4.7. Hunter-gatherer peoples had inhabited sub-Saharan Africa for millennia prior to herders, and later agriculturalists, starting to settle the region. It has captivated visitors since it was built as a royal burial chamber some 4,500 years ago. This makes the huge effort of clearing even small areas of very dense forest worthwhile. Iron was also an important regional trade commodity, as major smelting areas were only to be found in locations where abundant wood for the furnaces was available. Indeed, they even went on strike when a neighboring ruler attempted to convert them to Islam. This was that there was a fundamental distinction between the cultivated and the wild, between civilization and savagery. As the years went by they (or in some societies their entire age set) would move up the rungs to senior warrior, and then when they were thirty or so, to elder-hood. This in turn placed a constraint of technological innovation. In large settlements religion and healing was in the hands of professionals, whose interests naturally lay in keeping such matters out of the reach of the general populace. In times of external danger such societies could come together to resist attack; however, they were peculiarly vulnerable to slave raiding from predatory states. There is a direct link between a strong democratic state and a prosperous and attractive country.' Even in West Africa, and certainly for Africa as a whole, salt was probably the most traded commodity, being an essential part of peoples diet, especially for those in regions where meat was hard to come by. One group of industrial workers should be mentioned in this context, although they were not strictly speaking craftsmen in the normal use of the term. So too could warfare or misrule. The most prized qualities were seen as the preserve of males, such as aggression and courage. In some cases such children were castrated as a further measure to reduce ambition they would not then be able to establish an independent dynasty. Although they originated in the Indian Ocean, they played no major role in East African trade. Suspects were often the victims of mob violence. Long-distance trade rested chiefly on high value goods produced only in confined areas. Social Structure and Political Authority The Kushites lived in tribes also known as chiefdoms. Such traders were men, and they ranged from single itinerant traders with perhaps a donkey to carry his goods, to those in charge of caravans of donkeys or, in the desert, of camels. African cultivators have generally taken great pride in their skills. Defence could become more organized, and they could build up their numbers by large raids on neighboring peoples and bring in captives as new (if somewhat disadvantaged) new settlers. This crosses much of the continent from east to west, from the Atlantic coast to the highlands of Ethiopia. NGMzYjY2N2JjMDIxN2EyZWI0ZmM1ODc0MjY4OTQzYmM1YmJkMTViN2U5NjAw Ancient Grains Market Global Research Report 2023 is a comprehensive business study on the current state of industry which analyses innovative strategies for business growth and describes . Holistvo Ndej Preovsk kraj otvracia doba, kontakty. They did obeisance to their overlord, forwarded tribute to his court and providing men for his army. MDg2MzFiMDZmODM4NDFlY2UyNjFkYzVlM2U3MWExNTI3ODU4YmEyZTM3NWYx The gold miners of West Africa formed a hereditary, and in some ways privileged, group of workers. Come drought, famine or epidemic, however, clusters would contract again. There were high levels of polygamy throughout Africa in some societies perhaps two-thirds of women were in polygamous marriages. This meant that, for a man to marry he must have some wealth, and since this took time to build up most men were in their thirties when they married. ZDQ1YTJjMTY4ZmNjMzllMjdlY2MwMTUyYmJiMDBiZTQ2M2IxYjg4OGY2YTBi ODRiZmMzYWI1MGJhMTAxYjU4NWIxMzE1YzMyMGYxMGZlMmU4MjZkNjY1ZjVk As we have seen, the only major trading towns in these regions were on the Swahili coast of the Indian Ocean. Village clusters would be located in areas suitable for intensive crop production river valleys, floodplains, lakesides and other well-watered places. Much craft work in Africa, as in all pre-modern societies, was done on a part-time basis by farmers, particularly women. Elsewhere, transport being limited to human porterage meant that there was little long-distance trade. Underpopulation, and the difficulties that this created for taxation and control, meant that the kind of bureaucracies which invented literacy in Sumer or Egypt could not emerge in the African context. The earliest kingdoms we know of in West Africa, such as Ghana and Mali, were located at strategic points in the trans-Saharan trade network. Through history, Africa has had an exceptionally hostile environment in terms of the diseases which could strike humans and their animals; and of the regions, West Africa was probably the most dangerous. book part Local trade certainly existed, especially in areas of dense population such as in the Great Lakes region (which also benefitted from the water-borne transport which the huge lakes themselves permitted). While a caravan was on the move, its hundreds of animal drivers and traders had to submit to an almost military discipline under the caravan-master. In many places herders and cultivators, or cultivators and hunter-gatherers, lived in close proximity with each other, exchanging products on a regular basis. From its territories, great civilizations have risen to glory. These were societies that had no. South of the forest the grasslands resume, having skirted around the Congo Basin; but further south, on the western coast of south-central Africa, lies the Kalahari desert, smaller than the Sahara but perhaps even more arid. On the other hand, everyone, regardless of sex or age, was required to work in the fields in times of peak activity such as harvest, and in some societies men prided themselves in their diligence as farmers. Several high mountains rise up from the East African plains, most famously Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. NmQ3NzU3NWZiNGRmMjNjOWYyMzgyNGI5NTRhMWYxMDU4YzQ3NDY5ZWFiYmU3 Most cultures preferred abstract and stylized forms of humans, plants, and animals, but they had a range of distinct approaches and techniques. The tsetse fly infested many wooded areas, especially along waterways, killing cattle and causing sleeping sickness amongst humans. Apart from the Nile, all these are blocked by rapids fairly near their mouths, as a result of which seagoing craft have not been able to sail far into the interior of Africa. The foundation myths of several states, including the kingdom of Benin, tell of populations inviting a foreigner to settle among them, to settle their disputes and provide them with leadership. Ironically, this attractive landscape posed a barrier to the spread of traditional farming southward, as sub-Saharan agriculture had adapted itself to tropical conditions. Ghana, first of the great medieval trading empires of western Africa (fl. It was here our earliest ancestors evolved. Upon Africa's soils our prehistoric relatives have walked side by side. The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. Government and Economy. ODI0YWEwOGYyOTY5ZGVhNjEzMWUzOTFjMGEzYTA3ZjUzZjNkM2EyNDZhODVk 1. Agricultural populations were driven by a need to humanize the landscape, to drive back the forest, where danger lurked, and to make the land productive. Similarly, belief that spiritual power came only through dead ancestors was common amongst herding societies. These occupied the grasslands around (and sometimes within) the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, and the more arid grasslands which covered so much of the continent. MjU3ZDQ3NDE0ZGRiM2NlMTZjMmE3NTQ0ODIxMzVlMzExZDc3ZTk0NDYyNGQ4 Together, these might kill one third to one half of an affected population, nullifying the hard come by demographic gains of a generation. In many regions low or fickle rainfall greatly magnifies this problem. The most productive salt mines were located deep in the Sahara desert, and the miners lived isolated lives working in appalling conditions. The herding way of life probably dated to the third millennium BCE, and preceded agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Around this would be clustered the huts of other households, with four or five members each. The mysteriousness of such knowledge might be reinforced in societies where secret associations had a monopoly of spiritual activity. YzZiNWViMjQ5Iiwic2lnbmF0dXJlIjoiNTc2NWJhZDg5MGU4Y2RkZTIxYTFi The original settlers became the founding ancestors of the new community, and because it was they who had struck the original pact with the spirits of the land, it was they alone who could communicated with them, even (or especially) after death. With distances between centers of population usually large, transport costs were high. Firstly there was the King who ruled over everyone and was thought to have divine powers. This would exacerbate the already existing social fault-lines which afflicted all such societies. To judge by reports of early European travelers, many Africans had the misfortune to find themselves without kin, and unable to work. Not a few chiefly dynasties traced their ancestry back to such a figure. 1981-1988) is a collection of historical studies by a diverse group of historians. Underpopulation meant that disgruntled people could always seek new land beyond the reach of royal authority. Together with freedom it is an important element of the economy, culture and social structure of a country. The limited nature of urbanization greatly restricted transport, trade and industry. These matters touched on the central concern of Africans, the continuity of the community. These, as elsewhere in the world, had specialist activities ensuring fertility of women and soil, for example, or providing wealth. These factors have acted as constraints on population growth right up to modern times, and historically sub-Saharan Africa has remained an under-populated region. In many of the great kingdoms of Africa, administration was carried on entirely orally. The sculptural tradition in West Africa goes back to the terracotta figures of the Nok culture of the early first millennia BCE and CE, and began to reach a peak in the 13th and14th centuries in Ife, in Yorubaland (in modern day Nigeria). Throughout Africa, bearing and bringing up children was probably the most vital task after brute survival. The surrounding bush remained untamed, wild, a source of harm, the abode of dangerous animals and evil spirits. social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. In the 14th and 15th centuries this tradition was transferred to brass. African farming has relied on a thorough understanding of local environments, to an extent which has astonished Western observers. Taking captives was a major objective in war, with most of the individuals thus enslaved being women or children. The absence of roads very labour-intensive for scattered communities to construct and maintain wheeled vehicles such as carts could not be used. At the opposite end of the scale, however, women probably made up the majority of slaves, and occupied a powerless and utterly dependent position in society. They have used a wide range of techniques, building up the productivity of the land through manuring, terracing, and digging channels to lead water from stream to field, sometimes across wooden aqueducts. Here, regional trade networks grew up based on such geographically specialized products as fish and salt. Farming populations have therefore sought out well-watered locations such as river banks, lakesides and moist depressions. Under these circumstances, the ability of ruling classes to build strong state institutions like powerful armies or effective bureaucracies, or even construct impressive temples or palaces, was limited. YmNjNjY4NWM4MWUxYzhlYjFmYzIwMmNiMTBmZTA0OWZlNGQ4ZmI5MzNlNmMz Today they are confined to comparatively restricted areas in and around the Kalahari desert, or in the densest forests of the Congo basin; The transition to a settled, farming way of life is quite a difficult one for many hunter-gatherers, but some of them were able to adapt to keeping cattle. Ancient Africa had many different societies, but they can be roughly categorized into four types. Learning support for teachers and students. This was a form of draughts, and was played in private rather than in public. YWQxYjBmNjljZmEzOTNlOTg4YTZiZmI4M2NkMzZmZTM0MGYzYjRlZmE2Zjk1 Ancient Mali Social Hierarchy The Mali Empire was an ancient empire in West Africa between c.1230 to c.1600. Camels were employed in the long-distance trans-Saharan trade, and donkeys were the normal mode of transport in the West African savannah. - africa's social structure forms political nations that will help people from violence. Cleverness, bravery, charm, charisma and aggression could provide the success to bring high status and abundant wealth in many circumstances. This arrangement had the double benefit of giving the group as a whole more security and leaving the older men at home in more secure possession of their wives. In Africa, trade and industry were constrained by underpopulation. Some of these clearings became large enough, over generations, to include many villages and so become the basis for chiefdoms, or even kingdoms. At a much higher level, some kingdoms gave high status to female members of the royal family. Ancient African Civilizations: East. OTE0MDljOTVhZWU3M2Q2ZmQ2ZGFhNWZmOTE2N2FmZWM0MGJhM2I5YzYxZjZm Keywords population phratries gene citizenship metics slavery Type Chapter Information Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, therefore, metalworkers were held in awe. Most of the savannah is more suited to grazing herds of sheep, goat and cattle than growing crops. In southern Africa the kingdom centered on Great Zimbabwe was situated on a gold trade route. It was situated between the Sahara and the headwaters of the Sngal and Niger rivers, in an area that now comprises southeastern Mauritania and part of Mali. This bred a society in which extra-marital sex was common and accepted, and young men adopted an attitude of. In southern Africa the climate becomes temperate and Mediterranean. Male children could be trained up to become administrators in the royal service, and in some states filled the most responsible positions at court: their lowly social status was thought to act as a check to their ambitions and a guarantee of their loyalty (though a chief slave may have usurped the Mali throne in 1357). By utilizing this acronym, students can compartmentalize their findings and . It was they who provided the support and security needed to get by. A further one thousand a year may have been taken each year through the Swahili ports and up the east coast of Africa, destined for the Middle East and South Asia. Many African societies were highly competitive in the pursuit of status and wealth. Given the nomadic nature of these societies the spiritual power in question could not be tied to a particular area might, indeed, be a universal spirit who controlled all the land. Most of this was within Africa itself, but as we have seen above, thousands of people were exported to North Africa and the Middle East each year. The untamed forests have remained home to hunter-gatherer peoples, notably the pygmies. Indigenous religions never died out, however, and the two belief-systems lived side by side in uneasy co-existence for a long time (indeed, they still do in parts of West Africa). Some groups of Iron Age farmers from West Africa, moving into the Great Lakes region at the end of the first millennium BCE and then moving down towards central and southern Africa, adopted a cattle-keeping way of life. Segmentary lineage societies are characterised by the foremost importance of kin relationships in determining individuals' social and political allegiances, as well as their patterns of residence. HUM 2213 Midterm Paper essay. This article looks at the societies and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern history. They then had no option but to throw themselves on the mercy of others by begging, a very common fate in traditional African society. Further south a huge, well-nigh impenetrable swamp, the Sud, acts as a further major barrier. However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. Work in rafia and other fibers was common from an early date, and in the Great Lakes region bark cloth was common, as was the use of animal skins for clothes. This limited the number of children they might have in their child-bearing years, which would have been much more diminished, on average, by the incidence of infant mortality, childhood diseases and the dangers of childbirth. MzE4Y2I3MDllMDBjODdjOGU4NDEwZGMxMWUzYzYxMDlmYmI2OWNiZmY1MGMw OGFiY2MzM2UxNTEyOTJjNWUxYWE1ZmEyODEwNDc0MzU5OTRkZmNhNThmOTM0 There were also different social. Fewer than 30 examples have survived, all made by the lost wax process. Starting perhaps as just one settlement, they would expand outwards into the bush over time as they cleared new land and established new settlements. These more local groups formed the enduring units of African societies, centers of local power which provided the building blocks of larger polities, and outlasted them. Facts about Ancient Africa 2: the important civilization On the whole, though, anthropologist have emphasized the rational, experimental nature of African medicine. On the other hand, to maintain status and authority required a Big Man to be generous why else would other men want to be his followers? However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. Just as there is great cultural diversity so there is diversity in belief systems. They are in a style of idealized naturalism, most representing kings at the height of their powers. Other cultural systems that were intended to create distinct classes of people and uphold a rigid hierarchy of power and control include the feudal system, slavery, Jim Crow laws, and apartheid. ZWQ2YjhiMDdhMDFlMTNjNjE4OWFkMjBlNjMwYzRjZDFhNjY5OGI2YjhmZDc0 Female slaves were employed as domestic servants or concubines. Egypt and Nubia were both complex civilizations ruled by a monarchy and the leader was often considered the god on Earth In Africa it has become clear that characteristics depend on economic development. OGJhZDA5YWFmYzE1NjI3OGEwZTY3MmE2NDFiYjllYjg5MDM2MGFmNmNiZWRm To the south of the Sahara desert is the Savannah zone. The sculptural tradition spread to other Yoruba cities in the form of wood carvings, where they continued to reveal an artistry and appreciation of human worth that marks them out as truly great works. Environment and population, Village society Thus, a comparatively few number of men had access to the majority of women, meaning that the majority of men had little or no access. Sub-Saharan Africa was therefore never able to develop an original civilization with the material culture on the scale of, say, an ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt. It is possible that in such cases systems of exchange were focussed on the palace, which acted as centers of redistribution. European travelers to Africa were surprised to find, even in the interior of the continent, inoculation being practiced. Also the leaders were chosen if they were the strongest to beat everyone who opposed them or the smartest as in the most strategic (Adams, 2016). In eastern and southern Africa, the folded landscape laid down by tectonic activity millions of years ago means that highland farming areas are interspersed with dry lowlands, suitable only for herding cattle. Even so, until the start of the second millennium they inhabited large areas across the continent, in the wide spaces left vacant by farmers and pastoralists.
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