Early Civilizations in Africa

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• Early Civilizations in Africa

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The Continent of Africa
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The Emergence of Civilization

• The Land
• 5,000 miles long
• Sahara is the great divide
• Kush
• Agriculture may have first appeared in Nubia
  rather than the lower Nile valley
• Perhaps the site of the first true African
  kingdom
• Nubia became an Egyptian tributary
• Disintegration of the Egyptian New Kingdom (end
  of second millennium B.C.E.) resulted in the
  independent state of Kush
• Kush became a major trading state
• Little known about the society of Kush
• Seems to have been widespread material prosperity

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Ancient Ethiopia and Nubia
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Axum, Son of Saba

• Conquered Kush in first millennium C.E.
• Axum founded as a colony of the kingdom of Saba
  (Sheba) in first millennium B.C.E.
• Saba a trading state, goods from South Asia to
  the Mediterranean
• Axum continued the trade after Saba declined
• Location on trade routes responsible for
  prosperity
• Competed for control of ivory trade
• Followed Egyptian Christianity (Coptic)
• Would be renamed Ethiopia
• Called the hermit kingdom by Europeans

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The Sahara and Its Environs

• From 8000 to 4000 B.C.E. a warm, humid climate
  that created lakes, ponds, grasslands, and game
• Desiccation began in 6th and 5th millennium
  B.C.E.
• After 3000 B.C.E. and farming spread to the
  savannas to the south Berbers were
  intermediaries
• Carthage became focal point of trans-Saharan
  trade
• Ironworking by the people along the Niger River
  in the middle of the first millennium B.C.E., Nok
  culture

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East and Southern Africa

• Bantu language group
• Introduced cultivation of crops and ironworking
• The Bantu settled into rural communities
• Commercial trade
• Egyptians may have arrived looking for trade
  goods
• Rhapta a commercial metropolis
• Trade across the Indian Ocean
• Khoisan language group

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Ancient Africa
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The Coming of Islam

• African Religious Beliefs before Islam
• Common beliefs
• Single creator god
• Sometimes accompanied by a pantheon of lesser
  gods
• Most believed in an afterlife in which ancestral
  souls floated in the atmosphere through eternity
• Closely connected to importance of ancestors and
  lineage
• Rituals very important
• Challenge by Islam but not always replaced
  synthesized

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The Coming of Islam (cont.d)

• North Africa
• Arab forces seized the Nile delta of Egypt in 641
• New capital at Cairo
• Arabs welcome due to high taxes and periodic
  persecution of Coptic Christians by Byzantines
• Arabs seize Carthage in 690, called Al Maghrib
• Berbers resisted for many years
• The Kingdom of Ethiopia A Christian Island in a
  Muslim Sea
• Axum began to decline
• Shift in trade routes and overexploited
  agriculture
• Muslim trading states on the African coast of the
  Red Sea transforming Axum into an isolated
  agricultural society
• Source of ivory, resins, and slaves
• Attacked by Muslim state of Adal in early 14th
  century
• Became a Christian state in mid-twelfth century

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East Africa The Land of Zanj

• Legend says a Persian and his six sons founded
  the trading centers on the coast of East Africa
• Self-governing city-states
• Trade with the interior
• Trade with the Indian Ocean, China, and along the
  coast
• Mixed African-Arab culture
• Mixed culture and language called Swahili
• Conversion to Islam grows

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The Emergence of States in Africa
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The States of West Africa

• Expansion of Islam has impact on political system
• Introduction of Arabic for a writing system
• Ghana
• Majority of people were farmers
• Primary reason for Ghanas growth was gold
• Trans-Saharan trade with Ghana becomes very
  important
• Divine right monarchy assisted by hereditary
  aristocracy
• Kings did not convert to Islam, but many of their
  subjects did
• Mali
• Ruinous wars by the twelfth century in Ghana
• New states of Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, and
  Hausa states
• Greatest state was Mali
• Gold trade
• Farming in the savanna region
• Mansa Musa (1312-1337), king, encouraged Islam
• Timbuktu becomes center of trade, religion and
  learning

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Trans-Saharan Trade Routes
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States and Stateless Societies in Southern Africa

• From the basin of the Congo River to the Cape of
  Good Hope
• Stateless society
• Progress made with regional trade
• Zimbabwe (sacred house)
• Capital known as Great Zimbabwe
• Benefited from trade between interior and coast
• Evidence of great wealth, but Great Zimbabwe
  abandoned
• The Khoi and the San (Bushman) people

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African Society

• African Society
• Urban life
• Village Life
• Role of women
• Slavery

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African Culture

• Painting and Sculpture
• Rock paintings, wood carving, pottery, metalwork
• Music and Dance
• Often served religious purposes
• Wide variety of instruments
• Integration of voice and instrument
• Music produced for social rituals and educational
  purposes
• Architecture
• Pyramid
• Stone pillars
• Stone buildings
• Sometimes reflected Moorish styles
• Literature
• Written works did not exist in the early
  traditional period
• Professional storytellers, bards
• Importance of women in passing down oral
  traditions

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Discussion Questions

• How is Axum a bridge between East African
  society and the culture of Southern Arabia?
• What is the history of the geography and climate
  of the Sahara?
• How is the Sahara both a barrier and a highway in
  the development of Sub-Saharan Africa?
• How are the East African states and the West
  African states alike? How are they different?