Africa, 500 BCE – 1200 CE

WHAP/Napp

Cues: / Notes:
  1. Africa in the Classical Era
  1. Home to about 11% of the world’s population
  2. Lacked wild sheep, goats, chickens, horses and camels, but proximity to Eurasia meant that these animals, once domesticated, became available
  3. Writing confined to the northern and northeastern parts of the continent during the classical era
  4. Classical-era civilizations in Africa fewer in number/smaller than Eurasia
  5. Large numbers of Africans lived in communities that did not feature cities and states
  6. Stateless societies have minimal or no government involvement rather kinship relationships influence interactions
  1. Geographical Diversity
  1. Large deserts (Sahara and Kalahari), larger savannas or grasslands, tropical rain forest in center, highlands and mountains in eastern Africa and small regions of Mediterranean climate in north/south extremes
  2. Geographic factors ensured variation and difference among cultures
  3. But bisected by equator and therefore overall more tropical than other land
  4. But proximity to Eurasia
  1. North Africa incorporated into Roman Empire
  2. Christianity spread Saint Augustine (354-430 CE)African, important theologian
  1. Proximity to Arabiaanother point of contact
  1. Arrival of the domesticated camel, probably from Arabia, generated a nomadic pastoral way of life among some of the Berbers
a)Camel  Trans-Saharan trade
b)East African coast  Part of Indian Ocean Trade Network
  1. Meroë
  1. South of Egypt lay Nubian civilization contact, trade, selective borrowing
  2. Nubian civilization came to center on the southern city of Meroë
  3. Flourished between 300 BCE and 100 CE
  4. Governed by an all powerful and sacred monarch, a position sometimes conferred on women
  5. Smelting of iron and the manufacture of iron tools and weapons
  1. Rainfall-based agriculture was possible; Extensive trade
  2. Following 100 CE, declined in part due to deforestation caused by the need for wood to make charcoal for smelting iron
  3. Axum conquered in the 340s CE

Summaries:
Cues: /
  1. Axum
  1. Lay in the Horn of Africa, in what is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia
  2. Plow-based farming system, unlike most of the rest of Africa, which relied on the hoe or digging stickvery productive agriculture
  3. Wheat, barley, millet, and teff, a highly nutritious grain unique to region
  4. Participation in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean commerce
  1. Adulis the largest port on the East African coast
  1. Taxes on trade provided a major source of revenue
  2. Interior capital city, also known as Axum, center of monumental building
  1. Huge stone obelisks, which most likely marked royal graves
  1. Language at court, in towns, and commerce was Geez, written in a script derived from South Arabia
  2. To Romans, Axum was the third major empire-following Rome and Persia
  3. Axum was introduced to Christianity in the fourth century CE
  4. King Ezana, adopted the new religion about the same time as Constantine
  1. Linking kingdom religiously to Egypt, where a distinctive Christian church known as Coptic was established but whereas Egypt became largely Islamic, half of Ethiopians are still Christians
  1. Sixth century CE, Axum mounted a campaign of imperial expansiontook Kingdom of Meroë and across the Red Sea into Yemen in South Arabia
  2. Next several centuriesdecline due to soil exhaustion, erosion, and deforestationintensive farming as well as the rise of Islam which altered trade routes and diminished revenue available to Axum
  3. Last coins were struck in the early seventh century CE (a state by 50 CE)
  1. Around the Niger River
  1. West Africa a distinctive city-based civilization
  1. City of Jenne-jeno
a)But apparent absence of a corresponding state structure
b) Operated without the coercive authority of a state Emerged as clusters of economically specialized settlements
  1. The Bantu
  1. Most significant development of the classical era in Africa involved the accelerating movement of the Bantu-speaking peoples into the subcontinent
  2. Homeland region in what is now southeastern Nigeria and the Cameroons
  3. Migration generated some 400 distinct but closely related languages, known collectively as Bantu
  4. By the first century CE, agricultural peoples speaking Bantu languages occupied the forest regions of equatorial Africa
  5. Slow movement that brought Africa south of the equator a measure of cultural and linguistic commonality, marking it as a distinct region
  6. Farming largely replaced foraging
  1. Farmers brought with them both parasitic and infectious diseases to which foragers had little immunity
  1. Iron was another advantage the Bantu migrants had
  2. Bantu migrants also brought a common set of cultural and social practices

Summaries:

StrayerQuestion:

  • How did the history of Meroë and Axum reflect interaction with neighboring civilizations?
  • How does the experience of the Niger Valley challenge conventional notions of "civilization"?
  • In what ways did the arrival of Bantu-speaking peoples stimulate cross-cultural interaction?

  1. The earliest Bantu were
(A)Aggressive warriors
(B)Hunting and gathering peoples
(C)Fishing peoples
(D)Agriculturalists
(E)Horsemen
  1. Before the tenth century, the dominant form of social organization in sub-Saharan Africa was
(A)City-state
(B)Empire
(C)Kin-based system
(D)Kingdom
(E)Theocracy
  1. Which of the following typically describes a kin-based society?
(A)Male heads presided over village affairs.
(B)The most prominent of the family heads acted as chiefs.
(C)A group of villages constituted a district.
(D)Ethnic loyalties were focused at the district level.
(E)All of the above.
/
  1. The arrival of camels in Africa
(A)Made communication across the Sahara possible.
(B)Quickened the pace of communication across the Sahara.
(C)Replaced elephants as the preferred transport animals throughout the Sahara.
(D)Still made travel across the Sahara impossible.
(E)Is unknown because they have always been there.
  1. In the societies of the sub-Sahara,
(A)Slaves did not exist.
(B)Private ownership of land did not exist.
(C)Gender differentiation did not exist.
(D)War did not exist.
(E)Currency did not exist.
  1. Trade and communications networks were slower to penetrate sub-Saharan Africa compared to other regions because
(A)Africans had little contact with each other.
(B)Africans did not have any goods that others wanted to trade for.
(C)There was a language barrier.
(D)There were formidable geographic barriers to overcome.

Excerpt from bbc.co.uk

Armed with iron smelting technology the Bantu of west and central Africa dispersed across the continent, changing its linguistic and cultural landscape. A number of theories have been put forward to explain this migration.

"When people move they move for a reason. They move because the population has expanded. They move because the resources which support the population in the settlements have become more or less inadequate. They move because there are changes to the climate and they move for the sake of finding better areas in which to live."
~Professor Leonard Ngcongco, University of Botswana.

One theory is that there were waves of migration, one moving through the east of Africa and another making its way through the centre of the continent. In Zambia, there is evidence of at least three routes of migration - from the great lakes, from the Congo forest and from Angola.
There is evidence that the Bantu ancestors of the modern Swahili peoples mastered sailing technology and possessed canoes and boats so they could make their way along the Zambezi River.

"Chief among the reasons for migration is environmental stress and population increase in West Africa, forcing people to move. It is important to realise that these people are not moving across the landscape like bugs bunny or the energiser bunny, but essentially they are moving slowly, gradually inhabiting areas that were good for farming and livestockraising." ~Dr Chapirukha Kusimba, Field Museum, Chicago.

It is not entirely clear how the Bantu reacted when they came upon existing communities but it is likely that there was considerable absorption, assimilation and displacement of other peoples during the migration period. The Bantu were armed with superior weapons and their iron implements allowed them to cultivate land and clear forests efficiently.

The evidence for migration is based on three main areas of research. They are:

Linguistic:A comparative study of languages spoken in some parts of eastern, central and southern Africa show similarities with the mother tongues originally spoken in West Africa. There are some 450 known languages in the Bantu family.

Pottery:There is evidence of similar pottery technology in eastern, southern and western Africa. Iron Age farmers were skilled pot makers and decorated their pots with grooves and patterns. Related groups of peoples used similar styles of decoration.

Iron: There is little or no evidence of iron working in east and southern Africa before the arrival of the Bantu suggesting that new technology was spread by the migrants.

Thesis Statement: Comparative Civilization and Empire-Building in Africa/Eurasia

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