north of the equatorial forest between about 6000 and
1000 BCE. The shift to dependence on
food production from gathering and hunting at first occurred very gradually and
only in certain favorable locations where developments were stimulated by a
combination of local, independent innovations and diffusion of new knowledge
from elsewhere. There are several
regions of Africa that can be counted among the early ‘cradles of agriculture’
and cattle domestication.[11] These include North Africa, Sudannic West
Africa, forest West Africa, and the Ethiopian highlands. In each of these areas certain abundant
plants and/or animals native to the region were increasingly selected and
cultivated for use by local populations that had previously relied entirely on
foraging.
Unfortunately, very little is yet known
about how Africans who inhabited the immense lands of the modern Saharan and
Sudannic regions in 6000 BCE lived. We do
know that there were still thriving fishing communities on the banks of the
numerous lakes and the great rivers.
They, however, were probably not the first to become dependent on
agriculture, since they didn’t need to be!
They had plenty to eat from fishing, gathering seasonal fruits, and
harvesting abundant wild grains. In
fact, the first signs of both livestock raising and grain cultivation in Africa
appear in what is now the middle of the Sahara desert. Remember, in 6000 BCE, and still as late 3000
BCE, much of this huge area was habitable savanna country, with thick grass and
abundant wildlife. In other words it
was an environment that provided suitable animal and plant species for
domestication.
Just how the concept and techniques of
cattle raising got started in the Sahara is not known. Probably the process was gradual and
independent of other areas. Possibly
the idea came in from the Middle East, and the techniques developed
locally. In either case, cattle
domestication seems to have taken place in the Sahara before it did in the Nile
valley (which is closer to the Middle Eastern centers of early
domestication). One of the unique
aspects of the evidence for dating Saharan food production is the survival of
paintings and drawings, which picture the herding of cattle. When it came to domestication and
cultivation of plants, the Sahara and the Nile valley areas also developed
crops very similar to those of the Middle East, with which they shared common climatic
( and thus probably cultural) conditions.
The animals and plants originally domesticated in this region include
goats, sheep, cattle, wheat, barley, olives, and dates.
The lands south of the Sahara did not have
the same native vegetation and thus could not have simply borrowed techniques
of domestication from their northern neighbors. In these lands of ‘summer rains,’ soils and seasons as well as
plants were markedly different.
Probably the earliest site of domestication in the lands south of the
emerging Sahara and north of the great forest, was highland Ethiopia, where a
kind of banana, a species of millet, and the coffee bean formed a ‘cradle of
agriculture.’ In the Sudannic belt
other species of millet, the black-eyed pea, and okra were among the plants
brought under cultivation by people who were increasingly attracted to the
better rainfall south of a drying Sahara after 3000 BCE. This groups of plants is known as the
‘Sudannic cradle of agriculture.’ In
the more humid lands near the Atlantic coast an African species of rice was
cultivated at an early date. In
modern-day Nigeria, where the forest meets the savanna, crops such as yams,
kola and palm kernels were found suitable for the woodland districts before
2000 BCE, and perhaps much earlier. These form the cradle known associated with
the Guinea Neolithic.[12]
As
was the case elsewhere in the world, the shift from dependence on foraging to
dependence on food production (domesticated plants and/or animals) brought with
it major changes of life-style. For
farmers a settled (sedentary) existence became mandatory, with all its
attendant benefits and problems. Small
villages surrounded by fields came to dominate the landscape, where seasonal
foraging camps had been before.
Although it seems likely that endemic diseases, such as malaria and
sleeping sickness, kept populations relatively smaller in tropical Africa than
in the sub-tropical Middle East and southeastern Europe, even very small
permanent agricultural settlements require more formal rules and authority than
similar-sized bands of foragers.
Kinship ideas and practices must have provided some basis for developing
more complex social structures, such as those associated with the terms lineage
and clan. The dynamics of co-residence
in the same household or settlement also must have played a role. In other words, ways had to be found to get
along with the neighbors or a fairly consistent basis.
Typically
African practices of managing resources (land and labor) through village,
family and clan organization probably originated during this time. Marriage and child rearing practices in
particular must have changed substantially to accommodate the changing economic
and social circumstances. New crafts
(pottery), new specialties (clan head) and new gods (in connection with lineage
ancestors, land and crops) appeared.
The relations between the sexes probably changed as well, with new
emphasis perhaps being given to the female and her connection to gathering,
domesticated plants and to life-giving cycles of the earth.
While
farmers had to settle down to accommodated the cycle of planting, cultivation
and harvest of plants, those who came to depend primarily on cattle or goat
raising retained a nomadic way of life.
In herding societies, the animals became central to everyone’s concerns. Dependence on herds of domestic animals gave
rise to a nomadic pastoralist way of life.
Finding suitable pasture, protecting the young animals–owning,
admiring, and making use of them–provided social purpose and inspiration for
the imagination as well as milk, skins and meat to eat or trade. Social organization may have been more
male-centered, since animal domestication was more continuous with hunting
large game, which has been associated with males historically. Some types of patrilineal and patriarchal
social organization, which later came to characterize many pastoral peoples,
may have had their roots in these early times.
Last,
but not least, new possibilities for both communication and conflict came into
being with the food production ‘revolution.’
Commerce, regular exchanges of goods (and ideas and marriage partners)
between villages or herding camps grew up as more and more well-trodden paths
linked people in search of needed items, such as good pottery, not available in
their own locality. As well, the
development of more efficient agriculture, larger settlements, and local
competition over resources probably gave rise to early forms of warfare, that
is, organized, violent conflict over territory, as walled villages in the
Tichitt and Lake Chad areas testify.
Also, a classic theme of human conflict was born when cattle herders and
farmers of the northern savannas were faced with diminishing resources as the
Saharan lands began to get progressively drier after 3,000 BCE.
By
about 2500 BCE basically modern climatic conditions existed in Africa north of
the equator. A massive desert was
growing from the banks of the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the
west, and from near the Mediterranean in the north to only a few hundred miles
north of the present-day Sahel in the south.
In the desert, agriculture was confined to the oases. Even goat herding wasn’t feasible in the
driest parts. By 2200 BCE or so the
fertile flood plain of the Nile River in Egypt was surrounded on both east and
west by desert. It also meant that a
vast, arid, thinly populated land now separated the savannas of the Sudannic
region from its neighbors along the Mediterranean coast to the north, and in
the Nile valley to the northeast. While
nomadic pastoralists developed indirect links across it, the Sahara Desert was
only opened to regular commerce after the introduction of the camel from the
Arabian penninsula about 2,000 years ago.
THE
DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION IN THE NILE VALLEY
By
5,000 BCE the Nile valley from modern-day Sudan right to its Delta on the
Mediterranean seacoast had been home to various peoples for many thousands of
years. As early as 16,000 BCE people
living near the shores of lakes formed on the upper Nile, as well as on the
upper river itself, lived in small villages, made fishing gear and boats, and
produced some of the earliest pottery known.
By the 4th millennium[13]
BCE the valley had also attracted cattle keepers from the vast Saharan savannas
to the west, and perhaps traders from other Neolithic communities to the
northeast, as well.
The
Physical and Cultural Environment of the Nile in Ancient Times
The
Lower Nile, from the First Cataract (modern-day Aswan) to the Mediterranean
Sea, provides two different, but related environments. Moving north from the First Cataract, the
Nile flows through a comparatively narrow valley. The lands along the banks are characterized by a series of
natural basins (called hods), which
have been altered by human engineering for the last 7,000 years. As one nears the Delta in the north, the
floodplain widens and the basins become less distinct, until in the Delta
itself the land is divided not into basins, but into islands and peninsulas
formed by the alluvial deposits of soil over thousands of years. In very ancient times “Lower
Egypt” began south of the Delta itself, including the broader floodplain
from Memphis north. [MAP 7]
The
most important historical-geographic feature of the Lower Nile, of course, is
its annual flood, which following the summer rains in Ethiopia, bursts into
Egypt in August and typically continues for two months, leaving both
destruction and riches in its wake. The
flood, although annual, is not uniform.
When there is drought in the highlands to the south, the flood may be a
comparative trickle. However, in years
of abundant rainfall in the watershed, the flood can become a torrent, washing
everything before it. It is now thought that early populations, which ventured
into the valley of the Nile below the First Cataract, were more concerned to
build dikes to protect themselves and their herds against this possibility of a
destructive flood than to irrigate crops.
The fact that cattle were important in
early Egyptian history brings up another point about the environment in antiquity. In the earliest days of Egyptian
development, there was no Sahara Desert.
The lands that now form the Sahara enjoyed savanna, rather than desert
environments. And as we have already
seen, the Saharan peoples had been pioneers of cattle domestication. Until about 2300 BCE, that is well into
Pharaonic times, the Lower Nile flowed through an area of rainfall, which
supported thriving cattle herding societies.
Not
only cattle raising, but also fishing and agriculture have a long history in
the Nile valley. The upper Nile, in
what is now the country of Sudan, was one of the areas that developed fishing
settlements during the long era of the African Aquatic Tradition. Since some of these Late Stone Age
communities used grinding stones to process wild grains, which they harvested
in the fertile alluvial plains, it seems likely that it was their descendants
who became the first full time farmers in this part of Africa. Between 5000 BCE and 4000 BCE farming and
cattle keeping replaced hunting and fishing as the main ways of life along the
Nile. Of course, people continued to
both hunt and fish, but they were becoming economically and socially dependent
upon cattle raising and farming.
The
Development of Irrigation, Writing, Religion and Monarchy
Picture,
if you can, what the Nile valley (of modern-day Egypt) must have been like in
the 2,000 years between the early Neolithic and the beginning of the unified
kingdom under the pharaoh Narmer/Menes in about 3,000 BCE. Had you traveled the region early in the
period, your journey would have taken you along the higher ground of the
valley, inland of the river itself, where encampments of cattle herders or
small farming settlements would have hosted you. As you traveled the length of the area, both cultural and
linguistic differences would have been apparent, with life centering around
local earth spirits as well as goddesses and gods representing the forces of
nature (human and environmental). These
coincide with the several distinctive Neolithic cultural traditions that
archaeologists have identified with this era.
At that time only a few fields were situated in the flood plain
itself. However, as communities became
more numerous and their technology and social organization better adapted to
the local environment, they began to use the dry season between the floods to
shore up natural basin boundaries. This enabled them to more safely graze their
cattle or plant their crops in this fertile land. As this ability to defend themselves against the destructive
power of the flood increased, so did their colonization[14]
of the fertile natural basins near the river.
By about 4,000 BCE these riverside pioneers had developed production
levels capable of supporting specialized crafts workers in wood, stone, copper and
gold, as well as specialists in religion and trading. As in other parts of the Neolithic world of the time, religious
emphases shifted to a focus on agriculture and the fertility of both women and
the earth. In the Nile valley religious
thinkers also were absorbed with the cycles of the flood, which they connected
to the appearance of the star Sirius in the night sky. From the viewpoint of people at that time
there was an intimate connection between supernatural and natural phenomena.[15] Socially, greater control of the flood
required greater organization of labor and cooperation of people joined
together by residence in a particular basin area. Effective flood management also required planning. It is in this context that the earliest
pictographic writing appeared.
Between
about 4,000 and 3200 BCE the pace of change quickened in the Nile valley. More sophisticated flood-control technology,
aided by the development of larger political/religious units headed by an
emergent class of priest-scribes, led to colonization of the floodplain basins
themselves. The priest-scribes took the
lead in both predicting the floods and organizing the construction of dikes.
They also required and organized storage of food for use in hard times. With greater productivity larger villages,
now with houses made of brick, made their appearance. Burials became more elaborate.
Writing became more stylized and flexible as the full hieroglyphic system
developed. Everyday items now are
included in graves. Differences in
burials indicate that social class had made its appearance. For the first time you could have made your
journey along the Nile by boat, indicating an increase in the volume of trade,
as well as improvements in communication.
Merchants regularly visited not only points along the Nile, but ports on
the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in modern-day Lebanon and
Israel.
The
idea and practice of monarchy also became established, apparently first among
the more pastoralist-oriented peoples of Nubia, where the earliest known
Egyptian-style royal burial was recently discovered. These religious, economic, social and political advances allowed
the local flood district-based communities to become more and more effectively
organized to exploit the environment for their benefit. This is the context in which the earliest
socio-political formations we could call states[16]
appeared. By 3500 BCE the autonomous
local hod states had joined together
into two confederations of allied states, one for Lower Egypt (from about
Memphis north) and the other for Upper Egypt (from the Memphis area to Thebes
in the south).
Although
little specific is known about the relations between the sexes in this era, the
presence of both strong goddesses and gods, as well as the predominance of
agriculture, suggest that women and men enjoyed roughly equal status. They probably worked side by side, or in
complimentary fashion to accomplish the various tasks necessary to gain a
living for their families.[17]
MAP 6: The Nile Valley in Pharaonic Era
Pharaonic
Egypt to Ca. 800 BCE
The
rulers of ancient Egypt were known as ‘pharaohs.’ They were believed to be the incarnation of the god, Horus. As we have seen, the Egyptian practice of
divine kingship probably originated in Nubia.
From the time of the legendary Narmer (or Menes), founder of the 1st
Dynasty, the local gods and priest-leaders of the north were absorbed into the
expanding Egyptian system.
Historians,
following the Egyptian historian Manetho (published in 280 BCE), have
traditionally grouped the reigns of related pharaohs into dynasties,
numbering30 in all, spread over the period from about 3100 BCE to 332 BCE. Though there is not always agreement as to
the exact dates of specific reigns, the system of grouping rulers claiming
descent from the same ancestor into dynasties provides a useful framework for
chronicling the immensely long period of ancient Egyptian history. However, since the time period is so long,
and not all dynasties were equally strong, the history of Egyptian antiquity
has been further grouped by historians into eras of strong centralized
government, called ‘Kingdoms,’ and eras of weak centralized government power,
called ‘Intermediate Periods.’ There
are three ‘Kingdoms’ during the Pharaonic Era: the Old Kingdom, which includes
the rulers of the 3rd through the 6th dynasties; the Middle Kingdom, which
encompasses the 11th and 12th dynasties, and the New Kingdom, which lasted from
the 18th through the 20th dynasties. In
between the Old and Middle Kingdoms there was a troubled period now known as
the First Intermediate Period. The
Middle and New Kingdoms are separated by the foreign infiltration and invasions
of the Second Intermediate Period. The
weak kings of the 21st dynasty—inaugurating a period variously known as the
Third Intermediate or Late period, followed the New Kingdom. This era lasted until the conquest of the
throne by Libyans, which signals the end of the Pharaonic era proper, although
not the end of classical Egyptian civilization, by any means.
The
basic political structure and cultural bases of classical Egyptian civilization
were in their fullest flower during the Old Kingdom (ca. 2900-2200 BCE). It was during this remarkable era that the
Egyptian system of exploiting the agricultural and communications potential of
the Nile provided the means for the achievement of great collective
wealth. Control of national resources
enabled Egyptian rulers to enjoy luxurious lifestyles and build grand
monuments, for both the living and the dead.
Great pyramids were built–as the perfect dwellings for the pharaohs in
the land of the dead. The pharaoh was
ideologically and literally the center of the Egyptian system–the god-king who
linked the human and spiritual worlds.
From the Old Kingdom onward the ancient Egyptians depended upon their
divine ruler to uphold Ma’at, the
essence of justice and right order, in the kingdom and in nature itself. The economic, governmental and religious
structures of Pharaonic Egypt were all centered at the court of the pharaoh himself. It employed thousands and thousands of
scribes, artisans, merchants, performers, builders, and every kind of
servant. It was not just those employed
directly in palaces, temples or pyramids under royal control, but also the
ordinary farmers of the countryside, who formed an integral part of this
system, believing that the Pharaoh, the God King was central to their well
being and thus supporting him with their taxes of grain, their labor on public
works, and their adulation at temples and during festivals.
Although
monarchy itself seems to have patriarchal roots, and kings everywhere were
typically male, the institution of the pharaoh in Egypt has some very
distinctive female elements. In the
first place, inheritance to the throne was in the female line (matriliny). It was guarded so closely that heirs to the
throne were required to marry princesses with the title ‘Daughter of the God,’
and brother-sister marriage was practiced.
The positions of Queen Mother and Queen wife (‘Great Royal Wife’) evolved
into royal offices, with their own courts, households and prerogatives. Royal women also held other positions at
court and served as the principal priestesses in the temples of important
goddesses, such as Hathor and Isis throughout Pharaonic times.
Ordinary
women of the Old Kingdom seem to have continued to enjoy status equal to that
of males. Records indicate they were
paid equal wages, and that they were considered fully adult and responsible for
their own acts before the law. They
could inherit and dispose of property; give testimony in court; and enter into
business contracts as free agents.
Certainly they continued to be crucial in the agricultural sector, but
the temple paintings of the time also portray women engaged in a wide variety
of occupations.
Under
he pharaohs of the Old Kingdom dynasties, formerly independent hod states became provinces, called nomes. These were ruled directly by the
pharaoh, with their old ruling families now forced to live at court to take up
their new jobs as governors and tax collectors for their former
terriotories. Along with their people,
the leaders of this era were secure in the belief that their king could ensure
the desired annual flood and consequent rich harvests. The Egyptians thought of themselves as an
elect people, indeed as the only true human beings on earth. “Fearing little, they accomplished
much.”[18]
The
centralized system established by the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom broke down
during the First Intermediate Period.
Provincial leaders reasserted their independence, supporting rival
pharaohs, and helping to create the disunity and resulting hard times of the
period. The hard times were caused in
part by the drying up of the Sahara, which had reached aridity levels close to
those of modern times by 2200 BCE.
Cultural disunity accompanied the political disunity and economic stress
of this approximately 200-year period.
Rulers of the nomes, called nomarchs in this era, recreated local
dynasties and built themselves fine tombs in their own districts, providing
employment for artisans with the wealth they no longer sent to the Pharaoh’s
court. However, their wealth could not
match that of the Old Kingdom times, especially since much of their revenues
had to be invested in quarrels with neighbors and in trying to maintain the
infrastructure necessary for the good life.
In ancient Egypt prosperity was greatest during times of strong
centralized government.
It
was only in about 2000 BCE that the kings of Thebes in the south managed to
reunite the country and reestablish strong, centralized Pharaonic power. Pyramid building resumed. However, the practice of building fancy
tombs for provincial rulers and their wives also continued. Priests gained strength and influence in
this era as allies for Pharaohs who needed their help to control provincial
officials with strong local support.
The Pharaonic court and associated temples, with their enormous cultural
and educational establishments, built up their resource base in this
period. They profited from the central
government’s extension of foreign trade and its conquest of Nubia as far as the
2nd cataract. Also, to increase productivity and revenues, the Pharaoh’s
government promoted the development of irrigated agriculture in the Fayum
region of the Nile Delta. It is
important to remember that a high productive agricultural sector provided the
basis for everything else in ancient Egypt.
The
300-year period known as the Second Intermediate was brought about by the
combination of political weakness within Egypt and foreign
invasion/infiltration into the country from the northeast by Semitic peoples
known as the Hyksos. These
desert-dwellers used their horses and chariots and bronze weapons to take over
portions of the Delta, and to become significant players in the conflicted
politics of the era. They also
stimulated the Egyptians to adopt the new technologies they introduced. The adoption of bronze contributed to a rise
in agricultural productivity. While
bronze weapons, horse-drawn chariots significantly strengthened the Pharaoh’s
military capacities. These innovations
came together under the kings of the 18th dynasty to usher in the imperial era
called the New Kingdom.
From
the 16th until the 11th centuries BCE Egypt became a strong, conquest-oriented,
world power. At its largest the
Egyptian New Kingdom included most of modern Palestine and the lands of the
Nile south almost as far as modern city of Khartoum. The pharaohs now maintained standing armies. They built ever more magnificent monuments,
not only in Egypt proper, but in the lands of Kush (Nubia), which was fully
incorporated into Egypt under direct Pharaonic administration. Great wealth in tribute augmented the
revenues from agriculture and trade, providing funds to run the empire and keep
the members of the royal family and their courts in lavish splendor. Foreign wars were practically continuous in
this era. Soldiers rose to the highest
levels at court. Mercenaries from Libya
and Kush played important roles in the military. War captives poured into the country as slaves who were put to
work on public works and given to high government, military and religious
officials. Although there was a large
middle class of merchants, artisans and officials, social class distinctions
generally became more and more marked, with the peasants in particular becoming
less able to either improve their lot or move into other professions. However, despite these widening class
distinctions, the position of women in Egypt remained more or less equal to
that of men. Certainly women retained
legal equality and access to most professions.
Royal women, in fact, gained in power during the New Kingdom era,
consolidating both their independent bases and their ability to achieve the
throne alone, as regent, or as co-ruler.
After
almost five hundred years, towards the end of the 20th dynasty, things began to
fall apart. Palestine and Nubia
regained their independence. Conflicts
arose over succession to the throne.
Military elements played an ever more important role in governing the
country, and many of the most powerful military forces were of foreign origin,
Libyan and Nubian troops and their leaders.
Finally around 800 BCE a dynasty of Libyan origin seized the throne, inaugurating
a long era of foreign rule Egypt.
Nubia
and Kush in Pharaonic Times
The region south of the First
Cataract of the Nile was through most of antiquity not a part of Egypt
proper. Only in times of Egyptian
expansion during the Middle Kingdom, and especially during the New Kingdom, did
some of these lands come under direct Egyptian administration. As we have seen already, although Egypt was
historically the more powerful, the kingdoms of Nubia (known both as Nubia and
Kush at different times) were not always overshadowed. The relationship between the Egyptian Nile
valley and the Nubian (modern Sudanese) part of the Nile valley has always been
a two-way one.
The different histories of the two
parts of the Nile valley are largely attributable to geography itself. North of the First Cataract after 2500 BCE
the Nile runs through a desert. Only
the irrigated banks of the River itself support human communities in any
numbers. However, the further south one
goes along the Nile the more rainfall there is. By the region of the Sixth Cataract the land receives summer
rains and is cultivable without irrigation.
Cattle, sheep and goats could also be grazed in the south. The societies and cultures that people
developed to exploit these different environments led to quite different historical
paths. For example, large centralized
empires were rare in the south. Also
population densities were much less.
More common were smaller settlements that maintained more independence
from each other than the nomes of Egypt could sustain. Egyptians, as we know, developed elaborate
religious and government institutions, writing systems and the like. Southerners preferred a simpler approach,
with more local control and fewer bureaucrats (and taxes). Pastoral nomadism was more common in the
south. This probably strengthened the
southerners’ attachment to local autonomy.
Although historically the south
seems to have preferred political independence, the Nubian lands were linked to
the north not only by the River and by a broadly shared past, but also
economically. Egyptians needed Nubian
metals, precious stones, cattle and cattle products, dates and military
skills. Egyptians also relied on Nubian
merchants to link them with the lands further south from whom they obtained
more exotic products like incense or ebony.
Nubians, on the other hand, wanted Egyptian manufactured goods and
perhaps also imported goods that the Egyptians had obtained from the lands to
their north.
As is reflected on the chronology of
Egypt in Pharaonic Times, the two regions had a long history of conflict
between them as well. It would seem
that in very early times the kingdoms of Nubia might have been stronger
militarily than their farmer neighbors.
This can be inferred from the fact that the regalia of monarchy itself
seem to have come from the south.
However, once Egypt was unified and grew into a powerful country, the
less numerous and more divided Nubians were at a political and military
disadvantage. Thus when the strong
rulers of the Middle and New Kingdoms decided that they wanted more control
over the people and resources of the south, they were able to conquer and
administer significant parts of it.
This in turn led some of the southern leadership to withdraw even
further south. It is this kind of
strategy that paved the way for the emergence of a strong and independent Kush
when the proud New Kingdom fell on hard times after 1085.
Though they built on what was by
then a quite Egyptianized society and culture, the rulers of Kush also
incorporated some of their own gods and political values. It was this cosmopolitan state that was able
to take over Egypt itself in the 8th century BCE, and which survived the
subsequent onslaughts of the Persians, Greeks and Romans who ruled in Egypt
after 500 BCE.
Chronology of
the Nile Valley in Pharaonic Times
DATES/ERAS
EGYPT
NUBIA/KUSH
1085-751
3rd
Intermediate or
Late
Period. Iron comes
into
use.
Independence
from Egypt. Build a strong independent kingdom known as Kush.
1580-1085
New
Kingdom established.
under
pharaohs of 18th
dynasty. Egyptian
imperial
era. Bronze Age.
Becomes
an Egyptian colony,
directly
under a royal viceroy.
Much
Egyptianization. Nubian forces serve
in Egypt.
ca.1750-1580
2nd
Intermediate Period.
Hyksos
invasions. Horse and
chariot
adopted.
Kingdom
centered at Kerma flourishes, as Egypt looks north.
Hyksos
seek alliances. Trade with Egypt
strong.
2160-1750
Middle
Kingdom. Nomarchs continue to play
important role in
government. Trade and
agricultural
development strong.
Egyptians
push south, establishing forts and mines in Nubia; garrisoning the
north. Kush appears as the name for
the south.
2240-2150
1st
Intermediate Period. Egypt
breaks
into separate nomes under
stresses
partly caused by drying
conditions.
“C-Group’
peoples appear in archaeological records: they are cattle keepers, with a
distinctive chalcolithic cultural tradition.
Mix with older groups to form basic population of region.
ca.2900-2240
Old
Kingdom. Height of classical Egyptian
culture: Great Pyramids, developed pharaonic system.
Cultural
traditions of Nubia and Egypt begin to diverge. Nubia remains oral; kingdoms decline. Strong Egyptian pharaohs raid in the north and exploit minerals
of the region.
ca. 3100-2900
Archaic
Period. Unification of
Egypt
under Menes.
Nubia
culturally similar to the rest of the Nile Valley. Strong kingdom or kingdoms characterize this era.
3500-3100
Pre-dynastic era.
Small, hod-based polities begin to improve
dikes & irrigation; form confederations.
‘A-Group’
of Qustul develop early form of monarchy.
Cattle raising & agriculture important.
MAP 7: Nubia and Kush
Egypt
And Its Neighbors. What Impact Did They
Have On Each Other?
Ancient
Egyptian history, especially the nature of its origins and legacy, has become
the subject of controversy in recent times.
In particular, questions about the racial and cultural links of ancient
Egypt with the rest of Africa, and about its influence on subsequent
civilizations, both Western and African, have been raised. Conflicting interpretations and opinions are
being offered both in popular and scholarly arenas. Battles are being fought in the pages of scholarly journals and
in the meetings of local school boards.
While the time constraints of this course do not allow for much
exploration of these issues, they are certainly relevant to the study of
history, both ‘Western’ and ‘African.’[19] Thus, we will examine some of the most
important areas of contention, and provide a brief historiography.
In
some ways controversies about the nature of ancient Egyptian influence, its
relations with its neighbors, and its legacy, are rooted in the history and
geography of the Nile valley itself.
The Nile flows north, literally bringing its rich soil from the heart of
Africa. Egypt borders both the
Mediterranean and the Middle East, as well as the Red Sea and the Sahara
Desert. Settlement of the Nile valley
goes back into extreme antiquity. Its
generally favorable environment attracted people from all directions, a process
that has continued throughout historic times as well. There is no evidence that ancient Egyptians (or their
contemporaries) had anything like our modern racial stereotypes and
biases. However, if we choose to view
it that way, available evidence (including numerous surviving art works)
suggests that the people of ancient Egypt ranged physically from typical modern
black Africans to typical modern North African and Middle Easterners.
Although
the origin of the complexities and puzzles of ancient Egypt lie in the past,
the actual controversies have modern roots, many of them originating outside
the country itself, in places as widely dispersed as New York, Paris, and
Dakar. Until as recently as the 1960s,
historians of Western (European) civilization have treated ancient Egypt as a
part of the general ‘root’ of their own history and not as a part of Africa at
all. Arab historians have also tended
toward this view. These trends led to a
situation that fed racially-based negative assessments of the history of
sub-Saharan Africa, which was regarded as having nothing to do with the glories
of classical Egypt. It was not until
the 20th century that pioneer historians, led by African Americans and
Africans, began to question these views, both of Africa and of the relation of
ancient Egypt to both history of the rest of the Continent and to European and
Middle Eastern history as well. These
investigators were primarily interested in retrieving the history and global
contributions of Black People (whom they saw as a unity). Thus, they tended to focus their attention
on both the Continental African character of ancient Egypt and the racial
make-up of its people. The leading scholar of this school was the late Cheikh
Anta Diop, a distinguished Senegalese scientist.
In
the last 50 years or so, partly as a result of these efforts, and partly
because of the emergence of modern African countries on the world scene, a
whole new field of study of African history has developed, attracting scholars
from all over the world. To the extent
that specialists working in this field, (called Africanists) have generally
taken a Continental approach, they have contributed to the reintegration of
Egypt into the general history of Africa.
There is still a tendency for scholars of modern African affairs to
divide the Continent at the Sahara.
This is justified on the grounds that modern North Africa, including
Egypt and Sudan, is a part of the great Islamic world, and thus has more in
common with the countries of the Middle East than with those of sub-Saharan
Africa.
Despite
the fact that numerous scholars from various parts of the world, especially
including Egypt itself, have undertaken the study of the relations of Egypt
with its neighbors there is still a shortage of evidence and a surplus of speculation
on the topic. What we do know is that
the Egyptians of antiquity produced a very rich civilization, in a quite
strategic African location, which lasted a very, very long time. It therefore
seems quite logical to expect that, despite the surrounding desert after 2200
BCE, Egypt had a variety of connections with its contemporaries over
millennia. We also know that ancient
Egyptians were leaders in the development of many arts, crafts, institutions
and sciences, thus it is logical to infer that others borrowed from them
through contacts of trade or conquest.
The three most critical areas of possible transmission and exchange are
the Sinai and Palestine, the lands around the eastern Mediterranean Sea
(especially ancient Asia Minor, Crete and Greece), and the Nubia/Kush
corridor. The first of these is both
the best documented (actual Egyptian and Egyptian-style remains are numerous in
this region) and the best-studied. It
is also very important because contacts between Palestine and Egypt via the Sinai
are of very ancient origin and, of course, have continued to the present
day. Among the areas of importance
being investigated are the influence of Egyptian writing on the development of
the Phoenician alphabet and the influence of Egyptian boat building on the
development of Mediterranean transport.
There is little controversy about the influence of Egyptian craft and
artistic techniques, linen and papyrus production, jewelry and fashions on her
northeastern neighbors over time. Other Egyptian contributions to early
civilizational development include medicine, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy,
and architecture. Egyptian gods and
religious beliefs also spread widely, and continued to do so long after the end
of the glorious Pharaonic age.
Of
a more controversial nature for the history of Western civilization are
questions that have recently been raised about the nature of Egyptian
contributions to the civilization of classical Greece.[20] Although this issue is still being
vigorously debated, there is little doubt that the Greeks of classical times
drew generally on their predecessors to the east, whether Sumerian, Phoenician,
Persian or Egyptian. Questions and
controversies center on when, where, and how these influences occurred, as well
as how influential they were.
For
the history of relations between classical Egyptians and the rest Africa one
must, of course, turn to the south and southwest. Here, the question has two parts: 1) to what extent was Egyptian
civilization a native African one in the first place, and 2) how much did the
high civilization of the Pharaonic era influence later civilizations of Africa outside the Mediterranean
region? The current working consensus
of Africanist historians and archaeologists is that ancient Egyptian civilization
was principally an outgrowth not only of an African environment, but also of
African prehistory. In particular, they
point to the importance of the very ancient settlements of the Upper Nile and
the Sahara of the last African wet phase.
Scholarly opinion remains much more divided about the second
question. This is partly because there
is very little direct physical evidence of actual connections between Egypt and
other parts of Africa outside the Nile valley and Red Sea areas. There has been virtually no archaeological
work that might, for example, uncover evidence of trade routes linking the
ancient Nile and Niger valleys, although it does not seem farfetched to imagine
their existence. Unfortunately serious
archaeological study of this issue would be a very costly and difficult to
undertake, since thousands of square miles in several countries would have to
be surveyed at the outset.
In
the area of political, religious, and social continuities, it is clear that
some later African civilizations share certain features with ancient Egypt
and/or Kush. However, it is not
possible, given current databases, to establish how or whether these
similarities resulted from ancient connections, or can be explained by other
circumstances. Similar institutions and beliefs between peoples of the Niger
and Nile regions could be explained in various ways, for example, common
Saharan ancestry, or linkages across the Sahara during Pharaonic times or
after, or some common influence such as Islam. Of course, such similarities
could be the result of several kinds of connections, or be entirely
coincidental. Where such apparently
common features have been identified as having some historical importance, they
will be noted and possible connections briefly outlined.
MAP
8: Northern African in Classical Egyptian Times
WEST
AFRICA IN ANTIQUITY
The
Roots of ‘Sudannic’ (African?) Civilization
As
we have already learned, by about 2000 BCE the lands south of the Mediterranean
coast and west of the Nile valley had become desert regions, which supported
only limited populations of herders and oasis farmers. Traveling south from the Mediterranean coast
there are more than a thousand miles of arid lands to cross before desert gives
way first to semi-arid steppes, then open savanna and increasingly moist
woodlands, and finally to the dense rain forests of the Atlantic coastal zone.
Although nomadic pastoralists did move their herds seasonally from the central
Saharan mountains to the Sahel and back, the desert was very difficult to
traverse, particularly before the introduction of the camel in Roman
times. Desert routes were not the only
possible ones between Egypt and the Niger valley, but the savanna routes would
have been much longer and are not known to have been regularly traveled in
antiquity. This means that while there
likely were indirect exchanges of goods, people and ideas between the regions
surrounding the Sahara, the economic, social, and cultural development of West
Africa during classical Egyptian times must have taken place independently of
any direct influences coming from either the Mediterranean coast or Egypt.
The
most important agents of change affecting ancient West Africa before the advent
of the camel were 1) the drying of the Sahara after 3000 BCE, 2) the spread of
agriculture in the Sudannic belt in the wake of Saharan desiccation, and 3) the
rapid spread of iron technology after about 500 BCE. There was no separate age of copper or bronze in this part of the
world, where iron use came comparatively late, but spread very rapidly.
Archaeological
evidence suggests that foraging survived in the lands of the modern Sudannic
belt and Guinea forest much longer than they did in the Nile valley. This is likely because there were few
incentives for change before 3000 BCE.
The climate was relatively stable and the gathering and hunting
communities under no particular pressures to change their ways. Farming and cattle keeping almost certainly
either spread out of the Sahara (cattle keeping) or were stimulated by the
drought conditions that produced the desert (farming). Both the Sudannic and Guinea Neolithic
agricultural cradles developed within the context of desertification. Probably, over time, the slow movement of
communities toward the regions of higher rainfall created pressure on existing
foraging economies, forcing them toward the innovations characteristic of the
transition to farming, mainly the development of the farming villages that
still dominate in rural areas. Herding,
of course, was quite well developed in the Sahara long before this era of dry
conditions began. Herders did not have
to change their way of life much to adapt to the new climatic conditions. However, with the spread of farming, they
did find new economic niches, particularly as traders.
Long before iron tools came into use,
agricultural techniques (including organizational ones) were being refined and
productivity improved in the West Africa region. This led to population growth, and with it larger settlements,
more complex political organization, occupational specialization and the
like. This probably set the stage for
the emergence, in the early Iron Age, of the first known Sudannic civilization,
which is called Nok from its archaeological type-site in what is now central
Nigeria. In West Africa the formation
of states was linked not only to agricultural improvements and population
expansion that followed the development of iron tools; but also to the growth
of local, regional and finally international trade. Another element contributing to the growth of strong states was
the conflicts that arose along the ecological lines dividing (1)[21]
the desert and semi-desert-based pastoralists (ancestors of modern Berber,
Taureg, and Fulani peoples) from the farmers of the more fertile savannas.
Several
savanna and forest margin areas can be identified as incipient civilizational
centers. Moving from the west to the
east, they are (2) the Senegal valley and coast, home to the modern Wolof and
Serer. North and east of there (3) the
area around Dar Tichitt (modern southern Mauritania) is ancestral to the
northern branch of the Mande; and (4) the area of the upper Niger River is home
to the southern branch of the Mande.(5)
The lands from the Niger bend south through the Volta River valley, were
home to ancestors of the Songhai, Mossi, and Akan peoples.(6) The lower Niger region (where the peoples of
Nok lived) is the ancestral area for modern Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo people.(7) The region around Lake Chad, home of the
modern Kanuri, was also one where states developed from a comparatively early
date.(8) Last, though certainly not
least, the grassy borderlands between modern Nigeria and Cameroon are the
ancestral home of the Bantu-speaking peoples, who began a process of expansion
that eventually covered the southern half of the Continent well before 500
BCE.
It
should be noted, before going further, that many West African peoples did not
choose the path of state formation (often said to be the path of
‘civilizational development’), but instead created political systems based on
elaborate kinship models that coupled local autonomy and wider networks to
create viable political orders. It must
be noted that in West Africa, even comparatively small communities could
maintain their political independence by taking advantage of forest
environments to shelter themselves from attack or takeover by more powerful
neighbors.
Little
material evidence is available to scholars working to reconstruct this era of
West African prehistory, because so little archeological work has been
done. However, what is known about
changes in material culture and something of their implications for social
change or artistic development can be briefly summarized for those areas where
archaeologists have been at work. Please
refer to MAP 8 to learn the locations of the principal ethno-linguistic groups
whose material cultures are under discussion below.
(1)
[Taureg Berbers and related pastoralists.] Work in the desert and semi-arid
regions of the modern Sahel indicates that cattle herding pastoralists
continued to be the dominant populations.
Excavations to the north of the Niger bend indicate that in addition to
herding cattle the people hunted wild animals and gathered plants, even fished
where wet season streams permitted.
They lived in camps which permitted the to make seasonal moves with
their animals. Those farmers who
remained in the desert oases came to be lorded over by their more mobile
neighbors. This was especially the case
after the adoption of the horse by pastoralist populations. African pastoralists, like their nomadic
counterparts in other parts of the world, developed social organizations
characterized by deep patrilineages.
(That is, people reckoned their membership in the lineage by reference
to a very ancient founding father.)
These patrilineages often constituted over-arching units which may
properly be called tribes. (Remember
the Hebrews in their early history, for example.) Control over cattle, horses, and women typically conferred wealth
and prestige. Cattle raiding may have
been one of the earliest forms of offensive war. The socio-political system was typically patriarchal.
(2)
[Wolof and Serer] The Senegal valley area is not one which has had extensive
archaeological work. It was home to agricultural
peoples, who made small, geometrical stone tools, and lived in small
settlements. They grew sorghum, millet,
and a native rice.
(3)
[Northern Mande or Soninke] By contrast the area around Dar Tichitt in southern
Mauritania has been the subject of much archaeological attention, revealing
successive layers of settlement near what still were small lakes as late as
1200 BCE. At this time people there
built circular compounds, 60-100 feet in diameter, near the beaches of the
lakes. (‘Compound’ is the name given to a housing type, still common today, in
which several members of related families share space within a wall.) These compounds were arranged into large
villages located about 12 miles from each other. Inhabitants fished, herded cattle and planted some millet, which
they stored in pottery vessels. This
was the last era of reasonable moisture in this part of the Sahara. By 1000 BCE the villages, still made up of
compounds, had been relocated to hilltop positions, and were walled. Cattle were still herded, more millet was
grown, but there were no more lakes for fishing. From 700-300 BCE the villages decreased in size and farming was
reduced at the expense of pastoralism.
Architecturally,
the villages of Dar Tichitt resemble those of the modern northern Mande
(Soninke), who live in the savanna 300-400 miles to the south. These ancient villagers were not only
farmers, but were engaged in trade connected with the salt and copper mines
which developed to the north. Horse
drawn vehicles passed through the Tichitt valley, bringing trading
opportunities, ideas, and opening up the inhabitants to raids from their more
nomadic northern neighbors (1).
Development of the
MAP 9: Ethno-linguistic Map of West Africa
social and political organization necessary to handle commerce and defense must
have been a factor in the subsequent development of Ghana, the first great
Sudannic empire, in this part of West Africa.
(4)
[Southern Mande, also known as Mandinka, Mandingo and Bambara] It is not clear
whether the southern Mande had settled in the regions of the upper Niger by
this period or not. They probably
formed a part of the populations who were gradually infiltrating south from the
drying Sahara. It seems likely that
their villages were similar to those of Dar Tichitt. They were probably also instrumental in the process of extending
the copper and salt trade from the desert into the mineral-poor agricultural
regions to the south.
(5)
[Songhai and related] The peoples living in the area of the Niger Bend at this
time are ancestral to the modern Songhai.
They have inhabited this area for a very long time. The antiquity of their settlement can be
inferred from the fact that they speak a language belonging to the Nilo-Saharan
family. This in turn suggests that were
descended from the older African aquatic culture populations. The Songhai and their neighbors exploited
the great River itself, and as well cultivated sorghums and millet, and hunted
for wild game.
(6)
[Akan, Mossi, Yoruba, Igbo among many others] In the forest margins, which
stretch from south of the Niger Bend to the mountains of Cameroon, people
farmed the more difficult to clear woodlands and planted yams, groundnuts
(peanuts), and cowpeas (black-eyed peas).
They also cultivated the kola and various species of palm to obtain a
variety of products, including palm wine, palm oil, and palm fibers for
cloth. Their settlements were
characteristically large and occupied permanent sites over long periods. Farmers, as is still the practice, lived in
the village or town and farmed land around the outskirts. The hoe was the principle agricultural
implement. It is a tool which
historically has been associated with women.
The social organization of these hoe-users was almost certainly more
female-oriented than that of their pastoralist neighbors to the north. Even today a higher proportion of the forest
and forest-margin dwellers are matrilineal, with females occupying a wide range
of jobs, including trader, potter, oracle and lineage official.
(7)
[Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri} The open country from the Bend of the Niger to Lake
Chad is home to three populous modern nations.
The Fulani do not come from this area, but have migrated there from a
more northwesterly homeland in comparatively modern times. They have pastoralist origins, linking them
to the Sahara. However, their language
is West African in its roots. On the
other hand the agricultural Hausa have strong cultural links to the ancient
farming stocks of the region, but speak a language related to modern Arabic,
Berber, and Hebrew. The Kanuri live in
an area, around Lake Chad, which has had extensive archaeological work,
particularly an area known as Daima.
Settled life on the successive shorelines of the lake has a very long
history, dating back to the African aquatic culture. North of the Lake, as the drying times set in, was home to
semi-nomadic herding populations with trade links to the central Saharan copper
mines, and perhaps to Libya, at a comparatively early date. South of the lake the land supports savanna
agriculture. The lake itself provided
fishing, and settlements in the region tended to be large.
(8)
[Proto-Bantu speakers] The contemporary communities of speakers of proto-Bantu,
living along the modern Nigeria-Cameroonian border, were also farmers, skilled
in the use of the hoe. Even before the
advent of iron, they produced sufficient crops to support a steadily growing
population. This meant that in each
generation more land was needed for farms.
It is hypothesized that in order to satisfy this need proto-Bantu
speaking pioneers began to move south and east into virgin territory between
4,000 and 3,000 years ago. It is now
believed that their expansion took two main paths. The first led along he northern margins of the forest to the
east, and from thence eventually down the eastern side of the Great Rift
towards the fertile Zambezi valley in the far south. The second took other groups, by land and canoe, gradually into
and through the great equatorial forest.
They and their descendants not only brought agriculture to the forest,
but also eventually arrived on the southern savannas, where more open country
proved an invitation to further rapid expansion of the settler frontier.
When
iron became available, it spread rapidly along the commercial and kin networks
that must have linked the growing number of Bantu-speaking communities. They used the new metal to produce much more
effective hoes with which to grow more yams and peas. Perhaps even more important was the invention of the iron
machete, a crucial tool for the clearing work necessary to bring virgin
forestlands under cultivation. The
advent of the iron hoe and machete gave a boost to the expansion of the
Bantu-speaking peoples, whose linguistic descendents now inhabit almost the
entire Continent south of a line stretching from Cameroon to the southern part
of Ethiopia.
CHRONOLOGY OF ANCIENT WEST AFRICA
After 12,000 BCE Beginning of a wetter phase in Africa north of the
equator. Populations ancestral to most West
Africans make up the foragers and hunters of these lands.
By about 8,000 BCE Great lakes formed in Niger Bend, Lake Chad and Upper Nile
regions. Spread of ‘African aquatic
culture’ through this ‘great lakes’ region.
Sedentary fishing communities using pottery and microlithic tools become
established long the shores of lakes and rivers. Saharan region enjoys savanna-type climate. Favorable conditions lead to population growth.
9,000 to 6,000 BCE Saharan region in its wettest phases.
By 6,000 BCE Evidence of domesticated ‘humpless’ cattle in the
Saharan region. Also seed-cropping (or
harvesting) of grains.
6,000-2,500 BCE Spread of predominantly cattle-raising peoples throughout the
Sahara. Probably ancestral to
modern-day Berber groups.
3,000-1,000 BCE Farming spreads through the former fishing belt of the
tropical woodland savannas and forest margins of West Africa. This Guinea Neolithic era saw the
domestication of millets, rice, sorghum, yams, and palm trees among others.
After 2,500 BCE Saharan region enters a period of rapid desertification,
driving people and larger game animals to seek better watered lands to the
north and south for habitation.
Neolithic settlements spread along the Saharan borderlands and near
rivers and lakes in the West.
1,200-700 BCE Excavations at Dar Tichitt (modern Mauritania)
reveal progression from large, un-walled lakeside villages to smaller walled
hilltop villages in response to drier climate and increasing pressure from
nomads.
After 2,000 BCE Favorable climatic conditions and developing technology and
socio-cultural systems lead to population growth in the Niger valleys. Neolithic farming spreading south and east
from the area of modern-day Cameroon.
Probably associated with speakers of proto-Bantu languages.
After 500 BCE Advent of iron-smelting and iron use in West
Africa. Height of the civilization
known as Nok, which produced art work ancestral to that of later Yoruba and
Igbo peoples.
MAP 10: Northern Africa in the Carthaginian Era
EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE WESTERN
MEDITERRANEAN: CARTHAGE
Phoenician
merchants founded the city of Carthage (in what is now Tunisia) in about 800
BCE. They established a number of
trading centers around the western end of the Mediterranean through which they
exchanged Eastern manufactured goods for European and North African commodities
such as copper and tin. Over time
Carthage became first the principal Phoenician colonial port, and then the
master of its own trade-based empire in the western Mediterranean. The pattern of settlement, economic and
political relations with the interior and connections with the Mediterranean
established in Carthagian dominated the history of western North Africa (the
Maghrib) from that time forward.
As
their trade with peoples of the Western Mediterranean expanded over time, the
Phoenicians established many settlements, which grew as the merchants took
local wives and other indigenous people were attracted to them by economic
opportunities. Carthage prospered not
only by promoting commerce, but also by encouraging agriculture in the rich
agricultural environment of the Tunisian plain. By the 6th century
BCE Carthage was a bustling port inhabited by Punic (Phoenician) and
Berber-speaking people, and by their descendents. The heart of the colony was the city itself, whose inhabitants
managed the business interests of the town and the surrounding slave-worked
agricultural estates they had established to provide for the urban population
and merchant fleets. Outside direct
control of city landlords, farms of free, taxpaying Berbers dotted the
countryside. These farming communities
not only paid taxes to the rulers of the city, but also derived income from the
sale of their produce to city dwellers. Beyond the city, the slave-worked
estates, and the Berber farming communities, nomadic pastoralists dominated the
increasingly hilly, arid land and its resources. These independent Berber-speaking peoples raised cattle, sheep
and goats; controlled trade with Saharan communities to the south, and supplied
soldiers to the Carthaginian state.
They also periodically caused trouble by raiding the settled
lands—disrupting trade and agriculture.
Between 600 and 500 BCE Carthage
established its independence from its mother Phoenician city-state of Tyre and
built up a commercial empire of its own, by spearheading unification of the
Phoenician founded cities of the region.
This effort was led by a dynasty of rulers called the Magonids, who
pioneered both techniques for organizing the alliance, and the use of Berber
mercenaries for its military operations. Also in this period, the Carthaginians
began a long series of conflicts with Greek-speaking peoples in the region for
control over strategic trade routes and resources, especially those of Sicily. By the late 6th century the
Carthaginians had a fleet that numbered 200 ships, and the population of the
city and its suburbs numbered 100,000 or more.
From
480 to 410 BCE there was peace between the Greeks and Carthaginians. During this period a distinctive ‘Punic’ (or
Carthaginian) culture emerged. This
culture was expressed in the Punic language, but had strong roots in the
traditions and history of the Berber-speaking majority of inhabitants. These
latter had been drawn into the empire by the 5th century expansion
of Carthaginian control over the rich farms of the Tunisian plain. This expansion took place under the Magonid
ruler, Hanno. Also in this period the
power of the monarchy was curbed by the rise of a new class of officials called
sufets, who possessed both judicial
and administrative powers. These men
were drawn from the ranks of the merchant oligarchy of city, and empire,
through their membership in the Council of State and the Court of One Hundred. Their ascendancy mirrors the supremacy of
commerce in Carthaginian life.
It
was also in the 5th century that the names of the first independent
Berber-speaking kingdoms are mentioned in the records. These kingdoms, known as Numidia and
Mauritania, were located in what is now Algeria. There relations with Carthage were not always cordial, although
mutual needs helped keep the peace much of the time. The city-dwelling, maritime-oriented Carthaginians needed their
Berber neighbors to manage the desert trade and to provide supplies of mercenaries
(sometimes to fight each other).
Fifth
century Carthage was one of the leading cities of the Mediterranean. With about 200,000 inhabitants (including
the farms of the incorporated territories) it rivaled its contemporary, Athens,
in size. Its double harbor complex and mercantile center were unrivaled. Unfortunately, because its later destruction
at the hands of the Romans was so complete, we know comparatively little about
life in this once-bustling city. We do
know that religious practices combined elements of Canaanite (Phoenician) and
Berber traditions, and that the latter emphasized sacrifice.
About
410 BCE conflict was renewed over Sicily.
Carthage established control over the western part, but struggles to
control the rest continued for the next 100 hundred years between Greek
factions, and between Greeks and Carthaginians. In 348 BCE Carthage signed a trade treaty with the newly emerging
Roman state. For the next century
Carthage continued to play a leading role in expanding and managing the
maritime trade of the western Mediterranean, while also developing commercial
connections with the Hellenistic world that by now linked the countries around
the eastern end of the Mediterranean to each other. Carthage also launched expeditions to open trade directly with
the Atlantic coasts of West Africa and Western Europe. Overland trade with the Berber-dominated
Saharan regions to the south expanded as well.
As
we have seen, by the middle of the 4th century Carthage had a trade
treaty with its up and coming neighbor to the north, the city and territory of
Rome. However, since both Rome and
Carthage were expanding in the same region, it was only a matter of time before
they came into conflict. In 264 BCE
Rome allied with Messina, a former Carthaginian ally on Sicily, triggering a
series of conflicts between Rome and Carthage known historically as the Punic
Wars. In fact the three Punic Wars
lasted for over a century, dominating the history of the western Mediterranean
until the final Roman destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE. During this time Rome was transformed from a
small, fairly homogenous, city-state into a large, cosmopolitan, overseas
empire, with very important world-historical consequences.
Carthage
itself was rebuilt by the Romans in 122 BCE and within a hundred years was
again a leading city—this time in provincial Roman North Africa. In 13 BCE it became the Roman government
center for the region, assuring strong links between Rome and this part of her
empire. It is not surprising therefore,
that once Christianity had spread from the eastern Mediterranean to Rome, it
appeared in Carthage shortly thereafter.
THE
MAGHRIB IN CARTHAGINIAN AND ROMAN TIMES
ca.800
BCE
Founding
of Carthage as a trading post by Phoenician merchants.
Ca.600
Carthage
establishes its independence from Tyre and organizes Phoenician colonies in
the west.
550
Foundation
of the Magonid dynasty.
535
to 480
Conflict
between Carthage and Greeks on Sicily.
480
to 410
Peace
between the contenders for Sicily. Carthage
expands into the Tunisian plain, becomes more African. Rise in power of merchant-controlled
officials called sufets. First
mention of independent Berber kingdoms of Numidia and Mauritania.
410
to 307
Renewed
conflict on Sicily. Carthage, using
Numidian, Mauritanian and Libyan mercenaries for its army, controls the
western part of the island.
348
Carthage
signs a trade treaty with Rome.
264
Rome
allies with Messina, a former Carthaginian ally on Sicily, triggering the
first Punic War.
242
End
of the First Punic War. Carthage
loses Sicily. Sufets elected
annually.
242
to 237
Libyan
mercenaries lead a revolt which turns to civil war in Carthage.
237
to 221
With
peace at home, Carthage begins a period of expansion into Spain under the generals
Hamilcar Barca and Hasdrubal. Rome
fears Punic expansion.
218
to 202
Second
Punic War begins when Hannibal, who succeeded Hasdrubal in Spain, launches an
attack on Rome via the Alps. Hannibal
lays waste Italy, but has to return to Carthage to defend the city against
the Roman Scipio and his Numidian allies.
Hannibal and Carthage are defeated.
202
to 149
Extension
of Punic civilization into Numidia under the Roman ally, King Massinissa.
149
to 146
Third
Punic War. Carthage destroyed utterly. It becomes a Roman province known as
Africa.
148
to 60
Numidia
continues to strengthen its ties to Rome, becoming more Punic in culture and
as it becomes more involved in Roman politics.
60
to 46
King
Juba I of Numidia becomes deeply involved in the struggles of the late Roman
Republic, killing himself when his patron, Pompeii, is defeated, thus paving
the way for direct Roman control of his country.
25
to 25CE
Juba
II, raised in Rome, installed as client king in Mauritania. He promotes urbanization and agricultural
development there.
25
to 40
Reign
of Ptolemaeus, son of Juba II, who is assassinated by the Romans.
44
Mauritania
is directly incorporated into Roman Empire as two provinces. Rome now controls all of the coastal lands
of North Africa, having taken over Egypt in 31 BCE.
Before
100
Christianity
reaches the Roman provinces of the Maghrib via merchants.
200
Seventy
Latin-speaking Christian Bishops gather for a Council at Carthage.
Ca180-300
Christians
in North Africa suffer persecutions, some renounce their faith, or at least
compromise it.
300-400
Split in North African Church between Donatists
and Catholics. The Donatists want to
exclude backsliders.
Ca400
Augustine
of Hippo a major figure of the Church in this era. (Later canonized as St. Augustine, he is one of the major
“Fathers” of the Roman Catholic Church—and thus of all of western European
Christianity.)
Late
5th century
Germanic
Vandals cross the Straits of Gibraltar and take over the Roman North African
provinces in the West. They are Arian
Christians, but the ordinary people continue to practice either Donatist or
Roman Catholic versions of Christianity.
6th
century
The
Byzantine Empire gains control of the coastal lands North Africa, including
Egypt. The Byzantines are Greek
Orthodox Christians rather than Latin (Roman) ones.
THE ADVENT AND
SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.
Christianity
arose in Jewish Palestine when the country was under Roman rule. Historical experts date Christ’s birth to
between 8 and 4 BCE and his death to about 30 CE. The story of Christ’s life and message was spread by his
followers, first into Jewish communities of cities in the Eastern Mediterranean
region and to Rome itself. Alexandria
(Egypt) was one of these early centers.
Christ
and the first few generations of his followers lived in the Roman Empire. Politically and administratively things were
well run up to about 200 CE. Bustling
cities located around the Mediterranean coast were linked to each other through
regular ships and good mail services.
Society in those times was stratified, with a Latin or Greek-speaking,
educated upper class and masses of urban (and rural) workers and slaves making
up most of the population. Religious
plurality was the rule. Although
everyone was required to give allegiance to the cult of the Emperor on
important holidays.
In
Egypt, Greek-speaking urbanites were basically monotheistic. They thought of their several deities as
merely different aspects of God, and often turned to mysticism and asceticism
in their hunger for spiritual support.
The mass of Egyptian population (the poor of cities and rural farmers)
were devoted mainly to the traditional Egyptian trinity of Isis, Osiris, and
Horus. The resurrected Osiris in
particular promised life after death.
But traditional practices were largely formalized, that is they didn’t
generate much enthusiasm among believers, whether city or rural people.
Christianity itself began as a religious
movement, not a full-fledged religion or organized church. At first, enthusiastic believers, who had
actually heard Jesus speak, or knew somebody who had, carried the message to
others. They themselves began to meet
regularly to discuss their experiences and how best to live as Christ had
advised, and to spread the “good news” of the resurrection to others. These early Christians were all Jews. A big topics of discussion was whether
non-Jews had to convert to Judaism before they could be admitted into the
growing community of Jesus’ followers.
Under a late convert, Paul of Tarsus, the Christian community was
definitively opened to all who professed belief in Christ. In Paul’s writings and teachings, the
Christian community is envisioned as universal.
As
the Christian community grew over time, there was more and more need to
establish rules for membership, standardize practices, such as worship rituals
and financial expectations. The
organization of the resulting Christian Church derived from that of the Romans. For example, the Roman administrative
district called a “diocese” became a Church administrative district of the same
name. It consisted then (and now in
Christian denominations such and Roman Catholic and Episcopalian) of a groups
of churches under the authority of an official called a Bishop. The priests of local churches and the
bishops who lead them were specially trained and then installed in their
positions in a religious ceremony called “ordination.” In 302-5 Bishop of
Alexandria appears first as Archbishop, or head over other bishops. This is an indication that the church had
grown sufficiently large to require an added layer of administration.
Alexandria
was a center for theological and organizational development of the early
Church. The earliest missionaries
directed their attention to the Greek-speaking population of Alexandria and the
Delta. Greek language, ideas and
culture remained fundamental to Christianity in Egypt until about end of 3rd
c. A man called Demetrius was the first
known bishop (180-232). His
contemporary, Pantenus, founded and was the first head of the Christian
Catechetical School (Christian education center) at Alexandria. It was a very important early Christian
intellectual center. Through this
school Alexandria came to exercise a profound influence on the early Christian
world—equal to that of Rome itself. The
greatest figures associated with the Center were Clement and Origen. Of the latter it has been said, “no one man
did more than Origen to determine the whole subsequent history of Greek
theology.”
The
Coptic-speaking masses of Egyptians in the towns outside the Delta and in the
countryside also played an important role in the development of early
institutions of the Christian Church more generally—namely the development
there of the practice of Christian asceticism.
This took two forms, historically.
One was the practice of individuals retreating to the desert to pray
alone. These religious hermits were
supported by followers who came to hear their wisdom and to bring food. The other was the practice of monasticism,
which was based in distinctive Christian communities whose members made a
lifetime commitment to live, pray and work together. This type of community also first started in the Egyptian desert. Members of these new religious communities
developed modeled their daily lives on the discipline governing the Roman
military barracks. This is not
surprising, given that an ex-Roman soldier, and Egyptian named Pakhom, founded
the first known Christian monastery in the fourth century.
One
of the most unique and enduring contributions of Egyptians theologians and
believers to Christianity was monophysitism, the belief that Christ and God
were of one, basically spiritual substance. This belief formed the basis for
the development of a national, Coptic-speaking Egyptian Christian Church. Its origins can be found in the work of
early missionaries who took the Christian message to indigenous
(Coptic-speaking) Egyptian communities.
The spread of Coptic-language Christianity promoted national unity in
Egypt for the first time since Pharaonic era.
There
were enough Coptic-speaking Christians by the early third century to attract
the attention of Roman authorities.
Several Christians from Upper Egypt were executed in the Severan
persecutions in 202. But Christianity
did not weaken, but spread under persecution.
Egyptians had reputation for tenacity to their beliefs and resistance to
persecution. By 300 there was a Coptic
Bible in use. The Egyptian national
church that emerged in the 5th century was not Greek-speaking, but
Coptic in language. The monphysite version of Christian belief was carried
south to the Sudan and Ethiopia by Egyptian missionaries. The most enduring conversion outside of
Egypt itself, was that of the Axumite King Ezana. He in turn made Axum officially Christian. The Church he founded still thrives in
modern-day Ethiopia.
In
324 when Constantine made Christianity an official in Rome, he declared
Constantinople to be second city of the Empire (a position previously held by
Alexandria). This had partly political
and partly religious implications. It
was mixed up in the debates about the nature of God and Christ (and who gets to
say who is orthodox). Alexandria was
not in the Trinitarian camp of Constantine.
Alexandria was completely marginalized from the Roman/Greek Trinitarian
mainstream by action of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This official meeting of the leading bishops
of the various Christian regions rejected the ‘one nature’ (monphysite) position
and declared it heretical.
Christianity also spread at an early date
to the Maghrib. The first Christian
followers almost certainly reached the area from Rome, probably by the mid-2nd
c. The Church in Africa (Roman province
of old Carthage) grew up in the Latin-speaking sphere. Over the first few centuries the African
Church came to play a very important role in the development of the Christian
Church in the West (the Roman Church that eventually spreads into Europe and is
directly ancestral to the Roman Catholic Church and its Protestant descendents
of today).
Two particular elements of the Christian
history of the Maghrib stand out. The
first, the life and work of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (later St. Augustine)
had a significant impact on the development of European Christianity as a
whole. The second, the rise of a strong
Christian dissident movement called Donatism, played an important role in
shaping relations between settled Berber farmers and urbanites and their
semi-nomadic and nomadic neighbors in the Maghrib itself.
St. Augustine, who lived in 4th
century Roman Africa, is considered one of the “Fathers” of the Christian
Church. He was a strong supporter of
the Church establishment position against the Donatists. However, his influence
on later Christian thought and practice derives from his theological writings,
among them a work called The City of God,
which envisions an ideal Christian world (in heaven). The Donatists that he spent much time opposing were Christians
who believed that anyone (particularly Church leaders) who had compromised his
or her faith to avoid death at the hands of Roman persecutors should be
permanently excluded from the Church community. The official Church position was that if people who had lapsed
under pressure repented they could be forgiven and taken back into the
Church. Although Church policy was the
reason for Donatist separatism, most historians believe that the conflict was
fueled also by class, lifestyle and regional differences. There is a long history in this part of the
world of conflicts that derive from the opposing interests of farmers and
pastoralists; coastal dwellers and mountain folk. The populist revolt of the Donatists seems to fit into this
pattern as well.
EARLY
CHRISTIANITY
DATES
MAHGRIB AND W. MEDITERRANEAN
EGYPT AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
Ca. 4 BCE
Birth of Jesus
Ca. 30 CE
Crucifixion of Jesus
After 30 CE
Early gatherings of
Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem.
48 CE
Conversion of Saul of
Taursus and expansion of Jesus’ messages to Gentiles (Non-Jews)
64
First persecutions of
Christians under Nero
By end of 1st
century
Christian community
in Alexandria traces foundation to St. Mark.
By end of 2nd
century
Christian communities
in Italy and Mahgrib. Missionaries
sent to Gaul, Spain and Britain.
Christian communities
in Egypt are spreading among Coptic speakers of the countryside
250
Decius begins
systematic persecution of Christians
Christian
Catechetical School established in Alexandria
302-305
Bishop of Alexandria
first titled Archbishop or Patriarch
311`
Christianity
legalized in Roman Empire
Early 4th
centuy
Rise of Donatist
schism in Mahgrib.
313
Constantine’s Edict
of Milan
320
Pachomius organizes
the first true monastic communities in Egypt
325
Council of Nicaea
Athanasius becomes
Archbishop of Alexandria. Develops
“one-nature” theology.
Traditional date for
the conversion of Axum to Christianity.
394
Christianity declared
official reglion of Roman Empire
395
Augustine becomes
Bishop of Hippo. Orthodox Catholics triumph over Donatists.
476
Fall of Western Roman
Empire
5th
century
Vandals (Arian
Christians) invade and take over Nahgrib
451 Council of
Chalcedon rejects “monophysite” belief in the total oneness of God and Christ
for Trinitarian theology.
6th
Byzantine Emperor
takes Mahgrib from Vandals, re-establishes orthodoxy
Byzantines rule
Egypt. Much persecution of
Monophysites.
MAP 11: Christian North
Africa
WEST AFRICA: C.800 BCE TO 1591 AD/CE
By 800 BCE Neolithic
agricultural peoples inhabit the best lands of the savanna and forest
margins. Regional trade networks based
on the exchange of salt, fish, pottery, and other regional specialties
developing. Small, clan-based villages
typical of agricultural areas. Nomads
dominate in the drier areas.
-800 to -500 Development of Carthage in the north stimulates
exchanges of products across the Sahara Desert, managed by desert Berbers using
horses, oxen and chariots. Iron use psreads into the region from the north or
east, or both. Larger scale settlements
appearing in southern Mauritania. the middle Niger River basin, and the Jos
plateau region. These areas correspond
respectively to the probable ancestral homes of the modern Soninke (northern
Mande); Songhai; and Yoruba peoples.
-500 to -200 Iron use spreads rapidly throughout West Africa,
stimulating population growth, trade, and urbanization. Iron-age peoples of Nok (modern Nigeria)
produce magnificent terra cotta sculptures stylistically ancestral to later
Yoruba and Benin art. Indirect trade
continues across increasingly well-marked Saharan trails, still traversed by
horse or ox-drawn vehicles.
-800 to +200 Era of Nok civilization. Bantu expansion ‘takes off’ to the south and east. Earliest towns, such as Jenne, growing up
along the Niger on its most northerly stretch.
-100
to +100 Camel use reaches
the western Sahara via Berbers living in its southern reaches.
c.100 to 400 CE Camel using Saharan Berber peoples, such as
the Taureg and Sanhaja, develop trans-Saharan trade routes, linking the Maghrib
and West Africa directly for the first time.
Salt, copper, gold, dates, slaves, agricultural produce, manufactured
goods and ivory among the goods exchanged.
Soninke-led Ghana, Songhai-led Gao grow as middlemen for the expanding
commerce. Trade routes also link Nigeria
and Lake Chad to North Africa.
400 to 900 Ghana,
with its capital at Kumbi Saleh, becomes the first regional “great
power.” With their control over
the southern end of the trans-Saharan trade and the northern end of the gold
trade, the Ghana of Wagadu can afford the cavalry necessary to enforce his rule
throughout the lands between the Niger and the Senegal Rivers. The trans-Saharan boom stimulates the growth
of regional trade in copper, iron and other goods, both agricultural and
manufactured.
750 to 1000 Muslim merchants from the North become a major force
in trans-Saharan and West African commerce.
Islam spreads to Takrur and Ghana.
Among the Kanuri of Lake Chad, the Sefawa family founds a dynasty who
will rule Kanem for a thousand years.
The trans-Saharan trade grows rapidly along with the expansion of the
Islamic world. Artists of Igbo Ukwu in
southern Nigeria produce fine works in bronze.
ca.1000 Foundation
of Ife, the political and spiritual capital of the Yoruba.
1054 to 1070 Almoravid Sanhaja establish control over trans-Saharan
routes from the borders of Ghana to Morocco, greatly weakening Ghana.
11th & 12th c. Several Sudannic kings convert to Islam. Commerce in the Sudan gradually comes to be
dominated by Muslims, both of local and north African origin.
13th c. Rise
of Mali under the great Mande hero, Sundiata Keita. Ghana incorporated into the new great power. From its new capital at Niane on the Niger,
Mali develops trade with the developing gold fields of the Akan in modern-day
Ghana.
14th c Empire of Mali
dominates the Western half of West Africa, controlling the gold and salt trade;
promoting Islam; and providing peace and prosperity to its region. Mansa Musa, the best known ruler of Mali,
made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
15th c. Mali suffers dynastic
difficulties and economic challenges as the gold fields move further south and
east. Songhai gains strength. Portuguese merchants begin trading directly
with the Akan along the coast of modern Ghana.
16th c. Songhai, with its
capital at Gao replaces Mali as the imperial power of West Africa. Islamic
learning flourishes with government patronage in the university town of
Timbuktu.
1591 Moroccan
troops armed with guns cross the desert and defeat the army of Songhai, which
break apart within a short time afterwards.
CHRONOLOGY OF NORTH AFRICAN ISLAM: 641-1300
SPAIN & MAGHRIB
LIBYA
& EGYPT
639-641 Conquest of Byzantine Egypt under
Ibn al-As. Foundation of Fustat.
650
Egypt becomes a Umayyad province.
670
Kairwan founded. Begin Arab
conquest of Ifriqiya (Roman Africa, modern Tunisia)
695-7 Arab naval and land forces take
Carthage, found Tunis.
697 Conquest of the west (Maghrib)
launched from Ifriqiya base.
711 Arab-Berber armies cross the Straits
of Gibraltar and invade Christian Spain.
732 Islamic raiders turned back at Tours
in France by Christians under Charles Martel. Most of Iberia remains under Muslim control.
c.740 Kharijite dissidents begin to
attract followers among mountain Berbers in Algeria.
750-1
Umayyad dissident prince founds an independent Iberian dynasty with
its capital at Cordoba.
760 Independent Ibadite kingdom founded in
Algeria, with its capital at Tahert.
780
Fez founded by Idrisids (independent Berber dynasty dating from 768).
750 Abbasids takeover from Umayyads, move
capital to Bagdad, and incorporate Egypt and Ifriqiya into the empire.
800
Aglabib governors of Ifriqiya declare their independence of Bagdad.
872
Tulunid governors of Egypt declare their independence of Bagdad.
890 Radical
Shiites calling themselves Fatimids begin to attract followers in the
Algerian mountains.
915
Fatimid leader declares he is the Mahdi; founds a state to try and
take over all Muslim lands.
950
Fatimid armies take Ifriqiya.
1000
Fatimid viceroy in Ifriqiya breaks away, founding the Zirid dynasty.
1055
Beginnings of Almoravid movement among Sanhaja Berbers under Ibn Yacin
1070
Founding of Marrekesh
1086
Almoravids take all of Morocco under Ibn Tashfin
1100+ Almoravids control territory from
Spain to the borders of the Sudan
1141
New dissident religious movement under Sufi teacher Ibn Tumart gains
control of Atlas mountains with armies of Masmuda and Zenata Berbers
969
Fatimids take Egypt from Tulinids.
970
Fatimids establish capital in new city, Cairo.
970-1020
Fatimids conquer Syria and take control of Muslim holy places. Begin to use mamluks (slave soldiers) to
combat Seljuk (Turkish) incursions into Syria.
After 1096 Fatimid Egypt faces Seljuk and
Crusader threats.
1160
Almohads establish control of all of the Mahgrib and Spain under
Caliph al-Mumin. Establish effective
administration (mahkzin) based on land tax (kharaj)
1192
Christian king establishes control over Portugal
1212
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: Christian forces regain much of Spain
1229
Hafsid dynasty establishes control of Ifriqiya (Tunisia), eastern
Algeria, and Tripolitania (Libya)
1230
Abd al-Wadids (Ziyanids) found kingdom at Tlemcen
1247
Marinid dynasty succeeds that of Almohads in Morocco itself.
1260
Christian kingdoms in control of all of Spain except the southern
kingdom of Granada.
1171
Kurdish mamluk general, Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub founds a new ruling
dynasty in Egypt that succeeds the Fatimids.
Hafsids take control of Tripolitania
(Libya) from the Ayyubids.
1250 First of many mamluk rulers takes control
of Egypt.
1258
Bagdad formally falls to the Turks.
INTRODUCTION
TO HISTORY AND HISTORICAL STUDIES
A. What is History? How and Why is it done?
History is both the remembered past and the
reconstruction of past events that have not been continuously remembered. Historians are professionals who recount the
past in some public way. In the modern
Western (European-derived) tradition, they are usually professional scholars,
often university professors. They ask
questions, conduct research, interpret data, and write the story of what they
think happened and why. Their writing
usually takes the form of scholarly papers, articles or books. These works are used not only in university
classes, but also by researchers preparing historical texts for schools;
obtaining background information for movies, news and media features; or
writing historical novels and the like.
Until recently in orally-oriented African societies,
historians were professional guardians of the past–remembering and
transmitting it down the generations by word of mouth. They served variously as chroniclers, performers,
advisors and legal consultants, usually in the employ of rulers or wealthy
families. They recited local or
national history on important public occasions, often with dramatic or musical
accompaniment. Called griots among the
Mande of West Africa, these professionals belong to ancient guilds whose values
and practices, while highly developed and sharing the broad goal of bringing
the past to the present, are nonetheless quite different from their Western
counterparts in many respects. In
African countries today, both Western-style and traditional-style African
historians are practicing their professions.
Although the people historians bring to life are usually
long dead, what they did is in some sense a part of all of us today. We literally stand on their heads, heirs to
both their accomplishments and their mistakes; their heroism and villainy. It is from what we believe of these
remembered ancestors that we take much of our identity. Why else should we study peoples so
separated from us by time, distance, and culture as ancient Africans?
In order to understand the past and its
role in shaping our world, modern historians have discovered that they must
develop broad perspectives. However,
the matter of establishing historical context is more complicated than it first
seems. It involves choices. In a perfect world all human experience
would be equally valuable for its own sake, even if it had little or no impact
on history generally. Yet the evidence
on which historians depend for their understanding of the past is far from
perfect. Some peoples have left few
traces of their existence–their history has neither been remembered nor can it
be reconstructed. This is true of many
peoples of ancient Africa, who only survive in the remains of scattered cave
drawings or in the distant memory of deeds told and retold down many
generations. What these people did to
sustain themselves, how they related to their neighbors, what influence they
might have had are unknown. For now
such peoples remain historical mysteries, while attention focuses on societies
that are known to have been important in their own time and on how they have
contributed to history more generally.
Our
modern, western-European-rooted practice of history is traditionally traced to
a 5th century BC Greek named Herodotus.
He wrote an account of past events in an effort to understand a great
conflict between his people and their adversaries, the Persians. Herodotus wrote that he was publishing an
‘inquiry’ into the past. The Greek word
that he used for ‘inquiry’ was historia,
from which we derive the English word history.
The two concepts of inquiry and history have become inseparable, and
their connection for modern historians is as valid today as when Herodotus
wrote.
Modern historians begin their task of reconstructing the
past by posing questions about it. How
and why, for example, did cities emerge?
Why do most people in Africa south of the modern Cameroon speak one of
the closely-related Bantu languages?
What role did commerce play in the development of African empires? Historians ask these kinds of questions
primarily because they are of interest to themselves and the societies in which
they live. They use questions to guide
their research and to focus their approach to the past.
To answer such questions, historians first consult the
works of other historians which have been published in specialized (scholarly)
journals (called articles) and in monographs (historian for books). They also consult reviews of these works
written by other experts in the field.
Through this means they discover not only what the ‘state of the art’
is, but also something about the kinds of ‘primary materials’ are available
that pertain to the research topic they are defining for themselves. ‘Primary sources,’ the raw materials of
historical research and writing, can typically be found collected in archives
or libraries, in museums or government offices or churches, or even in the
hands of private individuals. To answer
their fundamental questions, historians must examine all the relevant primary
sources they can find–the firsthand accounts or records of
participants–witnesses, as it were.
Thus Western historians most commonly rely on the written records of
human experience where any exist.
However, the historian’s responsibility is to examine all of the extant
evidence pertaining to a particular investigation, not just the written
documents. This might include
consulting oral historians, studying art works or archaeological artifacts, and
even using data and methods derived from linguistics, ethno-botany, or other
historically-oriented scholarly disciplines.
When studying evidence–the most basic activity in
research–historians assess the validity and perspective of each account. They try to determine whether sources are honest
and accurate, generally by analyzing them, comparing them and examining their
context carefully. Through these
critical methods they attempt to uncover forgeries and errors; discover motives
of authors; find inconsistencies, biases, omissions, and even cases of outright
lying.
Many contemporary written (and
almost all oral) first hand accounts from earlier periods, have been lost. They are known to us only because people who
heard or read the originals later incorporated the information into their own
writings, which have survived.
Historians analyze the viewpoints and accuracy of such secondary sources
very carefully, since these writings have preserved much history that otherwise
would have been lost.
Once historians have pieced together the basics–for
instance, that certain events took place in a certain time period at certain
place, they evaluate their findings.
They interpret them in the light of the data, and of the work of other
historians working on similar questions or dealing with the same time and
place. They search for patterns,
trends, changes which can help then establish what happened and what was
important about these happenings. They
make inferences about what might plausibly have happened based on the evidence
they have for what did. Understanding
the past does not necessarily come easily.
Historians, unlike the chemists or biologists, cannot discover patterns
in things by conducting experiments under controlled conditions, because no two
historical events are precisely alike.
A historian cannot put people into test tubes. Living men, women, and children–the most complex organisms on
this planet–are not as predictable as molecules or hydrocarbons. How much more challenging to piece together
and find reasonable explanations for the doings of long dead people and
societies.
To
complicate matters, for many past epochs only the barest outlines of events are
known, so interpretation is especially difficult. For example, we know that a people known only as Nok (from a
modern archaeological typesite) lived in ancient Nigeria and produced
magnificent art works. From their art
we can infer that they must have built a prosperous society and that they
influenced later peoples in the region, but we know little else about
them. On the other end of the evidence
spectrum, some developments are so vast, complex and well-documented that
historians must master mountains of data (often in several languages) before
they can even begin to venture interpretations. The history of modern Egypt, the slave trade, or nationalism are
examples of this type of history. In
such cases one simple explanation will never satisfy everyone, and many
historians must be involved in the research and interpretation necessary to
bring to the public even a basic picture of what happened, much less how or
why.
Still another matter stands in the way of an accurate
understanding of the past. The attempt to understand history is a uniquely
human endeavor. Interpretations of the
past vary from culture to culture and over time within a given society. Within the now-dominant Western historical
tradition itself, interpretations of the past change because societies’ points
of view change. The values and
attitudes of one generation are not necessarily shared by another. Despite such differences in interpretative
context, their efforts to reconstruct and understand the past give historians a
perspective that can be valuable in the present. By analyzing and interpreting evidence, and by sharing with and
critiquing each other through scholarly networks, historians come to better
appreciate not only the past but the relationship of the past to life today.
The
development of the modern field of African history itself is an example of
Western historians’ reappraisal of their views of the past. During the eras of the slave trade and
colonialism, leaders of European and Euro-American societies assumed that black
Africa ‘had no history’ and had few or no connections to known civilizations of
the African Nile valley. Only a very few
professional historians, most of them African American, went against this tide
before the explosion of African independence movements after World War II
created a growing constituency for information about their rich and vibrant
past.
B. History, Historiography, and
Historical Theory
Technically, history is the past and what is known about
the past, while historiography is the study of the past itself (or historical
methods). Historical theory consists in
those concepts which both arise from and shape the study of the past. Confusing?
Let’s see if we can clarify.
As
has been explained above, the process of producing history is complex,
involving questions raised and investigations carried on about the past by
people living in the present, as well as various types of feedback both between
historians themselves, and between them and the evidence they work with. All of this is further complicated by
several other factors. There is the
problem of cultural difference: for example, between the cultural perspective
and values of the historian and those of all very ancient peoples. There is the problem of audience: for
example, histories or survey textbooks written for a general audience vs. works
written primarily for other scholars working in the same field. There is the problem of intention: for
example, is the historian writing to advance his academic career, make money,
advance a cause, or perhaps to enhance (or defame) the reputation of a
particular person or group? All this
complication means that just to become an informed consumer, an individual must
understand at least the rudiments of historical practice, or, in other words,
historiography.
The modern study of African history is very
young–having really ‘taken off’ among mainstream, professional historians
throughout the world (including African countries) only since the 1960s. Not surprisingly this era coincides with the
achievement of independence by modern African countries, whose boundaries and
governments themselves virtually all developed under the European colonialism
which engulfed the Continent after 1880.
It is also not surprising that early 20th century pioneers in the
writing of modern-style African history can be found principally among African
Americans who both influenced and were influenced by Pan Africanism and early
forms of Black consciousness.
Ultimately no history is produced unless there is an audience for it
among people who want to know about a particular part of our common human past.
Modern
African historiography has been shaped, not only by its relatively recent
roots, but also by other contemporary historical factors. These include, but are certainly not limited
to: 1) European and Euro-American racism; 2) writings which emphasized the
supposedly ‘primitive’ and ‘superstitious’ nature of Africans; 3) the impact of
Marxist theories; 4) the recent rise of
Afrocentrism in the USA; and 5) the
growing numbers of African-born historians at universities across the Continent
who are now engaged in historical research and writing.
Historians researching the African past face many
challenges which do not confront the historian of the United States. Perhaps the single most important difficulty
is the paucity of written documentation for much of the Continent until
relatively recent times. This is
largely due to the preference for oral communications which has historically
characterized most sub-Saharan African societies. Shortages of documentation, however, have stimulated the
problem-solving capacities of historians.
Most importantly, this has led to collaboration between Western-style
historians and traditional African keepers of the past–griots, clan elders,
traditional historians and priests. It
has also contributed strongly to the development of the field of oral history
generally.
Historians
of Africa have also pioneered the use of related disciplines to help them piece
together a coherent picture of the past.
Archaeology, anthropology, demography and linguistics are the most
commonly associated. However,
historians also use techniques and data borrowed from disciplines as diverse as
botany and classics. New fields, like
ethno-history and ethno-botany have emerged as a part of this process. In order to do research on African history,
investigators now routinely master several languages, as well as the basic
techniques of one or more allied disciplines.
In historical studies, perhaps more than in any other
discipline, questions and methods have tended to shape the theories more than
the reverse. There are exceptions to
this rule. For example, historians
following Marxist theory tend to attribute much of the dynamic of historical
change to conflict between classes in a particular society. They also believe that material or economic
forces are primary in explaining what has happened in the past. Also, until recently, mainstream historians
tended to ask questions that, like those of Herodotus, focused only on the
activities of males, particularly those of the ruling or wealthy classes. It was believed implicitly that only the
deeds of great men were worthy of historical study. The theories, and thus the questions, that now guide historical
research continue to be shaped by the kinds of issues that are important to
people today (at least those who will read history books). So, for example, the roles of women in
society, or peasants, or slaves, have become the subjects of historical
research. Another area of great change
in historical theorizing is in the area of how ancient Egypt should be
understood in relation to its own time and to the later history of both Africa
and Europe. All of these changes in the
questions asked, and the research undertaken, lead to new ideas about how
things really happened, and thus to new interpretations–and ultimately to
changes in historical knowledge and theories themselves.
C. Doing History: critical reading
and critical analysis.
1. Reading history
critically.
First,
remember that what you are reading has an author or authors–human beings who
are writing for particular reasons, with a specific audience in mind, at a
particular time. These authors used
materials gathered and evaluated according to standards prevalent in their
particular field at the time and in the place at which they were working. Remember that not all scholar/authors are
equally well-qualified, diligent, able, or even-handed.
Second,
be aware that there are substantial differences in audience, purpose and
quality between the various scholarly journals, multi-volume histories,
textbooks, monographs, and reference works (which, by the way, also have
authors).
Third,
be aware that most scholarly works in history have been subjected to “peer
review,” and that these reviews, especially reviews of books, are
themselves published–either in specialized book review journals or in relevant
specialized historical journals.
LAST, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST:
1) Be sure that you establish the
meaning of key terms that you read or use in writing. For example, What is Islam?
Does it refer to a religion or to believers or both?
2) Don’t ignore the information
contained in titles, subtitles, tables of contents, maps, charts and the
like. What do these indicate about
contents, specifically about what the author thinks is important?
3) Read actively. Take notes. Outline. Ask questions as you go along.
2. Critical analysis: Using evaluations
made by others.
1)
The most obvious and easiest to find analyses are contained in reviews of books
(monographs) published in scholarly journals.
However, not all works are reviewed, especially not individual chapters
of books or single articles in a journal.
2)
Less obvious, but still not too hard to find, are analyses contained in
‘standard’ works on the topic, but published later. Consult these to find out if the author or work you are reading
has been cited in the bibliography or mentioned in the text (check the Index
for this).
3)
Much more subtle (and generally not expected of beginners) is the ability to
glean analyses from having read several relevant sources. As you become more and more familiar with
the writings pertinent to a particular investigation, you will also become
familiar with the scholars and publishers that share your interest, their
historical contributions, and their assessments of others’ work (eventually
including your own!) Your deep
knowledge of the field will enable you to routinely evaluate new sources.
3.
Critical analysis: making your own evaluations.
In
making your own evaluation, you need to ask the following questions about the
historical writing that you are reading.
1)
When, where, and by whom was it published?
For what aud
2)
Who wrote it? What else has this person
written? Can you find this person cited
by other, later historians dealing with similar topics? Does he/she seem to be respected by other
historians? If not, why not?
3) What about the contents of the article,
chapter or book itself? Is it clearly
written? Does it contradict itself? Can you follow the author’s line of
reasoning? Does the interpretation
generally seem to fit with other things you have read about the topic? If not, does the author tell you why
not? (Scholars often don’t agree with
each other’s interpretations, but each should acknowledge other relevant ones,
giving evidence that they have at least consulted their predecessors.)
Sample
Bibliography Form
Davidson, Basil. Africa in History. London: Kegan Paul, 1975.
Niane, D.T., Editor. UNESCO. General History of Africa, Vol. IV, Africa from the 12th to the 16th Centuries. London: Heinemann, 1991.
Rodney, Walter. “Africa in the Americas and
Europe,” Cambridge History of Africa,
Vol. IV, pp. 230-278.
STUDY
GUIDE
Part I.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR MAP QUIZZES 1 & 2. You should be
able to clearly locate the following things on an appropriate outline map of
Africa:
1. The modern countries of the Continent.
2. The physical features listed below.
3. Regional designations listed below.
REGIONAL
NAMES
PHYSICAL
FEATURES
West Africa
North Africa
Maghrib
Central
Africa
Equatorial
Africa
Southern Africa
Horn of Africa (Northeast)
East Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Guinea Coast
________________________________
Sudannic belt/region
Guinea forest
Great Lakes region
Great Rift
Lower Nile
Upper Nile
Niger Bend
Sahel region
Savanna regions
rain forest region
Sahara
Desert
Somali
Desert
Nile
River
Niger
River
Benue
River
Nile
Delta
Niger
Delta
Volta
River
Gambia
River
Senegal
River
Zaire
(Congo) River
Zambezi
River
High Atlas Mts.
L. Victoria Nyanza
Lake Chad
Red Sea
Gulf of Guinea
Cape of Good Hope
Equator
Atlantic Ocean
Mediterranean Sea
Indian Ocean.
1. Introduction to the study of early African
history: geography, environment and history.
African roots of humanity—the early Paleolithic era. Impact of our
attitudes and preconceptions on the study of African history.
LEARN:
To locate the modern countries of the African continent on the outline maps
provided. To recognize and understand the sequence of human physical and
cultural development in Africa during the Paleolithic era.
STUDY
(‘think’) QUESTIONS:
1. What
contemporary American attitudes are most problematic for students of African
history? What attitudes common to all
people present problems for understanding different societies in other times
than their own?
2. How
have scholars tried to understand the processes of ‘becoming human?
3. Why/how
did humankind emerge first in the tropical savannas of Africa?
4. What
did early humans look like? Does it
matter? To whom and why? What is
gathering? How does the development of
this food providing technique relate to the development of our hominid
ancestors into the distinctive species we are today? What role did women play in the development of gathering?
5. What role did women play hominid/human
evolution according to the theory that evolutionary success is reproductive
success?
TERMS TO KNOW: Note there are various types of terms included. Some are concepts or describe theories,
others describe social or economic or cultural categories or systems, while
still others refers to people, things or places. You should learn to locate terms that refer to a place (such as a
kingdom, city, or locality of any kind) on the appropriate map, as well as
learning their meaning and historical significance.
ethnocentrism
invidious
comparison
type
site
hominid
gathering
scavenging
hunting
foraging
culture
‘bipedalism’
Paleolithic
hunting
model
reproductive
success model
‘behavioral
continuity’
baby
sling
Olduwan
homo habilis
Acheulian
Sangoan
Fauresmith
Mousterian
Tool kit or industry
Homo erectus
Homo sapiens
2.
Africa from the
late Paleolithic (late [Old] Stone Age) through the early Neolithic (New Stone
Age); from foraging to food production.
Foraging: the basic human way of life?
Introduction to factors influencing rates of technological, social and
cultural change in human societies. The
Neolithic or food production “revolution” in Africa
STUDY
QUESTIONS:
1. How
many basic human cultural traits had been developed by the end of the
Paleolithic (Late Stone Age)?
2. What
factors most affected rates of change in the human communities of the late
Paleolithic?
3. How
can we best account for the growing differential in rates of change and way of
life among the various societies inhabiting the Continent during the Neolithic
era. .
4. In
general how do you account for the transition to crop cultivation
(horticulture/agriculture) and cattle raising (pastoralism) in some parts of
Africa beginning 8000 or so years ago?
Include such concepts as ‘developed gathering/hunting’ and cradles of
agriculture in you account.
5. Where
were the African cradles of agriculture?
Why in these areas? Why didn’t
agriculture develop south of the equatorial forest until much later than in the
north?
FROM THIS WEEK FORWARD you
should be prepared to share your responses to at least one or two of the study
question relevant to the week’s work
LEARN:
Locate
the physical features of the Continent listed on your study sheet on the blank
outline map provided.
Trace
the development of regional stone industries in Africa, especially in the
Sahara and Nile valley.
Locate
centers of plant domestication in Africa.
Terms to Know
Guinea
Neolithic
Afro-Mediterranean
Cradle
Ethiopian
Cradle
Sudannic
Cradle
language
family
composite
tools
sedentary
nomadic
enset,
tef, noog
millet,
sorghum
yams, kola, palm
products
barley, wheat, olives
cattle
African
Aquatic Culture/Tradition
Late
Stone Age
microlithic
kinship
ancestors
lineage
clan
village
matriliny/matrilineage
band
agriculture
horticulture
cradles
of agriculture
tse-tse
fly
malaria
pastoralism
patriliny/patrilineage
patriarchy
composite
tools
bow
and arrow
Homo sapiens sapiens
division
of labor
‘slash
and burn’
long
fallow system
social
reproduction
economy
social
system/organization
3
Earliest African civilizations:
development of the Egyptian system.
Egypt in the Pharaonic era (Classical Egyptian civilization): economic,
political, social and cultural history of Egypt under the Pharaohs. Hierarchy, gender, technology and cosmology
in ancient Egypt.
LEARN:
1. The
basic chronology and geography of classical era Egyptian history—including the
sequence and general characteristics of each “kingdom” and “intermediate
period.”
STUDY
QUESTIONS:
1. How/why
did Neolithic farmers and herders colonize the Nile Valley before 4000 BCE?
2. What
were some key connections between religion, politics, technology and education
in the long history of classical era (Pharoanic) Egypt?
3. What
is the evidence for possible Nubian origins of monarchy?
4. How
do scholars account for the early development of what we now call civilization
in the Nile valley? What characterized
the earliest ‘cradles of civilization?’
What factors can account for the rapid socio-economic changes that
accompanied urbanization and political centralization in the ancient Nile
valley?
5. What
role did each of the following play in the development of Egyptian
civilization: irrigation, hods/nomes, gods, kings, writing, scribes, royal
women, farmers, boats, taxes, religion, technology, science, trade and armies.
6. Be
able to distinguish, in broad terms, the progression and distinguishing
characteristics of the named eras of Pharaonic Egyptian history to 500 BCE.
TERMS TO KNOW
Nile
Delta
Lower
Egypt
Upper
Egypt
hods
1st
Cataract (thru 6th)
Nubia
Kush
Narmer/Menes
Hieroglyphics
hierarchy
pharaoh
confederation
state
monarchy
city
cradle of civilization
civilization
cosmology
Horus
Djoser/Zoser
Memphis
Thebes
Thinnis
Old
Kingdom
Middle
Kingdom
New
Kingdom
Intermediate
Periods
Imhotep
Hapshetsut
dynasties
divine
(sacred) kingship
urban
rural
social class
specialization
slave/slavery
nomes/nomarchs
Hyksos
pyramids
Hathor
Isis
Scribes
priests
Ma’at
Amun-Re
twelve
month calendar
Khartoum
copper
bronze
chariots
horses
pyramids
mummification
Kemet
4
Northern Africa during the classical
Egyptian era. Nubia and Kush in
Pharaonic times. Egypt, Kush and the
rest of the world. Early colonization in the Maghrib: Phoenician expansion. The
lands of the Sahara and Sudan before 500 BCE.
Proto-civilizations of West Africa: the Niger valley. The impact of desertification. Introduction
to African historiography. Politics of
African historical studies.*
*See review by W. MacGaffey, “Who Owns Ancient Egypt?” Journal of African History (JAH).
(handout)
LEARN:
1. About
the relationship between the Egypt and Nubian regions of the Nile valley in the
Pharaonic era, including the basic chronology of changes.
2. About
the foreign relations of Egypt generally.
How did Egyptian governments relate to neighbors? How did these relations change over
time? Do you see patterns?
STUDY
QUESTIONS:
1. How
do historians reconstruct the African past?
For whom?
2. What
impact did Egypt have on its neighbors and visa versa? How do we know? Why is this question both a difficult to answer and controversial?
3. What
were some of the possible connections between the Nile and Niger valleys before
500 BCE.
4. As
historians how can we account for the differences in patterns of development of
civilizations between these two major river valleys?
5. Why
is the question “Who owns ancient Egypt?” more a part of modern
history than ancient?
6. Why
do we attach so much importance to whether a particular people or region built
a ‘great civilization’ at some time in the past? Consider the Egyptian legacy,
particularly for Africa.
7. Describe
possible Egyptian relations with other parts of the continent. Discuss possible Egyptian influences in
other areas. What problems are there in
establishing the existence of actual linkages (and lines of influence) in the
past? In other words how do we know
that two apparently similar phenomena occurring in separate times and places
are linked to one another? What does it
take to prove cause and effect?
TERMS TO KNOW
Dar
Tichitt
Nok
Mande
Kanuri
compound
housing
Soninke
Taureg
Berber
Fulani
(Fulbe)
Libya, Libyan-Berber
Africanist
Afrocentric
Historiography
‘tribe’
‘chief’
cult
shrine
Phoenician
Carthage
Songhai
Mossi
Akan
Hausa
Yoruba
Igbo
age grade
segmentary society
5
Bantu origins and earliest expansion into
the lands of the foragers of the equatorial forest and southern
LEARN:
1. To
compare rates of social, economic, and political change in various regions of
the Continent.
2. To
understand the growth and development of societies in the eastern Niger valley
region in relation to the east and southward expansion of proto-Bantu speaking
farmers.
3. The
outlines of early Bantu expansion (by ca. 500 BCE).
THINK
ABOUT:
1. The
relationships between the categories of “race,” “language,” and “culture,” and
their implication for the study of the history of early Africa.
2. Describe
relations between the expanding Bantu-speaking frontier and the indigenous
foragers they may have encountered.
3. Think
about the various issues related to the history of the “Bantu diaspora.” How are they similar, or different from
those raised in the study of Pharaonic Egyptian civilization and its impact?
4. What
role has the study of linguistics played in the interpretation of the African
past, according to your text? What are
some problems in using linguistic analysis for historical reconstruction and
interpretation?
TERMS TO KNOW
Bantu
language family
proto-Bantu
Congo Kordofanian
Bantu
Iron Age
Diaspora
Linguistics
Niger Congo
Afro-Asiatic
Khoisan
bananas
chickens
ethno-linguistic
Khoi
San
Late stone site in Zambia
Nilo-Saharan
Nilote
Cushite
frontier
[1]
‘Toolkits’ are also referred to as ‘technologies’ or ‘industries’ by
archaeologists.
[2]
BCE stands for ‘Before the Common Era.’ This is the same dating as ‘BC’ or
‘Before Christ.’
[3]
Prehistoric cultures or industries are often named for the site at which they
were first discovered. It is called a
‘type site.’
[4] The
‘Old World’ is the opposite of the ‘New World,’ and thus includes Africa,
Europe and Asia.
[5] Microlithic,
of course, means small stone tools. By
this time people in some regions had developed the means to make fish hooks and
needles from stone.
[6]
Nilo-Saharan is one of the five language families thought to have originated on
the Continent. The others are
Afro-Asiatic, Congo-Kordofanian, and Khoisan.
[7]
The term ‘Food Production Revolution’ refers to the same phenomena and era as
the term ‘Agricultural Revolution.’
[8]
Adrienne Zihlman, “Women as Shapers of the Human Adaptation,” in Woman the Gatherer, (New Haven, 1981) p.
75 and passim. The ‘reproductive success model’ is the name
given to the theory developed by Zihlman in this chapter.
[10] Children almost
certainly nursed for the first 3-4 years of their lives, thus placing an
increasingly large burden on their mothers.
[11] The term
‘food production’ includes both animal and plant food sources. It involves, at its most basic, the practice
of selecting certain wild plants or animals for breeding and cultivation under
control of humans—for the purpose of eating them. This process is also know as ‘domestication.’ After several generations of deliberate
selection and breeding domestic plants and animals were no longer like their
wild ancestors, but came to form new ‘domestic’ species. Domestic species of plants and animals are,
by definition, dependent on their human owners. The term ‘cradles of agriculture’ refers to those areas where
certain plants and/or animals were first domesticated.
[12] The term
‘Neolithic’ (New Stone Age) refers to the time when a particular region moves
from primary dependence on foraging (gathering and hunting) to primary
dependence on food production. The
terms agriculture, horticulture, as well as nomadic herding or cattle raising
are all associated with food production, and thus, with the Neolithic.
[13] The ‘4th
millennium’ BCE refers to the thousand
years between 3999 and 3000 BCE. Note
that in the time ‘before the common era,’ that is BCE, we are counting down to
1, thus the numbers get smaller as events get closer in time to today. The last millennium before the Common Era
(i.e. Christ’s traditional birth date) runs from 1999 to 1 BCE. For convenience, numbers designating years
BCE are usually written with a minus sign before them.
[14]
The word ‘colonize’ is here used to mean to open up new lands for human
habitation by clearing land for farms, or scouting out good pastures, or both.
[15]
In fact the concept of radical distinction between the natural and the
supernatural, between the material and immaterial, the living and the dead, and
between the secular and spiritual, does not become common until the advent of
the modern, scientific, industrial age in which we live, that is, no more than
about 300 years ago.
[16] The term
‘state’ is a very important one for the study of history. It does NOT generally mean a subdivision of
a country, like it does in the United States of America. The term ‘state’ in historical writing
refers instead to countries (like the USA) that consist of a specific territory
whose inhabitants acknowledge a sovereign central government, i.e., one not
under the control of any outside country or ruler. The key concepts here are territory, central government, and
sovereign. ‘States’ take on a kind of
personality, like modern corporations, in that they are recognized and ‘do
business’ with other states, and they make and enforce policies for the
inhabitants of their territory. There
are peoples, usually called ‘nations’ or ‘tribes,’ that share a territory,
speak the same language, and have a common socio-economic system, but are not
organized as states, since they have no central government with formal over the
territory. Many peoples, in Africa as
elsewhere, maintain law and order among themselves without recourse to
centralized institutions of government.
However, historically most densely populated territories have developed
(or had imposed on them) state forms of government, the most common of which is
form of monarchy.
[17]For
further reading on ancient Egypt Volume II of the UNESCO General History of Africa is recommended. This volume is edited by G. Mokhtar and is entitled, Ancient Civilizations of Africa.
[18]Barbara
S.Lesko, Becoming Visible, 2nd
edition, (Boston, 1987) p. 48.
[19] Both the
terms ‘Western’ and ‘African’ are meta-historical, denoting very general historical
spheres or traditions that have been constructed entirely by hindsight. In other words, when ‘African’ was being
formed, the people involved did not necessarily understand themselves to be
‘African; when ‘Western’ was being formed, the people involved did not call
themselves ‘Western,’ or even ‘Europeans.’
[20] This is
particularly important since classical Greek civilization is considered to be
foundational for much later ‘Western’ (Western European) civilization ( of
which modern American civilizations are offshoots).
[21] The numbers
in parentheses in this section refer to MAP 9.